Jurassic Park Velociraptor Skeleton

mrcarkeys42 · May 13, 2017

While its far from a perfect replica, I was inspired by the opening scene of Jurassic Park to make a Velociraptor (or more accurately Deinonychus) skeleton for my final school sculpture project! Unfortunately it had to be rushed, the whole sculpture was done in probably 18 hours (spread over a few weeks) making the fine detail pretty terrible up close, and leaving no time for casting or anything like that so i just had to bake the clay. I didn't have any time to stain (or glaze) the ceramic either, so its currently bright white which isnt the worst i guess and looks okay for a cartoony look, but hopefully i will be able to give it a dark brown fossil color sometime over the summer. Also keep in mind i am pretty ignorant on anatomy and didn't have time to scale everything properly, i made the skull to accurate size first and just eyeballed the rest, so i'm sure there will be some obvious mistakes to people who know more about this stuff than I do lol

With all that said, i'm overall very happy with how it turned out and i think looking at it as a whole it looks pretty darn good, even if each bone looks kind of bad up close.

So first here was the inspiration:

And here are the progress pictures:

And here is the final product (so far) embedded in the ground! Keep in mind that all the bones are separate and it can be posed anyway i want, because its leg is in sort of a weird position in its current spot.

Hope you enjoy it! i would really like to do it again at some point but put in a lot more time into it

Chaank · May 13, 2017

Nice one man! Having to rush didn't stop you doing a good job. I think it's fantastic!

davidJurassic · May 13, 2017

mrcarkeys42 said:
While its far from a perfect replica, I was inspired by the opening scene of Jurassic Park to make a Velociraptor (or more accurately Deinonychus) skeleton for my final school sculpture project! Unfortunately it had to be rushed, the whole sculpture was done in probably 18 hours (spread over a few weeks) making the fine detail pretty terrible up close, and leaving no time for casting or anything like that so i just had to bake the clay. I didn't have any time to stain (or glaze) the ceramic either, so its currently bright white which isnt the worst i guess and looks okay for a cartoony look, but hopefully i will be able to give it a dark brown fossil color sometime over the summer. Also keep in mind i am pretty ignorant on anatomy and didn't have time to scale everything properly, i made the skull to accurate size first and just eyeballed the rest, so i'm sure there will be some obvious mistakes to people who know more about this stuff than I do lol

With all that said, i'm overall very happy with how it turned out and i think looking at it as a whole it looks pretty darn good, even if each bone looks kind of bad up close.

So first here was the inspiration:

View attachment 728314

And here are the progress pictures:

View attachment 728315

View attachment 728316

View attachment 728317

View attachment 728318

View attachment 728320

View attachment 728321

View attachment 728322

And here is the final product (so far) embedded in the ground! Keep in mind that all the bones are separate and it can be posed anyway i want, because its leg is in sort of a weird position in its current spot.

View attachment 728323

Hope you enjoy it! i would really like to do it again at some point but put in a lot more time into it

This is amazing. Never seen anyone attempt this before and it looks great.

Nothing stopping you from weathering/making more accurate as time goes on! Do you plan to do that?

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MooCriket · May 13, 2017

What a very cool prop idea! Well executed!

Wimismith · May 13, 2017

That looks awesome, you could probably even make resin copies to sell on etsy.

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Malphas · May 13, 2017

Looks very well done. I don't know where you are in life but I saw a guy do something like this, fossils and stuff and put them in a sandbox for his kids just whenever they dug deep enough. I thought that was an awesome idea that I want to do one day.

mrcarkeys42 · May 21, 2017

davidJurassic said:
This is amazing. Never seen anyone attempt this before and it looks great.

Nothing stopping you from weathering/making more accurate as time goes on! Do you plan to do that?

Yes I do! Though for now I will need to focus on other things. Hopefully I can get back to it before the end of the summer

- - - Updated - - -

Malphas said:
Looks very well done. I don't know where you are in life but I saw a guy do something like this, fossils and stuff and put them in a sandbox for his kids just whenever they dug deep enough. I thought that was an awesome idea that I want to do one day.

I was thinking of doing the same thing! though I am only 19, don't have kids of my own yet lol I might give it to my younger cousins though if I cant find a more permanent home for it

mrcarkeys42 · Aug 17, 2018

I think id like to return to this project soon since i had a ton of fun working on it

I ended up leaving the skeleton where I planted it and let nature take it over lol unfortunately since it was only fired the once it did not survive the winter and has mostly crumbled apart...

Id like to do it again, this time much more anatomically correct to a real Deinonychus, much more detailed, and made to last. Perhaps even fully three dimensional as opposed to a relief (though I shouldn't be getting ahead of myself)

Right now im still in the early stages of gathering reference material and was hoping someone would be able to help me out. My overall knowledge of bones and skeletons is rudimentary. For the first version I basically just went off images like this and did my best to replicate what I saw.

These images are great looking, but what I really need is more detailed reference material for the individual bones. This way I can sculpt them more accurately and have a better understanding of how they all work together. Unfortunately, other than the skull/teeth/claws it seems hard to find more detailed reference material for individual bones. Does anybody know a good place for finding the kind of detailed material I need?

CT1138 · Aug 17, 2018

That particular skeleton pictured resides in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. I can get you plenty of pictures if you're in no particular hurry, that is. I go back to school in Chicago on the 5th, and the FMNH is only a 5 minute bus ride away for me.

Though, personally, I wouldn't use it. It's not an original, and is in fact based on an outdated reconstruction. Just as one example, the skull is based on early reconstructions by Ostrom, and is no longer believed to look like that.

The "Velociraptor" antirrhopus, as Gregory S. Paul tried naming them, is what the design teams referenced when working on Jurassic Park. These aren't their scans, they're my own, but from the same book that they used to design the Jurassic Park Raptor.

mrcarkeys42 · Aug 18, 2018

CT1138 said:
That particular skeleton pictured resides in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. I can get you plenty of pictures if you're in no particular hurry, that is. I go back to school in Chicago on the 5th, and the FMNH is only a 5 minute bus ride away for me.
View attachment 837644

Though, personally, I wouldn't use it. It's not an original, and is in fact based on an outdated reconstruction. Just as one example, the skull is based on early reconstructions by Ostrom, and is no longer believed to look like that.

The "Velociraptor" antirrhopus, as Gregory S. Paul tried naming them, is what the design teams referenced when working on Jurassic Park. These aren't their scans, they're my own, but from the same book that they used to design the Jurassic Park Raptor.
View attachment 837645 View attachment 837646

Wow thanks! Great info. I was wondering why a lot of the skulls i saw seemed more "triangular" than the raptors in JP

You got me interested in dinosaur reconstruction and i read some articles about it, i knew that often bones would be missing and things would need to be extrapolated but i never considered that a majority of a skull would need to be guessed based on a few fragments, crazy!

In the scans you uploaded I assume areas of the skull which are lined are areas which have been filled in? Whats the title of this book?

And I'm taking my time with this project so I don't mind waiting! Id love if you could get me some better pictures even if it is an outdated reconstruction, could prove useful. Though now you have me wondering what museums may have a newer and more accurate reconstruction on display?

CT1138 · Aug 18, 2018

The book is called "Predatory Dinosaurs of the World" by Gregory S. Paul. Crichton referenced it when he wrote JP, and it's the reason the Deinonychus in the book and movie are labeled as "Velociraptor" antirrhopus. It was also referenced during the design phase of the Raptors. It's why the earlier concept art drafted as very early concept sketches by Mark McCreery between 1989 and 1990 looked like this:

And then the final design looked like this:

cavx · Aug 19, 2018

This is amazing. I'd love to make wall hanging version (some day).

mrcarkeys42 · Aug 19, 2018

cavx said:
This is amazing. I'd love to make wall hanging version (some day).

Yeah that would be awesome! maybe something magnetic so you can rearrange them, I've never tried that magnetic paint stuff not sure how strong it is

13doctorwho · Aug 19, 2018

This was an awesome idea, well executed. It looks great buried. Fantastic!!

mrcarkeys42 · Aug 27, 2018

My copy of "Predatory Dinosaurs of the World" should be here any day, but i am wondering if this more recent reconstruction by Scott Hartman would be a more accurate reconstruction?

I guess it also depends if i want to stick closer to the most accurate reconstructions or the version seen in the movies.

Too Much Garlic · Aug 27, 2018

I don't know if that one is the most up to date, but I like the look of it. I think it looks very close to the movie versions, except that the real ones - as seen in the drawing - have the hands facing each other, whereas the movie ones are turned to face the same direction and look more human.

Where is it possible to find such high res versions of the skeleton drawings?

mrcarkeys42 · Aug 27, 2018

Too Much Garlic said:
I don't know if that one is the most up to date, but I like the look of it. I think it looks very close to the movie versions, except that the real ones - as seen in the drawing - have the hands facing each other, whereas the movie ones are turned to face the same direction and look more human.

Where is it possible to find such high res versions of the skeleton drawings?

that specific drawing comes from Scott Hartman's website:

http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/theropods/deinonychus

He has all kinds of dinosaur reconstructions! It is definitely newer than the Gregory S. Paul version but i am new to this dinosaur reconstruction thing so i do not know how reputable Hartman's reconstructions are and will need to look into it more. I'm thinking preferably i would like to use the most up to date version, especially since i plan on making this the correct size for deinonychus as opposed to the larger Jurassic park version.

Im actually curious as to what real life dinosaur would be closest to JPs raptors at least in terms of size? seems to be somewhere between deinonychus and utahraptor

Too Much Garlic · Aug 27, 2018

Cool, thanks. Wasn't aware of his site, but man, those drawings look awesome.

I believe there is another one that's closer in size. Klayton Fioriti has a few videos on youtube on the subject - I believe. Or perhaps it's Trey the Explainer. Also saw a few videos with Jack Horner where he talked about the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park.

Found this article about exactly this topic: https://www.quora.com/Which-dinosaur-does-the-velociraptor-from-Jurassic-Park-actually-most-resemble

According to a comment the one I was thinking of was Dakotaraptor.

mrcarkeys42 · Aug 27, 2018

Too Much Garlic said:
Found this article about exactly this topic: https://www.quora.com/Which-dinosaur-does-the-velociraptor-from-Jurassic-Park-actually-most-resemble

According to a comment the one I was thinking of was Dakotaraptor.

awesome article, thanks!

and yeah his reconstructions look great, ill see if i can get in touch and find out if he has other angles he could share similar to the Gregory S. Paul book

Riceball · Aug 30, 2018

Too Much Garlic said:
I don't know if that one is the most up to date, but I like the look of it. I think it looks very close to the movie versions, except that the real ones - as seen in the drawing - have the hands facing each other, whereas the movie ones are turned to face the same direction and look more human.

Where is it possible to find such high res versions of the skeleton drawings?

Basically, the majority of theropods (esp. the carnivorous ones) had their hands in clapping position as opposed to the kangaroo pose seen in the movies.

One thing that I would do before you start your sculting is to consult as many books an images of actual fossil skeletons that you can, this will help you get a better feel for what actual fossils look like. They're going to be rough and, in some cases, cracked so by making yours like that will help add to the realism. Another thing is that 100% complete skeletons are seldomly, if ever, found, even the most complete specimen will be missing various bones here and there so don't worry about having to make every single bone. As a general rule, the smaller the bone the more likely it is to be missing, commonly missing bones are vertebrae (esp along the tail), fingers, toes, and (if the animal has them) belly ribs.

Jurassic Park Velociraptor Skeleton

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