Velociraptor claw on an Isla Nublar rock display (tutorial)

OK, thanks. Sorry, I thought maybe you painted it to get a better idea of how the texture would look on the finished claw. I've read that plaster is tricky to finish because it so readily absorbs any liquid you put on it.

Loving the work by they way :thumbsup

Rob

That's true about the plaster. A single brushed-on coat of Model Master acrylic paint is sufficient to seal it. I ended up with 4 coats because I'm not sure how difficult it will be to scrape the clay out of the grooves during the molding process.
 
Loving the work on the new fossilized raptor claw, will definitely be down for one when they are available.
 
We are go...
Be sure to zoom this first picture.
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So silly question, is a raptor claw actually bone as opposed to keratin ?

It's both. The bone has a keratin sheath, which usually rots away during fossilization. All animals who have pointy claws have an actual bone inside of a keratin sheath. Keratin on its own is not strong enough to do what the animal needs; and bare bone is susceptible to infection.

If you've heard about people clipping their cat's and dog's claws, they're actually trimming the keratin, and stopping before they hit bone. The keratin tapers off to a sharper point beyond the tip of the bone.
 
It's both. The bone has a keratin sheath, which usually rots away during fossilization. All animals who have pointy claws have an actual bone inside of a keratin sheath. Keratin on its own is not strong enough to do what the animal needs; and bare bone is susceptible to infection.

If you've heard about people clipping their cat's and dog's claws, they're actually trimming the keratin, and stopping before they hit bone. The keratin tapers off to a sharper point beyond the tip of the bone.

errr. .. cats and dogs have no bones in their claws.
 
Hey, was wondering if you knew any reason I shouldnt use mdf to make the master mold?

Do you mean master copy? The reason I personally avoided it was because it's actually too dense to get the details the way I wanted them. But that's due to my limitation. With the right kind of work, MDF can hold fine detail, and it's certainly strong enough that it won't break easily when you get into thin areas.

Also, I like to work with wet files and sandpaper, which doesn't really work well with MDF.
 
Also, if you intended to mold something made from MDF, you might want to seal it first.

Definitely a good recommendation. But if the MDF is sanded smooth enough, which is achievable, sealing it isn't absolutely necessary. I've made molding boxes out of MDF, and the worst that happened was some of the chemicals of the curing silicone were soaked into the MDF; but it didn't really grip it when I took everything apart for demolding. There were visible dark stains in the MDF where it made contact with the silicone.
 
Started a new type of rock display base.
I cast a "living" bone claw in resin, and trimmed the tip off to match the fossilized model. Then I painted it for 2 reasons: 1 is to make sure the surface is smooth to make it easy to remove from the plaster; and 2 is to emulate the thickness of the paint that will be applied later on. If I did this without a layer of paint, the fit might be too tight.

The claw was then submerged into plaster about half its thickness. I wanted it to go a little deeper than that to give me some room to work. I'm going to carve the plaster to resemble fossil matrix (the rock that encases a fossil). The claw was not placed in the center of the plastic plate, because the center of the plate bows upward a little too much. So I offset the claw so as not to use too much plaster. I will have to dig the claw out carefully with a sharp metal tool.
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The goal is to make something like this. The rock display will hold a fossilized claw at a slight angle. The claw will be removable, and will be held in by gravity - the bottom half of the indentation will be deeper than half the claw's thickness, which will allow it to "hug" the lower half of the claw, preventing it from falling out. In order to remove the claw, the claw will have to be pulled upward only slightly, and then forward. The motion will be very similar to how the embryo vials are held inside of the large retractable freezers in Jurassic Park.

The rock display will have a rocky texture on its whole surface, except the underside, which will be smooth and flat.
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I carefully extracted the claw from the plaster, and trimmed away a lot of plaster with the band saw. The band saw cut through the plaster like butter. Next, I started applying multiple layers of plaster to build up the back of the rock display. The current angle is too low. The end result will be steeper. More layers of plaster remain to be applied.

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I've made a lot more progress. A lot of excess material was trimmed off with a bandsaw, and the detail work has started with a rotary tool. This is maybe 60% finished. The final detailing will be done with hand tools.
The claw is a stand-in. It's a smooth, non-fossilized claw. If I had used a fossilized claw during the actual liquid plaster pouring, the plaster would've locked the claw into place; and even in the final resin version, it would be too difficult to insert and remove the fossilized claw. Therefore, I used the smooth bone claw, but trimmed the tip off to match the fossilized version. This display stand is intended only for the fossilized version, and having a smooth indentation will make it easy to insert and remove.
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I got to work on the back of the rock display before my $10, 12-year-old Harbor Freight rotary tool died completely. It had died numerous times over the years, but yesterday there was no resuscitating it. It has reached its final resting place in the trash. Anyway, I added more plaster to the front of the display to give it a more interesting look. All of the rocky, chiseled appearance was carved in with a hand tool, which took 1.5 hours, and isn't even finished. I actually need to work it down about 20%-40% more, but I'm going to have to buy a new rotary tool for that. It's really not practical carving down so much plaster by hand. The most significant update here is that I added more plaster to the lip that actually holds the claw in place. When this area is cast in resin, it will be stronger than it would have been if I had left it as thin as it was before.

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I bought a new rotary tool from Harbor Freight. It's strong and fast, and... has already died on me several times. Anyway, it's super effective, and does what I need. I've gone ahead and carved away about 20% more plaster. The bottom of the display desperately needed to be flattened, and I couldn't think of a better way except wet sanding. I was sure going in that wet sanding plaster would be a total clusterflunk, gumming up and jumping all over the sandpaper. Well, that didn't exactly happen. The wet plaster powder does love to accumulate, but the trick to make it work is simple enough: You just have to keep rinsing the sandpaper off every time the accumulation becomes a hindrance, which is about every 10 seconds. Not that big of a deal, since the plaster actually sanded away TOO easily. It was so buttery smooth that I absentmindedly messed up the angle of the base, and made the tilt too vertical. So I had to go back and re-diagonalize it. This resulted in the removal of too much plaster on the bottom, leaving a very thin lip that is prone to chipping. Not that big of a deal. I'll add a couple layers back in to strengthen it; and now that I know wet sanding is a viable method, I'll just work it again. By the way, I do all my plaster carving and sanding outside, because the mess it produces is immense; not something I want to clean up inside of my house. The rotary tool alone sprays fine plaster dust EVERYWHERE. In the bottom picture you can see the layers of plaster.

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There's still quite a bit more work to be done. First I have to reinforce the bottom with a couple more layers of plaster, then sand it flat. Then I need to remove more plaster from the upright section of the display, this is for the sake of reducing how much resin the castings will use. Then I need to carve some natural looking rocky textures into the plaster. After that I'll stabilize the plaster with paint, then mold it.
 
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