PURCHASED:
070119

BEGUN:
070212

CONSTRUCTION LOG



070218.05
What a big fella!  Having this guy running around the house would be bad.  Even at this size, he'd eat the cats and likely finish me off too.

This is the first vinyl kit that I am constructing. Can't say as I have become fond of all the cutting involved with vinyl.  Too many easy and opportune chances to slice oneself very badly.

All the cutting went easy enough.  It seems to be a matter of cutitng the majority away, test fit, cut, test, cut, test, finesse, finesse etc.  These pieces were a fairly poor fit overall in several places.  The waist, neck and tail specifically had gaping space that will be puttied.  I could get one side or the other to fit well, but not both simultanesouly.  Were crazy glue as effective on vinyl as everything else, it would have been far, far easier.

But, I got him mostly together over several hours.  The legs had to wait for the body to fully cure. Then it was one leg one day, then the other leg the other day.  The jaw comes in 4 parts: head, upper mouth roof, lower mouth and bottom jaw (Five, sir! And tongue -i forgot!). 

I have to paint the inner mouth first, then the inner jaws (and tongue) before final jaw assembly.  Then putty, mask and paint the body.  It's not going to be fun.

A major decison will be the paint scheme!  No direct refs of course, so I gotta check a bunch of different lizards.  The most basic decision wil be base color: grey, brown or green are what I'm thinking of.  Refs should help out. Perhaps some kind of paisly, tartan or argyle motif?  Hmmm.

Terrible balance on this beast.  If I'd glued the legs on the way they seemed to be designed, this Tyranosaur would be standing tall like the old days before the whole dinosaur rethink a couple years ago when T-Rex was a nightmarish predator rather than the likely scavenger that he was...

So, further finagling with the leg joint and he now strides low as he should.  The balance is still bad and I will have to take a lighter to his legs and toes to get him fully stable.  He does stand on his own right now, but it's the tip of one claw on the right foot and a single pad on the left.  Dropping him in the diorama sand will be a big stabilizer, so maybe I shouldn't melt him...  The arms need to be though, they stick way out to the sides.  I want to drop them a little more center.

Already have the diorama in mind.  Simple masonite slab  (good thing I've got plenty!), about 4" x 10". Deep sand, embedded footprints behind him, standing next to one of my houseplants. 

May deduce some kind of meat for his jaws.  Ideally, find another dinosaur for him to be friends with, like a stegosaur or triceratops.  Common, I know, but a couple of my faves. T's pose does not suggest a future combat scene, unfortunately...

The putty all went in fine and required a fair amount of work.  Let that dry a few days and carved it away last night.  It'll fully cure in the next couple days and then the ultimate trick is going to be matching the extremely fine skin detail! Dremel I think.


070222.09
Three days ago, I began cutting away the excess putty. That took two days. Yesterday, I etched most of the putty to match the skin texture.  Primed white yesterday and was pleased with the intital result!  I've got more etching to do and probably a little bit more on the putty.  But it's real close.

I also spot-roasted the guy's feet and arms to bend them into place. He's still a little off balance, but far better than balancing on the tip of a claw and a toe-pad. Now he rests on one complete foot and two toes on the other.  The arms now hang lower and more central instead of sticking way out to the sides.


070224.16
Yesterday I sculpted the putty lines for a few hours, adding a dash more putty here and there.  I also gave the maw its' bloody reds. The mouth interior needed painting first before assembly as there are too many nooks and cranies to paint afterwards.  Gave him a new priming this afternoon to help see where further work is required on the putty.

Once the jaws go in, I have to putty and sculpt the horrible gaps found there.  Masking his mouth off may be tough, but we'll see.

I glued the lower to upper jaws and let them sit a few hours.  Next I tried test fitting the jaw sub-assembly yesterday and broke the glue bond in the process.  I glued that back together this afternoon and I hope not to touch it all day long until tomorrow when the bond is firm.

The fit of the inner jaw lines to outer skin is so horrible that I will likely have to pile the putty into the space, with the glue, cram the inner jaws in and hope it all works well.  It took awhile to get the 4 pieces crammed correctly.  I did minor cutting, which helped, but it's still gonna be a major fight.

Despite the problems, I did manage to cram his jaw onto his head for a 'sucessful' test fitting.  Unfortunately, the jaw pieces alone weigh nearly as much as his body and he is extremely unbalanced again.  So I gotta melt his feet one more time to get things right. 

I hadn't imagined that the jaw pieces could throw the weight off by that much!  Previously, his center of balance was right around the hips -where it should be.  With the jaws in place, the CoB is right at his lower neck!

At worst, he will be glued into place once I've got the Marblex laid down on his base.  It would be useful if he could stand on his own two feet while airbrushing though...


070225.23
Stuffed the lower jaw full of putty from the inside to fill in the gaps of the teeth to the mandible. That will need spot painting to fix.  Doing this putty work from the outside would have looked terrible.  This way, it looks like inner gum welling up into place.

Jammed the lower mandible assembly onto the upper jaw/head.
I had to trim away several times from both sections as the upper right-hand teeth get scrunched to the inside before the final fit. 

The teeth will need additional work to straighten them out now.  The only way to do this is to pour the glue in the gap and place a large object in his mouth to force the teeth apart and into the jaw walls while the glue sets.

Once the jaw was wedged into place, I poured crazy glue all around the perimeter.  There was no point in putting any on first as the wedging and fixing would have smeared it all away by the time it was in place anyway...

The gaps around his jaw allow  one to view straight thru to the other side unobstructed. As with all the other gaps and seams, one side fit in pretty well, leaving the other as a gaping wound. Matching this skin texture here will be the most difficult as the skin sags around his neck in many different ways and has many variations as different parts of the body converge in this area.

Melted a few toes into their new poz to help him stand.   Did this twice.  The first time was alright for a few minutes, then he fell over.  I expect that though the feet were 'frozen' into place w/ cold water, they still needed time to fully harden and the overbearing weight simply took its toll.  So I did it again.

This time, he is laying on his back for the night.  This serves a double purpose as the glue needs to run up into his head, rather than down his neck for the jaws to set. 


070226.20
Puttied in his jaw, but failed to get photos of the gaping hole first (I think)...

The rigth side sticks way out from the neck, so I will need to build that up over a few days of curing time. Also, the lower neck has a poor fit that will need some extra attention. The left side of the jaw fits pretty well, but still requires some work.

I melted his toes yet again and he seems to finally be standing with good stability. There's still more putty to add, so that may change...

I went over the rest of the putty on his body, scraping away minor buildups and debris that was stuck to the body.  Very little new carving was required.  It's all down to the neck at this point.

Once the jaw work is done and sculpted, a quick white primer and he's immeditealy ready for the airbrush!


070524
Over the last few months, he lost his balance again and he's been leaning against the nearest wall like the drunk that he is since then.

Got the airbrush pipeline going the other day and it was finally this guy's turn yesterday.

While I worked on others before him, I burned any excess paint on him to get an overall coverage of tans and browns -as I was working on people-skin during that time.

After doing some research last week I settled on generic alligator/crocodile for the coloring.  I also looked at Komodo Dragons as well, but they were a bit too uniform and bland for my tastes.

General paint used were a couple greens -jade and olive, purple for mixing, some flat browns, sienna's, peach, creams and tans. Darkest colors run along the spine fading down to the creams and yellows of the underside.

Went nice and easy.  Wasn't totally happy wiht the first day's painting, got it good and lost it on the 2nd day's work before finally getting it back together on the 3rd and final's days touchups.

This afternoon, I mixed up some yellow/brown/cream for his teeth and claws.

Last night I got a couple tubs of standard white glue, broke that slab out for his base, doused it with the glue and dropepd sand and a lichen/grass mix I had cooked up for the riverbed diorama.

While the thick glue set, I mashed his footprints into the surface to give him some tracks.  Looks good.  The yellow and black eyes were the finishing touches.

Took long enough, but it was worth the wait and the patience.  I'll be looking for a quality skeleton model for my next dinosaur kit.  No dino in mind, whatever comes along is most likely what I'll get.


071104
Noticed after a few months that Rex was leaning.  Turns out, vinyl kits sag over time!  I need to reinforce his leg so that he stands straight forever.  Turns out people often stuff parts with rolled newspaper. It's too late to do this in this case, so am considering some form of wire or metal stick to insert through the bottom of his foot.


080113.12
I got some brass rods yesterday, sliced them up and inserted them into the left leg through the ankle. I need to drill a hole into the Jurassic Mud diorama.

There are about five or six rods bundled into the leg. I thought I'd drive the rod straight up into the body, but forgot that the lower and upper legs are separated by a wall.

Nevertheless, they should be stable enough to keep him standing straight. It will be done with the dremel repair.