DinoReplicas - dinosaur bone models and more

tarnyloo73

Well-Known Member
Accurate dinosaur skull and limb replicas

I'm taking the opportunity to showcase my growing collection of 3D printed dinosaur fossil models.
All models are AVAILABLE ON SHAPEWAYS in a range of scales, you can pick your preferred size from the menu. The skulls have articulating jaws.

Modelled in Blender 3D, I'm aiming for museum quality accuracy with this set. Each piece is heavily researched using the most detiled reference I can source, mostly published science papers and high resolution photos of original fossils.

Allosaurus skull (metallic acrylic paint for copper finish)

allo_copper_01b_by_strick67-dc3rwdm.jpg


Triceratops skull (same technique for bronze finish)

trike_bronze_01_by_strick67-dc4cji7.jpg


trike_bronze_02_by_strick67-dc4ck2e.jpg


Giraffatitan skull (formerly known as Brachiosaurus)

gira_01_by_strick67-dc41gq3.jpg


gira_03_by_strick67-dc41hda.jpg

Parasaurolophus skull

para_04_by_strick67-dc46kqx.jpg


para_03_by_strick67-dc46jqs.jpg


Velociraptor skull

veloc_01c_by_strick67-dc4hgc8.jpg


veloc_02_by_strick67-dc4hh59.jpg


Allosaurus arm

allo_arm_02_by_strick67-dc3hur4.jpg


Allosaurus foot

allo_foot_03_by_strick67-dc3nnrw.jpg


allo_foot_02_by_strick67-dc3nn4r.jpg


More photos HERE and HERE
Photography by Mushroom Imaging
 
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Re: Dinosaur skull model collection

Reckon it's time to update my 3D printed Tyrannosaurus skull. I thought I'd try a W.I.P. thread to document my process.

The rex skull was my first Shapeways model and now it's looking a bit lacking compared to my other products which are available in multiple scales and have improved articulated jaw joints.

I've got this idea for additional parts so I can have a few product variations.

To start with-

-Tyrannosaurus skull (only) with hinged jaw.
-T. rex skull with additional neck vertebrae.
-T. rex foot (bones)

Then maybe later-

-Life restoration bust
-Half life restoration bust/half bones (Harvey Dent version!)

rex_product_variations_by_strick67-dc7nw3a.jpg
 
What? No life sized???? sheez

Well, maybe if someone wanted one and the price was right ;D

nice stuff like them only the boney eye ring on the raptor looks pretty weird

Thanks. I know what you mean about the eye ring, not everyone likes it. Several velociraptor specimens have a well preserved sclerotic rings (posh name) and I've kind of got used to it. The model is easy to assemble without them though, just a couple of small square holes to fill.

WOW, these are really cool. Awesome sculpts.

Thanks, the important thing for me is to be as accurate as possible. I've had a good response so far from dino enthusiasts and some sales on Shapeways.
 
nice stuff :) like them only the boney eye ring on the raptor looks pretty weird ;)

The boney eye ring looks weird because you never see them. They never survived. Thats one of the first parts to disintegrate during fossilization. But it is accurate. These sculpts are wonderful. Great job
 
The boney eye ring looks weird because you never see them. They never survived. Thats one of the first parts to disintegrate during fossilization. But it is accurate. These sculpts are wonderful. Great job

You're correct in that most dinosaur fossils don't have them even though they were present in all dino species. Some examples have survived though they're really rare.

- - - Updated - - -

Always good to get away from computer and go analogue now and again.
1/10th is an nice easy drawing scale so a 1.52m long skull is 15.2 cm on the paper.

Proportions based on Stan, Trix and the AMNH skull.
This will be the main working drawing for the skull and the relative sizes and external features will be traced from it.

first_pic_by_strick67-dc7yft0.jpg
 
Added medial view of lower jaw.
Sue's mandibles are much less crushed than the cranium so this view was drawn by studying the Brochu paper and also Witmerlab's Stan photos.

interior_jaw_by_strick67-dc7znbk.jpg
 
I've been making a lot of sketches to familiarise myself with the structure of the skull, particularly the internal bones of the brain-case and the palette and how they connect to the exterior. In addition to the other references I found there's an excellent 3D PDF of the stan skull you can download from Witmerlab. Link - https://people.ohio.edu/witmerl/3D-Visualization.htm

With Adobe Acrobat you can cross section the 3D model allowing you to see inside as you rotate and zoom around the details.
Most of the sketches are little more than scribbles and difficult to interpret but this one I developed a bit further. The drawings really help me to understand the shape in 3D and are essential to the sculpting process.

palette_braincase_by_strick67-dc85twt.jpg
 
These are incredible.
What 3D printer do you use and how do you get it with no 'lines' like I see in a lot of people's prints. Do you do an acetone bath or is this right off the printer and painted?
 
What 3D printer do you use and how do you get it with no 'lines' like I see in a lot of people's prints. Do you do an acetone bath or is this right off the printer and painted?

I don't have a 3D printer (yet). I make the models available on Shapeways. It's one of the leading commercial 3D print services.
Customers who have contacted me have always commended the company on the quality of the prints.
 
Ventral view
Probably wraps it up for the skull sketches. I'll add more if I need the details.
Spent a lot of effort on this and need to pick up the pace or my (middle aged) attention span will sputter out. concentrate on neck next.

rex_skull_ventral_by_strick67-dc8crda.jpg
 
Back with more stuff after an eventful week.
Tricky to find decent ref of the rex atlas bone (first cervical). It's missing from the Sue specmen but the Brochu paper includes some photos from 'Black Beauty' (RTMP 81.6.1,), there's also a few decent pics in the Osborn papers.

The Trix 3D scan was most helpful though, I had to rotate the view round the back of head and zoom in to see the form.

rex_atlas_drawing_by_strick67-dc8zatb.jpg
 
Tyrannosaurus cervical vertebrae, sketched at 1/10th scale
Observations made from multiple references.

Row 1 - c1-c9 left lateral view view + c8 anterior view
Row 2 - 1st 7 cervical ribs - same orientation
Row 3 - c1-c7 anterior view
Row 4 - c1-c7 posterior view

rex_cervicals_multi_small_by_strick67-dc905ix.jpg
 
That's a lot of fantastically made and well researched reference sketches. A joy to see. :)

Thanks, It's my biggest project yet and it needs a fair bit of pre-production.

- - - Updated - - -

Needed to pick up the pace again so I've started poly modelling the skull. Method is to create a low-polygon model which is later subdivided for sculpting fine details. Still more drawing to do, especially for the foot but I needed a mode change to perk up my motivation a bit.

Giving the drawings a transparent background is the most unintrusive way to work with templates in Blender, the color-to-alpha filter in Krita does this easily. The main template drawing is 16 grid squares wide with each square representing 10cm. Blender lets me set the background image to 1.6m wide to precisely size the template.

Then it's just a case of adding polygons (using the template to position vertices) to try to best represent the necessary topology and topography. It takes a bit of adjustment, shuffling vertices around until I get the correct form. I try keep the polys at a particular size. The model will be heavily subdivided when it comes to detail sculpting and I want to avoid areas of too high or low polygon density.

rex_skull_wip_03_by_strick67-dc9c81t.jpg


rex_skull_wip_02_by_strick67-dc9c80f.jpg


rex_skull_wip_01_by_strick67-dc9c7yw.jpg
 
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