Misc. Business/Flotsam and Jetsom

[ZoPteryx]

I'd love to see (and own ) some unusual prehistoric crocodiles and there relatives. Maybe the spikey Desmatosuchus, the bipedal Poposaurus, or any other weird crocs; there are plenty to choose from!   As for dinosaurs, anything out of the ordinary looking.  Perhaps a Therizinosaurus or Gigantoraptor.  Have you ever considered doing some life-size models of smaller prehistoric creatures, maybe the peculiar Megapnosaurus or tiny dino Epidexipteryx.

Thanks for listening!

[dinonikes]

I'd love to see (and own ) some unusual prehistoric crocodiles and there relatives. Maybe the spikey Desmatosuchus, the bipedal Poposaurus, or any other weird crocs; there are plenty to choose from!   As for dinosaurs, anything out of the ordinary looking.  Perhaps a Therizinosaurus or Gigantoraptor.  Have you ever considered doing some life-size models of smaller prehistoric creatures, maybe the peculiar Megapnosaurus or tiny dino Epidexipteryx.

Thanks for listening!

I have thought of making some of the strange crocs they have been finding- As for life size pieces, I have done quite a few 1/1 life size prehistoric animals-not any life size dinos yet, but have been thinking that could be fun- I do have a few life size head wall pieces available,including a half head of Yangchuanosaurus, and a half head Dilophosaurus--I have mainly been doing life size placoderms, cephalapods and others-they can be seen on the Fauna Casts facebook page in the 1/1 Prehistoric Animals album-or on my photobucket gallery (url listed in the first post of the 'Figure Availability' thread)

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I'd love to see (and own ) some unusual prehistoric crocodiles and there relatives. Maybe the spikey Desmatosuchus, the bipedal Poposaurus, or any other weird crocs; there are plenty to choose from!   As for dinosaurs, anything out of the ordinary looking.  Perhaps a Therizinosaurus or Gigantoraptor.  Have you ever considered doing some life-size models of smaller prehistoric creatures, maybe the peculiar Megapnosaurus or tiny dino Epidexipteryx.

Thanks for listening!

I have thought of making some of the strange crocs they have been finding- As for life size pieces, I have done quite a few 1/1 life size prehistoric animals-not any life size dinos yet, but have been thinking that could be fun- I do have a few life size head wall pieces available,including a half head of Yangchuanosaurus, and a half head Dilophosaurus--I have mainly been doing life size placoderms, cephalapods and others-they can be seen on the Fauna Casts facebook page in the 1/1 Prehistoric Animals album-or on my photobucket gallery (url listed in the first post of the 'Figure Availability' thread)

You know..you could do any dinosaur in 1/1 if it were done at the right growth stage..

[Lady medusa]

I would definately love some 1/1 scale dinos! I can see some 1/1 dino infants of tons of different species.

Awww blade id figure you knew utahraptor is around the size of dilophosaurus?

And as for the feathers on utahraptor, it wouldnt have to be completely covered in feathers. It could have a crest of feathers, like for courtship or something or even tail feathers. Theres a possibility of maybe they did have feathers but only for courtship so they could easily molt the feathers off in the changing seasons, or even for nesting,etc. A 1/15 scale or something close would be awesome.
If no feathers at all are the ideal i still love the version of utahraptor by don lassem. It Has the best of both worlds.

On another note a scale model of a pair/pack of utahraptors vs. Astrodon would be awesome too.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I would definately love some 1/1 scale dinos! I can see some 1/1 dino infants of tons of different species.

Awww blade id figure you knew utahraptor is around the size of dilophosaurus?

And as for the feathers on utahraptor, it wouldnt have to be completely covered in feathers. It could have a crest of feathers, like for courtship or something or even tail feathers. Theres a possibility of maybe they did have feathers but only for courtship so they could easily molt the feathers off in the changing seasons, or even for nesting,etc. A 1/15 scale or something close would be awesome.
If no feathers at all are the ideal i still love the version of utahraptor by don lassem. It Has the best of both worlds.

On another note a scale model of a pair/pack of utahraptors vs. Astrodon would be awesome too.

I kept hearing that Utahraptor is what the JP Raptors were based on..and 6' tall and 13' feet long is still REALLY big to me.

[Patrx]

And as for the feathers on utahraptor, it wouldnt have to be completely covered in feathers. It could have a crest of feathers, like for courtship or something or even tail feathers. Theres a possibility of maybe they did have feathers but only for courtship so they could easily molt the feathers off in the changing seasons, or even for nesting,etc.

That strikes me as pretty darn unlikely - every deinonychusaur discovered thus far with feather impressions have had them in a pretty similar pattern, perhaps most notably the primary feathers attaching to the second manual digit. To assume that just because Utahraptor is big might mean that it'd deviate into a totally unprecedented, sparse feather arrangement seems unusual, or, perhaps, fueled by nostalgia rather than evidence.
Sorry, I've no desire to start a feather-war here. Just sharing a thought

Also, Blade, I was thinking JP's raptors were Deinonychus, like the ones in the novel - just scaled-up a bit for rule-of-cool factor. Utahraptor was found later, yeah?

[Lady medusa]

And as for the feathers on utahraptor, it wouldnt have to be completely covered in feathers. It could have a crest of feathers, like for courtship or something or even tail feathers. Theres a possibility of maybe they did have feathers but only for courtship so they could easily molt the feathers off in the changing seasons, or even for nesting,etc.

That strikes me as pretty darn unlikely - every deinonychusaur discovered thus far with feather impressions have had them in a pretty similar pattern, perhaps most notably the primary feathers attaching to the second manual digit. To assume that just because Utahraptor is big might mean that it'd deviate into a totally unprecedented, sparse feather arrangement seems unusual, or, perhaps, fueled by nostalgia rather than evidence.
Sorry, I've no desire to start a feather-war here. Just sharing a thought


Also, Blade, I was thinking JP's raptors were Deinonychus, like the ones in the novel - just scaled-up a bit for rule-of-cool factor. Utahraptor was found later, yeah?

No feather wars here!!! Im not saying have the animal bald lol but maybe less feather covering. In all honesty until a utah is found with feather preservations it is up for debate on how much feathering they did or did not have. None the less it is one of the most amazing animals to have ever exhisted in my opinion. And i feel that the idea of gaining or losing more plumes from season to season is extremely realistic because birds today do it, even mammals gain and lose fur depending on the season, so why not dinos?

I would love to see a sculpt of a dromeosaurid with a really cool colorful feather display crest non the less .

And yea i heard deinonychus were the supposid raptors in the JP movies. Utah wasnt discovered i think till the production was already started i think, i could be wrong.
And who says dienonychus couldnt get that big at the biggest? Just cause one hasnt been found doesnt mean it couldnt. If you have a mutant gene or over active thyroid oh yea you can get bigger.

[Patrx]

I'll admit, such a fan am I of the feathery look that I'm totally biased myself XD I am really selective about raptors. I do like Jurassic Park's raptors (because they are excellent movie villains and a '90's icon.) However, in my mind, real dromaeosaurs were basically birds with teeth and wing-claws. Non-JP bald raptors or "in-between" partially feathered raptors look very ugly to me. In point of fact, I have never seen a raptor model or figure that's bird-like enough for me to really want. 

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

The Raptors in the novel were actual Velociraptors...6' long and all.

The film versions did seem more like Deinonychus which could have been what they based on at first, though there were articles I recall that when Utahraptor was released to the public they said that that they had based the Raptor's on them instead or rather the as then un-published material. Could have been a case of ret-conning but for some reason the darn articles stuck with me. :/

I remember seeing Dinamation's Utahraptor in the late 90's :



I believe it was big..but I was a bit smaller. lol

[SBell]

The Raptors in the novel were actual Velociraptors...6' long and all.

The film versions did seem more like Deinonychus which could have been what they based on at first, though there were articles I recall that when Utahraptor was released to the public they said that that they had based the Raptor's on them instead or rather the as then un-published material. Could have been a case of ret-conning but for some reason the darn articles stuck with me. :/

I remember seeing Dinamation's Utahraptor in the late 90's :

I believe it was big..but I was a bit smaller. lol

Utahraptor was described after JP was complete, it was a happy accident.

Spielberg decided to use oversized Deinonychus because they looked scarier, but kept the name Velociraptor because 'raptor' sounds better.

[Patrx]

The Raptors in the novel were actual Velociraptors...6' long and all.

Are you sure? The novels raptors were pretty big. This is how I heard it (from Wikipedia- grain of salt and all, but their sources seem pretty solid.)

The Velociraptor in the novel, and consequently the film, were larger than the actual animal. The misconception arose because Crichton used "Predatory Dinosaurs of the World" by Gregory S. Paul as a reference when writing his novel, and that work interpreted Deinonychus antirrhopus as a species of Velociraptor; it is closely related to Velociraptor mongoliensis, but is larger. In the novel, Deinonychus is mentioned, but the character Alan Grant then says that scientists have reclassified it as a species of Velociraptor.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

No idea..I'd have to check my copy of PDotW to see if that was the case.

I was pretty sure it was said several times the novel Raptors were smaller than the ones in the film...I recall people complaining they " could have gone with the real animal like the novel and it would been plenty scary " or some such statement.

I haven't  read the novel itself in a long while though and my memory isn't what it was at all.

[dinonikes]

I am plannign on making a Velociraptor model- have had requests for them and one guy actually wants to commision me to do some sort of model of velociraptor-he is in absolutely no hurry, which is nice too--not sure of size/scale- yet to be determined- he is thinking maybe 1/2 scale but I am thinking maybe a bit smaller.He definitely wants it to be in a dynamic pose and with colorful plumage- am still looking through research materials and images right now-any advice or ideas would be appreciated,especially as this is just in an embryonic stage right now. I was kinda thinking it might be cool to make two of them fighting, but that might get real complicated.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I am plannign on making a Velociraptor model- have had requests for them and one guy actually wants to commision me to do some sort of model of velociraptor-he is in absolutely no hurry, which is nice too--not sure of size/scale- yet to be determined- he is thinking maybe 1/2 scale but I am thinking maybe a bit smaller.He definitely wants it to be in a dynamic pose and with colorful plumage- am still looking through research materials and images right now-any advice or ideas would be appreciated,especially as this is just in an embryonic stage right now. I was kinda thinking it might be cool to make two of them fighting, but that might get real complicated.

Hmmm..maybe make one neutral model and cast it, then alter them ?  That would make it easier to work with instead of sculpting two different ones. 

1/2 scale could be cool..that's about 36" long right ? Make it a juvenile Velociraptor and that can be 1/1 scale even.

I would base it on the Dino Revolution model..that one seems to be pretty accurate.

[SBell]

No idea..I'd have to check my copy of PDotW to see if that was the case.

I was pretty sure it was said several times the novel Raptors were smaller than the ones in the film...I recall people complaining they " could have gone with the real animal like the novel and it would been plenty scary " or some such statement.

I haven't  read the novel itself in a long while though and my memory isn't what it was at all.

The novel raptors were actual "Velociraptors"--and there was a larger pack of them.  They were scaled up Deinonychus for the movie because they looked scarier, but the name Raptor was considered better.

[Patrx]

Hmmm..maybe make one neutral model and cast it, then alter them ?  That would make it easier to work with instead of sculpting two different ones. 

1/2 scale could be cool..that's about 36" long right ? Make it a juvenile Velociraptor and that can be 1/1 scale even.

I would base it on the Dino Revolution model..that one seems to be pretty accurate.

Well, now I am trying to decide if I could afford it at 1/2 scale. Hmm...
I'm gonna put in a vote against a juvenile in 1/1 - I mean, it'd be cool and all, but, to me, it'd feel almost a bit like a cop-out, yeah? It'd be neat, though, to see a few different poses. Maybe a threat display kind of thing with the wings fanned out and the mouth open, an inquisitive pose with the head tilted up and the wings tucked, etc.

The DR model is pretty accurate, I think - not quite bird-like enough to suit my tastes perfectly, but pretty close Not sure about that pink hue, though, heh.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Hmmm..maybe make one neutral model and cast it, then alter them ?  That would make it easier to work with instead of sculpting two different ones. 

1/2 scale could be cool..that's about 36" long right ? Make it a juvenile Velociraptor and that can be 1/1 scale even.

I would base it on the Dino Revolution model..that one seems to be pretty accurate.

Well, now I am trying to decide if I could afford it at 1/2 scale. Hmm...
I'm gonna put in a vote against a juvenile in 1/1 - I mean, it'd be cool and all, but, to me, it'd feel almost a bit like a cop-out, yeah? It'd be neat, though, to see a few different poses. Maybe a threat display kind of thing with the wings fanned out and the mouth open, an inquisitive pose with the head tilted up and the wings tucked, etc.

The DR model is pretty accurate, I think - not quite bird-like enough to suit my tastes perfectly, but pretty close Not sure about that pink hue, though, heh.

Well I'm not considering price..yet. But I have a good idea of what the ball park would be. 

I'm not sure how I see a juvenile animal being a " cop-out " ?  Half scale for an adult is 3' or so would be the same for a juvenile. At half grown it would probably have mostly the same plumage as an adult.

Color is irrelevant in a toy or model..all are change-able...

[Patrx]

I'm not sure how I see a juvenile animal being a " cop-out " ?  Half scale for an adult is 3' or so would be the same for a juvenile. At half grown it would probably have mostly the same plumage as an adult.

Color is irrelevant in a toy or model..all are change-able...

Well, I guess I'd rather have a half-scale adult than a full-scale juvenile, even if they'd be about the same size. It's just that generally, when I picture an animal, I picture its adult form, considering to be its "proper" size and proportions. By that (admittedly arbitrary) reckoning, a full-scale juvenile isn't the animal's "real" size, so I'd just as soon call it a half-scale adult. After all, were they to look identical, there'd be little point in calling it a juvenile for the sole purpose of attaching the "1'1" label to it. That said, I'm all in favor of sculpting subadult animals - but I think that's best done out of a desire to portray the creature at that point in life, not for reasons of scale alone. Of course, that's all down to personal opinions and such forth. I expect "cop-out" was an unnecessarily sharp choice of terminology, in retrospect. Sometimes the right words are difficult to summon, particularly on the confusing conversational landscape of the Internet 

Hmm, I guess I was assuming a different integument pattern for a juvenile. Yes, at half-grown, most living birds have something comparable to their adult plumage - but that could be because most of them use it for flight quite early in life. Depending on how Velociraptor used its wings, this might not have been the case for it; particularly if the wings were used primarily as a mating display. It would make sense for those feathers to look significantly broader and brighter in an adult specimen, in that case. On the other hand, if the wings were used (like the wings on a modern raptor,) to prevent the escape of captured prey, they might've had broad, large feathers fairly early on. Or, perhaps the wings served both purposes, in which case the feathers may have grown out early on and changed color as the animal matured. All of those sound like valid hypotheses to me, really, and there are many other ideas out there.

I'd like to see a color scheme like a modern raptor of some kind - a kestrel, maybe, or a peregrine falcon - but, as you say, repainting is always an option regardless of the "factory" design. Someday, I shall endeavor to learn how to do it.  My ideal raptor model would look like a bird behaving like a bird - not a fantasy lizard-creature acting like a monster. I'd not want it to look frightening, but impressive - perhaps clever, inquisitive, noble. No need to make a show of the teeth and the claws all the time, yeah? Perhaps that's not very marketable, but I for one would buy a raptor like that in a proverbial heartbeat 

[dinonikes]

I doubt I would make a juvenile anything at 1/1 scale- unless there were someone specifically paying me to make that. Animals change so much during their growth that unless there were some sort of fossil evidence showing a juvenile, it would just be guessing at proportions and such, and doing that doesnt interest me. Just making it with smaller and cuter features like I have seen done just flies too close to a Disney sun for my tastes.
I do not really want to make a 1/2 scale Velociraptor-not that into the animal to make one that large-would rather make something else if I were going to make a large piece of 36 inches or so(to be honest would rather sculpt a life size Hawk, which is on my agenda for the future). I am looking to make the velociraptor 12 to 18 inches or so, depending on scale.
I was just contacted by a museum curator to make him an Oreodont model in the 12 inch length size or so-possibly three of them showing three different species. Possibly also a model of one of those hornless rhinos, forget the species name offhand-also in the 12 inch length size. Am also currently working on a very cool commission that I cant talk about right now, but is very cool indeed, fleshing out a specific fossil as a scale model.

[Himmapaan]

Just making it with smaller and cuter features like I have seen done just flies too close to a Disney sun for my tastes.

Hmm...