DinoReplicas - dinosaur bone models and more

Roughed out jaw exterior surface. Made sure the pivot is at the correct axis centre (3 coloured circles) I can simply rotate the jaw on the X-axis (red) as I'm modelling to check the upper/lower fit which is pretty important for a model with an articulating jaw.

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Been thinking about the life bust.
As we're probably all aware, there's different ideas about the living appearance of Tyrannosaurus. I'll probably produce more than one version to reflect the variation of scientific opinion. I'd prefer to keep it at two variants and no more, the sketch is my initial exploration.

I think I'm leaning more towards #1 and #2 as the latest evidence seems to be pointing away from feathered tyrannosaurs.
I want the restoration to have interesting details but be credible and based on what the experts think. I definitely don't want to directly rip off paleoart, although it's impossible to avoid some influence.

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Base model for the palette bones and brain-case. Also formed the brain-case wings and transverse crest at the back of the skull.

Once I've added thickness to the outer skull I'll connect and merge the interior to form a single poly mesh. When that's done there's a few interior details that are probably better modelled at this stage rather than sculpted in later, mostly in the inside skull roof above the orbits.

There'a a palette roof that projects inward like a shelf from each maxilla and sandwiches the spoon shaped end of the vomer. When all conected I'll probably merge the area into a slab to simplify poly structure and put the detail back in at the sculpt stage.

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After much pushing and pulling of vertices I'm making some progress on the skull base-mesh.
Lower jaw just about done, more twiddling to do on cranium but it's getting to a state where it can be sculpted.

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Probably need to make a few tweaks when I hit the detail sculpt stage but otherwise I'm done with the skull base mesh. I'll make a UV map next to help with some render shots, for which I will temporarily join the separate parts into one poly mesh. The orange circle is a placeholder for the jaw pivot point just to make it easy to re-set the centre of rotation when I later separate the meshes.

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Assembled the vertebrae drawings into a cervical sequence. I've basically copied the photographed layout from the Brochu 2003 paper so I think it's pretty complaint with the science. The articulating surfaces of the cervicals are angled so that the neck forms a gentle s-curve. This image will work as a template to place the neck bones against, gonna start them this weekend.

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It occurred to me I should add the skull to the neck verts image to make a complete bone placing template. Don't know why I didn't think of this in the first place, nevermind it's just a cut and paste job.

You can't see the ball joint (occipital condyle) in the image because the back of the skull obscures it. It fits neatly into the cup of the first cervical (atlas bone) and on a large Tyrannosaurus is about 10cm in diameter. That's about the size of my fist!

Had a few days off the old tyrant, there was some overdue DIY to sort (my excuse anyway). Now I'd like to build some momentum again with the 3D modelling.

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OK finally got some time to get back to it, this is the bones of the right pes in 4 views. The standard system is to use roman numerals to indicate the digit number so I've done the same, grid lines at 10cm apart as usual.

Checking the Brochu paper confirms that Sue is missing a few toe bones (only the claw of the hallux is present) but these have been studied from other rexes. A lateral view might be overkill as I think I can use the other views to lock in enough of the detail in 3D.

sue_foot_bones_small_by_strick67-dcbp64r.jpg
 
Started the 3D work on the neck so I had another thorough study of the cervicals in the Brochu paper and the Sketchfab Trix 3D display to prepare for this. C1 (atlas) is a very individual structure and c2 (axis) is different enough to probably need its own mesh too. C3-c9 however are broadly homologous each one being a variation on the one before.

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Should be able to take advantage of this in that I can model an initial vertebrae, then duplicate and modify for the next and so on. So the decision I've made is to start at the mid point (c6) and work both forwards and backwards along the sequence. Working from the middle means I start with an 'average' cervical that will change minimally in each direction.

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With complex shapes like cervical vertebrae there's a bit of fiddling required to get a decent low-poly mesh that represents the structure in a broad way but will subdivide fairly evenly for sculpting later.

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The amount of time I've spent on this is getting a bit crazy now, I really want it finished.
I'm just about there with the base meshes for the neck bones, should be done with this part in an hour or so. Going to push to make progress this weekend, get it fitting together then get some detail sculpting started.

This is a quick lo-res turntable of the first two neck vertebrae in relative position.

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Just leaves c9 to add which is a fairly simple derivation of c8. No doubt there'll be (hopefully minor) tweaks and adjustments to enable an articulated sequence without intersections in the individual meshes.

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Cervical ribs complete (will be mirrored horizontally for right side).

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- - - - - - - - - update - - - - - - - - -

Wahey It fits! With only a few minor adjusts, guess that's the benefit of planning. Still a few tweaks here and there but this is just about ready for detailing.

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Had to make a UV map from the low poly 3D skull and neck bones. This always takes ages, really time consuming. It's of no use for the 3D print but will help me when I do some preview renders of the final model.

Basically what I will do is bake the fine bump details into an image texture once the high poly model has been sculpted. This way I can render a medium resolution version of the sculpt and still show fine details. This is necessary as my PC is old and under powered and would take ages to render the finely sculpted model at the highest level of detail.

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That is so awesome, I'm grinning from ear to ear! Lol! Just wow.
Thanks.

Got back to this after another break and I've started blocking in the major forms of the skull. For the detail sculpting nothing suits my workflow better than Blender's multi-resolution modifier. It gives me a few advantages over the other sculpting methods. I'll increase the subdivision when I can't get any more detailed at this level.

Although the cranium and jaw are seperate meshes I work on them together alternating between each part to ensure they fit together correctly. Because of the amount of planning and accuracy in the base meshes this is proving a trouble free process but I still test the fit periodically by rotating the jaw into the closed position.

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