brandem's sculpture {recent art 2019}

[Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus]

Nice model, brandem. My only comment would be that the head seems a bit blunted; sperm whales usually have more elongated heads. Then again, I could never make as good of a model-it's always easier to critique than actually make one, so kudos to you!

[brandem]

One thing to keep in mind though is the proportion of the head because it appears that males have proportionally larger head than females it looks like your animal is kind of a combination of the two sexes (it has the head of a female and a body of a male)...

[/quote]

My only comment would be that the head seems a bit blunted; sperm whales usually have more elongated heads.

thanks both for the input male sperm whales do have proportionally longer and larger heads than the females, but remember we are not specifically working with sperm whales but a relative. in comparison to modern sperm whales livyatan's skull looked like it belonged to a animal proportionally the same size but with a skull half the length, it is possible what we have is a female livyatan's skull but still the difference in length is significant. 

[tyrantqueen]

Does sexual dimorphism exist for cetaceans in general, not just the sperm whale? If it did, then wings' criticism would probably be valid.

But then again, with the blue whale, the female is actually bigger than the male

[brandem]

Does sexual dimorphism exist for cetaceans in general, not just the sperm whale? If it did, then wings' criticism would probably be valid.

For example, with the blue whale, the female is actually bigger than the male.

from what I find it tends to vary in cetaceans, like you said blue whale females are larger than males but in sperm whales not only are the males larger but there are morphological differences in their skull;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sperm_whale_male_and_female_size.svg

and again the livyatan skull we have could possibly be female but if it share the same morphological difference the sperm whales do the male would be enormous.

[wings]

Does sexual dimorphism exist for cetaceans in general, not just the sperm whale? If it did, then wings' criticism would probably be valid.

But then again, with the blue whale, the female is actually bigger than the male

It's my bad because I thought Brandem was just making a sperm whale. Since we only have a partial specimen (Livyatan) of the skull; it would be hard to determine whether if it is a male or female. Even if we can actually determine the gender of the animal we just don't have another different sex animal to compare with.

I should have looked at the title first... 

[brandem]

I should have looked at the title first... 

ah that's a reasonable mistake to make, it does look an awful lot like just a sperm whale, except for the teeth in the maxilla, that would be egregious to put on a model sperm whale

[Spinosaurus Aegyptiacus]

Brandem, I just realized per your last comments that the model isn't a sperm whale. Sorry! Honestly though, the model is awesome.

[brandem]

Brandem, I just realized per your last comments that the model isn't a sperm whale. Sorry! Honestly though, the model is awesome.

oh thats understandable, thanks for taking the time to stop and look though

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

A bit late to the party, but that's a really nice model..probably easy to cast as well.    It's a shame Safari didn't choose this species over Megalodon. At least you can tell it's not it's modern counterpart.. lol

[brandem]

A bit late to the party, but that's a really nice model..probably easy to cast as well.    It's a shame Safari didn't choose this species over Megalodon. At least you can tell it's not it's modern counterpart.. lol

haha, i agree totally, but that wild safari model is growing on me, not as a prehistoric model though, more as a great white thats had a particulairly rough life, heres fingers crossed they do something to illustrate the size of the animal, or at least make it bigger than their standard great white.

and thanks I'm hoping it will be an easier cast than some of the others.

[SBell]

A bit late to the party, but that's a really nice model..probably easy to cast as well.    It's a shame Safari didn't choose this species over Megalodon. At least you can tell it's not it's modern counterpart.. lol

haha, i agree totally, but that wild safari model is growing on me, not as a prehistoric model though, more as a great white thats had a particulairly rough life, heres fingers crossed they do something to illustrate the size of the animal, or at least make it bigger than their standard great white.

and thanks I'm hoping it will be an easier cast than some of the others.

That's why I've always argued that a Megalodon figure is a no win situation. Without scale it's just a weirdly proportioned white shark. Even in the Safari prehistoric sharks toob I convinced them to go with Cretoxyrhina since scale would be an issue (plus there's a little more material to work from).

[brandem]

A bit late to the party, but that's a really nice model..probably easy to cast as well.    It's a shame Safari didn't choose this species over Megalodon. At least you can tell it's not it's modern counterpart.. lol

haha, i agree totally, but that wild safari model is growing on me, not as a prehistoric model though, more as a great white thats had a particulairly rough life, heres fingers crossed they do something to illustrate the size of the animal, or at least make it bigger than their standard great white.

and thanks I'm hoping it will be an easier cast than some of the others.

That's why I've always argued that a Megalodon figure is a no win situation. Without scale it's just a weirdly proportioned white shark. Even in the Safari prehistoric sharks toob I convinced them to go with Cretoxyrhina since scale would be an issue (plus there's a little more material to work from).

yes, I kinda feel like the worst thing to happen to megalodon is that it has entered the public conscious, once an idea of an animal is stuck there it becomes hard to dislodge(like the poor tail dragging dinosaurs of old).  I hold I minority opinion on megs that I wont get into here, but the ingrained idea that it was "just a big great white" discounts some fun color opportunities, like mako navy, basking shark brown, tiger shark stripes, whale shark err... spots.  anyways just a reason why I wouldn't attempt a megalodon unless asked.

[brandem]

ah, one more species to add before the process of casting and painting begins, this time it is poposaurus (imagined as a hypercarnivore), yet another species I've become enamored with, yet oddly difficult to get good photos of:

[Yutyrannus]

Okay, this is definitely your best model yet ! Are the cast models that you'll be selling going to be pre-painted?

[brandem]

Okay, this is definitely your best model yet ! Are the cast models that you'll be selling going to be pre-painted?

yes, but anyone has the option to ask for one unpainted, painted, or painted to their specifications

[Yutyrannus]

Cool! I will probably ask for mine to have some sort of bright color pattern, but I have yet to see how you're going to paint it so I'm not sure.

[brandem]

Cool! I will probably ask for mine to have some sort of bright color pattern, but I have yet to see how you're going to paint it so I'm not sure.

the standard paint jobs will likely be very natural, brightly colored would not be a problem though.  unpainted models will be a few dollars less than painted ones, special requests a few dollars more depending on how complicated the job, I've yet to assess the cost of materials for producing them but they should not be expensive to produce and the end product should cost significantly less than say, a shapeway model.

[Yutyrannus]

Cool! I will probably ask for mine to have some sort of bright color pattern, but I have yet to see how you're going to paint it so I'm not sure.

the standard paint jobs will likely be very natural, brightly colored would not be a problem though.  unpainted models will be a few dollars less than painted ones, special requests a few dollars more depending on how complicated the job, I've yet to assess the cost of materials for producing them but they should not be expensive to produce and the end product should cost significantly less than say, a shapeway model.

By brightly colored I mainly meant not the dull olive greens and browns that are usually done for crocodilians and their relatives. Perhaps a black and yellow pattern?

[brandem]

Cool! I will probably ask for mine to have some sort of bright color pattern, but I have yet to see how you're going to paint it so I'm not sure.

the standard paint jobs will likely be very natural, brightly colored would not be a problem though.  unpainted models will be a few dollars less than painted ones, special requests a few dollars more depending on how complicated the job, I've yet to assess the cost of materials for producing them but they should not be expensive to produce and the end product should cost significantly less than say, a shapeway model.

By brightly colored I mainly meant not the dull olive greens and browns that are usually done for crocodilians and their relatives. Perhaps a black and yellow pattern?

A la the wwd postosuchus or snappy? That's not something that is out of the question.

[Yutyrannus]

I meant yellow with diagnal black stripes similar to the stripes on the Dinosaur Revolution cryolophosaurus.