Fabricious's Life Size Sculpture

[fabricious]

Alright, as some (or one, for that matter) of you might already know, I've been thinking of doing a life size sculpture of Velociraptor mongoliensis for quite some time now and have been pondering about ways to do the face, feet and arms and also where to get enough feathers from to cover the body. Luckily, I just found a taxidermist supply store only half an hour's drive away from my place today, which apparently has eyes at the right diameter (26-30mm) and even if I can't find anything there, they'll be able to order something for me from their catalogue. I will visit that place tomorrow and hopefully get my hands on the first pair of eyes for this project. For the skin I was thinking about Apoxie Sculpt, the first 450g should arrive any day now, so I can try it out and see how it works for myself.
And as for the feathers: A friend of mine's family owns a farm and I will get a lot of duck, chicken and pigeon feathers next week. We'll see if those will be enough. (The color of my sculpture will highly depend on the poultry's colors and patterns, so this will be interesting).

To round everything up: here are three sketches of possible poses:


If any of you has another idea for a pose or eye colors etc. (whatever you can think of for a sculpture this size): please let me know!

Greetings,
Fabrizio

[Gorgonzola]

What do you plan to do for the armature/basic filling out of the sculpture?  Apoxie sculpt is a pretty good choice for the sculpting portion of it but I imagine it'd be heavy as anything (and expensive and impractical) to fill it out with that entirely.

I like the dynamism of the third pose as well!  Do you plan to build a base for this fellow as well? If so maybe you can work the pose of the sculpt in with the base so it tells a story.  Maybe something caught its eye and it's investigating it, maybe it's climbing up a fallen log or something...just stuff to think about.

[fabricious]

Thanks for the input, Gorgonzola! I was planning to make the armature out of thick wire, a plywood body shape, styrofoam, aluminium foil and wrap the whole thing with masking tape so flesh the whole animal out as far as possible while still keeping it light. I was not planning on making a base for it (yet), but I might change my mind according to how the process goes. One of my main goals is to take it outside some day to take proper pictures in the forest.

[DinoLord]

I'm a fan of the third pose too. As for the colors, I've always been a fan of this piece from DeviantArt:

[fabricious]

I might do a little mashup of the first and third pose, to make it a bit more elegant (stance of the first one, head and arms of the third).

It's a nice piece, but as I said, colors will highly depend on the feathers I'll get next week, which I have no influence in. I think I remember the ducks being a mixture of black and white and as for the chickens: no idea. I'll go ask, quickly.

[Patrx]

Definitely the first pose! very natural and subdued.
EDIT: I also like the mashup idea. The tilted head of the third pose would give it a curious demeanor, particularly with the mouth closed as in the first pose.

[fabricious]

Thanks for the input. I would prefer a closed mouth myself, since I think that dinosaurs way too often get depicted with gaping jaws. It would also give me the opportunity to create lips/hide the teeth.

[Patrx]

Thanks for the input. I would prefer a closed mouth myself, since I think that dinosaurs way too often get depicted with gaping jaws. It would also give me the opportunity to create lips/hide the teeth.

Good thinking! I look forward to seeing how your project goes

[fabricious]

Here's a quick combination of the first pose with the third head. I kind of like this one, sure would look nice among some tall ferns (whatever those might have to do with a mongolian desert, though...).

[Sim]

I'm not sure if Velociraptor's wrists could fold that far back.  The maximum wrist folding for Deinonychus can be seen here: http://dinogoss.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/know-when-to-fold-em.html

Good luck!

[fabricious]

That's a good point, actually. If anyone has links to papers regarding this issue, I'd be happy to read them!

[stoneage]

What scale will this figure be in?

[tyrantqueen]

What scale will this figure be in?

1/1, hence the title: "life size".

[fabricious]

Thanks, TQ.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I like the third pose myself too.

As for the wrists , I used Hartman's illustration for mine :

[fabricious]

I will take Hartman's skeletal reconstruction as my main reference anyway, so I might just do that as well.

Also, here are the eyes I bought today at the taxidermist's supply store:




The ladies were a bit... strange and half the store was not lighted (and I had to go into the basement to see the eyes, haha), but I am quite satisfied with their look. They are made of glass and do seem very hawk-like in my opinion.

[Scipionyx]

I have never seen a full-size velociraptor model with accurate wings, so just to be sure you get it right (sorry if you already know this) here are some good references for feather attachment points, wing shape and stuff:


http://smnt2000.deviantart.com/art/Restore-Open-DinoWings-Final-Corrections-432393974
http://smnt2000.deviantart.com/art/Restore-Folded-DinoWings-Corrections-432392410
http://smnt2000.deviantart.com/art/Restore-Open-DinoWings-Corrected-Underside-View-432393513

[fabricious]

Thank you for the input, I will make sure to get the wings/arms as accurate as possible. I've had this problem in the past already, due to drawing bird wings, so I'll try to get a good shot at this.

[fabricious]

A bit of work in-between studying for an exam. Now I'm out of masking tape (luckily, otherwise I'd procrastinate far too much with this...).

[fabricious]

Also: apparently the chicken feathers will be white and sandy yellow, which might suit a desert predator. If I manage to get a hold of a few darker/brown and black feathers as well, this might make for an interesting pattern.