Velociraptor claws

Valor

Sr Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
Something different from my normal robots and ray guns: One of my favorite scenes from Jurassic Park is at the beginning of the film when Dr. Grant is on an archeological dig and explaining to a snotty kid how the velociraptor hunted. He pulls a long, black curved claw from his pocket and explains how the animal used them to disembowel its victims.

This was a quick one-day-build today. First I sculpted a single claw out of plasticine clay. This was then used to create a silicon mold so I could make duplicates. The resin cast duplicates were then primed and painted to look ... prehistoric.

IMG_8955.jpgIMG_8957.JPGIMG_8958.jpgIMG_8961.JPGIMG_8963.jpgIMG_8967.JPGIMG_8952.jpg
 
Nice work.
Questions if I may?

1. What shore silicone did you use?
2. If you make the master from Plasticine, is it the type that sets hard or stays moldable?
3. If it stays soft, how do you demold the first part to make the 2nd half?
 
Thanks ... regarding your questions. This was kind of a "what do I have on hand" project. Some if this was laziness.

1. I used Smooth-on Dragon Skin Fast 10 ... 10A hardness, Real stretchy cures very fast.
2. I used clay that doesn't harden and you can't bake. ... Dumb I know. But like I said I had it on hand and I was confident I could get it out of the mold when I was done.
3. So after the claw was done, I set in in a small mold box supported by little pieces of cured silicon. Then I filled the mold box with more silicon –*effectively sealing the claw in the middle of the block of silicon. Then after it was cured (about 2-hours) I carefully cut around the edge into where the clay master was sitting – freeing it from the block.

Again, a more proper way would have been:
1. Use Fimo clay and bake the master to harden it.
2. Make a proper 2-part mold

But, like I said, I had essentially an afternoon and I was able to improvise to get what I needed.
 
Hate to be the one, but he was on a palaeontology dig. Archaeology is the study of ancient human history. Sorry but my eye twitches every time someone gets the two confused. [emoji106]
 
Thanks ... regarding your questions. This was kind of a "what do I have on hand" project. Some if this was laziness.

1. I used Smooth-on Dragon Skin Fast 10 ... 10A hardness, Real stretchy cures very fast.
2. I used clay that doesn't harden and you can't bake. ... Dumb I know. But like I said I had it on hand and I was confident I could get it out of the mold when I was done.
3. So after the claw was done, I set in in a small mold box supported by little pieces of cured silicon. Then I filled the mold box with more silicon –*effectively sealing the claw in the middle of the block of silicon. Then after it was cured (about 2-hours) I carefully cut around the edge into where the clay master was sitting – freeing it from the block.

Again, a more proper way would have been:
1. Use Fimo clay and bake the master to harden it.
2. Make a proper 2-part mold

But, like I said, I had essentially an afternoon and I was able to improvise to get what I needed.

I have not used Dragon Skin before. Locally, the stuff that sounds similar is called Banana Skin and same shore (10 is soft) and really stretchy. This is typically used in jacketed head molds?

I do like the idea of suspending the plasticine part with some cured silicone as those parts would fuse into the body of the rest of the mold.

So pending how the part was set up, could you have half poured the mold, let cure, cut some rego points, coat in mold release, than top up the mold? It is the whole cutting open to extract the part that I have trouble with.
 
What is really cool about your master part being hand made is that is looks organic. I made a claw from Perspex (I wanted a clear one) and it came out too symmetrical. It is a nice piece, but too clean.

I think I need to give this technique a go.
 
Flat black primer. Browns and green acrylic paint worked into the cracks and wiped off. Let everything dry and buff with a soft T-shirt.
 
One of my favorite scenes from Jurassic Park is at the beginning of the film when Dr. Grant is on an archeological dig and explaining to a snotty kid how the velociraptor hunted. He pulls a long, black curved claw from his pocket and explains how the animal used them to disembowel its victims.

Mild hijack, but I know exactly where they filmed that scene. Took a bit to find..
 
It's a shame they didn't just use Utahraptors, since Velociraptors are actually about the size of a turkey, just like the kid said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor#/media/File:Dromaeosaurs.png
Mild Jurassic Park fan nitpick, but this is a common misconception. The JP "Velociraptors" are based on Deinonychus antirrhopus, a species of North American dromaeosaur. Ameteur paleontologist Gregory S. Paul, perhaps better known for his art than his theories, had a hypothesis back in the late '80s that Deinonychus skulls were being reconstructed wrong. Back then they used to reconstruct them with an Allosaurine base, like most theropods were back in the day. Instead, he reconstructed the skull based off of Velociraptor. Because of this, Paul attempted to reclassify Deinonychus antirrhopus as "Velociraptor" antirrhopus. It never really stuck, but fortunately for Paul's nomenclatural legacy, one star author by the name of Michael Crichton happened to pick up Paul's "Predatory Dinosaurs of the World" while writing "Jurassic Park", and now the man-sized Velociraptor is forever ingrained in the cultural zeitgeist. When Spielberg made the movie, he hired famous paleontographer Mark Hallett to do some early concept work, one of which was for the Raptors. Hallett correctly identified the dinosaur in the novels as Deinonychus (evidently he did not subscribe to Paul's theories) in his concept art.
kbrtKeu.jpg

Spielberg, being faithful to the novels, stuck with Paul's Velociraptor nomenclature. It probably didn't help that, according to production notes, Spielberg too referenced Gregory S. Paul's book just like Crichton did.
bzD0S7W.jpg
 
No lie, as a kid who was HUGE into dinosaurs I was beyond confused when they called them Velociraptors (which at the time I had never heard of) when it was clear to me and all the books I personally had that they were Deinonychus. Nice to now finally know the reason! Thanks CT. :) That info would have saved me many arguments at school. :lol
 
It's a shame they didn't just use Utahraptors, since Velociraptors are actually about the size of a turkey, just like the kid said.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velociraptor#/media/File:Dromaeosaurs.png

"That doesn't look very scary. More like a 6 foot turkey".

And whilst I like the idea that some dinosaurs may have turned into birds (some were called bird-hipped), I really wish they stop with the feathers on everything. A display of dinosaurs found in China had triceratops with feathers. Enough already!
 
"That doesn't look very scary. More like a 6 foot turkey".

And whilst I like the idea that some dinosaurs may have turned into birds (some were called bird-hipped), I really wish they stop with the feathers on everything. A display of dinosaurs found in China had triceratops with feathers. Enough already!
To be fair, imprints of Triceratops skin has found that they may have had some sort of porcupine quill like structures over the skin.
 
To be fair, imprints of Triceratops skin has found that they may have had some sort of porcupine quill like structures over the skin.

Thick hairs I can live with, but not fluffy feathers. And again, some were bird hipped, so it would make sense that some may have evolved into birds. I really don't think Triceratops was one of those.

And what about archaeopteryx? Wasn't that the first "feathered" dinosaur?
 
Thick hairs I can live with, but not fluffy feathers. And again, some were bird hipped, so it would make sense that some may have evolved into birds. I really don't think Triceratops was one of those.

And what about archaeopteryx? Wasn't that the first "feathered" dinosaur?
Depends on what you mean by "first." It was the first feathered dinosaur discovered, but by far not the earliest to have existed. ;)
 
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