(my dance with dinosaurs)
page 5
BUILDING A BETTER STEGOSAURUS
This is an ITC Stegosaurus,
built in 1957. As I recounted on the first page, this
was my brother's model and I had to do some restoration of
missing plates when I dug it out of storage in the early
1990's. Since then I have put together new versions of
the Tyrannosaurus and Brontosaurus kits in this series,
re-released by Glencoe Models in the 1990's. In doing
so, I tried to make them more accurate in reflecting modern
thinking regarding dinosaur posture as well as improving
detail in many of the rather crudely cast pieces.
I have had a reissued Glencoe kit of this beast in my closet
for a long time, and recently decided
to see if I could make it into a more modern 21st century
Stegosaurus.
NEW AND IMPROVED STEGOSAURUS
When I opened the box, my primary plan was to raise the
tail off the ground as modern thinking says they weren't tail
draggers. I also wanted to make the tail spikes into a
more horizontal "thagomizer" instead of the
old-fashioned upright configuration. Then I
took a closer look at the pieces and realized how much work
was ahead. As is typical of all of the kits in the ITC
series, the vertebrae are narrow and oval rather than thick
and round. The articulations between the vertebral
facets are only vaguely represented and if anyone really
wanted to fix this central issue, they would probably be
better off sculpting an entire model from scratch. I
decided to be content to try to enhance the disc demarcations
between the bones and in a few places cut deeper grooves to
depict intra-spinal articulations, but not to be obsessive
about it.
I always considered the skull of the Stegosaurus to be its blandest feature, and this old model is probably the reason.
2. Pin between tail and sacrum.
3. Old femur insertion removed and puttied.
NEW AND IMPROVED STEGOSAURUS
I always considered the skull of the Stegosaurus to be its blandest feature, and this old model is probably the reason.
There is very little
detail in the original. A seam runs where there
should be an opening and the mandible looks more like a
lifeboat than a jaw. I added some putty
and went to work with my Dremel. The orbits and
nostrils were enlarged and I added fenestrae
behind and above the eyes, as well as removing everything
in the lower jaw that didn't look like a jaw. I also
carved out the underside of the skull so the poor thing
would be able to swallow.
This is the new head, with all of the added openings
1. New disk spacers from number
tabs.
This is the new head, with all of the added openings
I cleaned up the neck
and accentuated the cervical ribs. I thought
about adding osteoderms under the neck and making new
ribs from sprue, but decided that would be too much
trouble. I may add them later.
As is typical of these kits, the ribs needed work.
There has been some controversy over the position of the front limbs of Stegosaurus. Some think that they are bent at the elbow and others believe that the front end was perched on fairly straight legs. Either way, the head is supposed to be held fairly low, so I decided to stick with the bent position.* While I didn't plan to do much in the way of putting the legs in a different pose, they needed a LOT of work. The parts of the front legs didn't really line up with the joints and the rather crude casting quality made it tough to tell which bones were which. At the elbows I had to decide how to show the radius and ulna as separate bones rather than a single messy clash of shapes. Large seams that were almost extra joints had to be filled with putty. Then there were the feet... They consisted of softly formed clusters of toes with no delineation at all showing interphalageal joints. I tried to deepen the gaps between the toes and used a cutting tool to make some rudimentary lines suggesting toes, but they still pretty much look as if this Stegosaurus is wearing mittens. The feet are not the strongest part of this model.
*As will be seen below, after putting the whole thing together, I changed my mind.
As is typical of these kits, the ribs needed work.
There isn't
anything to set the ribs apart from the vertebrae
and there is a pretty obvious seam between the
parts. In the second image I show a sharpie
line that gives an idea of where to apply the
Dremel. The plastic is fairly soft and
shreds easily, which makes precise cuts
tough. Nonetheless, after a lot of cutting,
puttying and sanding, there is at least a
suggestion that there is a dividing line between
the ribs and the vertebrae to which they attach.
There has been some controversy over the position of the front limbs of Stegosaurus. Some think that they are bent at the elbow and others believe that the front end was perched on fairly straight legs. Either way, the head is supposed to be held fairly low, so I decided to stick with the bent position.* While I didn't plan to do much in the way of putting the legs in a different pose, they needed a LOT of work. The parts of the front legs didn't really line up with the joints and the rather crude casting quality made it tough to tell which bones were which. At the elbows I had to decide how to show the radius and ulna as separate bones rather than a single messy clash of shapes. Large seams that were almost extra joints had to be filled with putty. Then there were the feet... They consisted of softly formed clusters of toes with no delineation at all showing interphalageal joints. I tried to deepen the gaps between the toes and used a cutting tool to make some rudimentary lines suggesting toes, but they still pretty much look as if this Stegosaurus is wearing mittens. The feet are not the strongest part of this model.
*As will be seen below, after putting the whole thing together, I changed my mind.
A quick look at
the hips and pelvis revealed what is probably the
most amazing shortcut and incredible inaccuracy in
this kit. One of the basic and defining
characteristics of all dinosaurs is the open
acetabulum, or hip joint. The opening is
formed where the three bones of the pelvis, the
pubis, ilium and ischium come together and the
femur, or thigh bone is supposed to fit into that
gap. This model shows the femur butted into
the underside of the iliac crest and there is no
hip joint at all! The rest of the pelvis is
also a mess. Stegosaurus is an ornithischian
dinosaur, meaning that its pubis has an extension
that runs backwards along the ischium rather than
projecting forward in a large boot-shaped bone as
seen in theropods such as the Tyrannosaurus.
In looking at this model I could never understand
how the ornithischian pelvis was constructed and
it was now evident why it always seemed so
confusing. The iliac rest looked pretty good
aside from the slots on the underside for the
misplaced femurs, but the lower pelvis parts are
pretty much devoid of detail and consist of little
more than Y-shaped blobs representing the
smushed-together ischium and pubis.
From the old version, the lack of a hip joint can be seen at the upper arrow and the fused, blobbish ischium and pubis is shown at the lower arrow.
From the old version, the lack of a hip joint can be seen at the upper arrow and the fused, blobbish ischium and pubis is shown at the lower arrow.
I decided that
I would need to get rid of the slots on the
underside of the iliac crests, make heads for
the femurs, and while I was at it, show the
difference between the pubis and the ischium,
In this
picture a Sharpie has been used on the
ischium/pubis to show the dividing line
between the bones and where the acetabulum
will be. I have also cut the locating
tab off of the end of the femur so that I
can replace it with a plausible femoral
head.
This kit
has really heavy sprue and a
couple of short lengths attached to the
ends of the femurs make a nice basis for
a head to articulate with an open
acetabulum.
Some
putty has been applied to the femurs and
the demarcation between the pelvic bones
as well as the open hip sockets are now
pretty obvious. There
was still some drilling to do and those
slots on the iliac crests still needed
to be removed, but these parts make a
much better pelvis!
Finally it was time to work on the tail, which was really the part I originally expected to alter the most. The way the tail joined the body would need to be altered in order to have it up in the air instead of dragging on the ground. The change in angle needed to happen over several inter-vertebral joints rather than in one place to avoid it appearing that the poor thing simply sat down too hard and broke it. I began by cutting through the discs between the first five vertebrae at the base of the tail and inserting spacers made from number tabs scavenged from the model. Once the discs were cut, the articulations between the neural spines bent easily. I drilled a couple of holes into the center of the first few vertebrae and into the sacrum to allow me to insert pins to hold everything together.
Finally it was time to work on the tail, which was really the part I originally expected to alter the most. The way the tail joined the body would need to be altered in order to have it up in the air instead of dragging on the ground. The change in angle needed to happen over several inter-vertebral joints rather than in one place to avoid it appearing that the poor thing simply sat down too hard and broke it. I began by cutting through the discs between the first five vertebrae at the base of the tail and inserting spacers made from number tabs scavenged from the model. Once the discs were cut, the articulations between the neural spines bent easily. I drilled a couple of holes into the center of the first few vertebrae and into the sacrum to allow me to insert pins to hold everything together.
2. Pin between tail and sacrum.
3. Old femur insertion removed and puttied.
All of the gaps were then
puttied and sanded.
Finally, it was time to
alter the "thagomizer". The attachment tabs on the
spikes were bent to allow an open angle between them and
they were glued in place.
At this point, the
basic skeleton was complete and all that remained was
the addition of the plates. The largest plate,
at the base of the tail, just didn't fit on its tab
without running into the next tab and following
plate. I drilled a hole into it and another into
the neural spine and used wire to attach it.
That worked well and it occurred to me that if I
attached ALL of the plates that way, I could have them
standing up or folded over, as the earliest depictions
of Stegosaurus showed them sloped downward like
roof tiles. However, that seemed like way too
much work and I knew if I played with them too much,
they would eventually break off and be really hard to
reattach. So the rest are glued onto the tabs
projecting from the neural spines.
While I got down to work painting it with a coat of black primer, dark brown mixed with red for a second coat and a misting of medium gray with flat black washes and a little bit of medium brown dry brushing, I began to have misgivings about the way it looked. As I said before, I had decided to leave the front legs bent and in modifying the hips I actually added at least a centimeter to the length of the femurs as well as moving their attachment points down from the iliac crest to the new sockets. The end result was an animal that was really tipped forward with really long upper legs giving it a gigantic stride. Before adding the plates and spikes, here is how it looked:
While I got down to work painting it with a coat of black primer, dark brown mixed with red for a second coat and a misting of medium gray with flat black washes and a little bit of medium brown dry brushing, I began to have misgivings about the way it looked. As I said before, I had decided to leave the front legs bent and in modifying the hips I actually added at least a centimeter to the length of the femurs as well as moving their attachment points down from the iliac crest to the new sockets. The end result was an animal that was really tipped forward with really long upper legs giving it a gigantic stride. Before adding the plates and spikes, here is how it looked:
No matter how I
looked at it, it seemed more like a skedaddling
Scelidosaurus than the self-confident Stegosaurus
I was trying to make. My misgivings were
confirmed when friends viewing some preliminary
shots commented on the length of the stride and
wondered if I had a reason for keeping the front
legs bent. The more I thought about
it, then more I felt that I should probably make
some changes. Accuracy aside, there is
another agenda here. I am planning to
re-build my original Stegosaurus as a somewhat
different stegosaurid. Most other members of
the family are always shown with bent front legs
and are all smaller than the North American
Stegosaurus stenops on which this model is based.
They are all shorter, and bending the
elbows will help with the illusion of a smaller
animal. I'm not sure when I will get to that
project, but at least I am thinking ahead.
As far as the front legs were concerned, I had a hard time finding good images of skeletons with them straightened rather than bent. There are plenty of pictures of life restorations in that configuration, but most museum skeleton displays don't seem to have been adjusted. This summer I had gone to a display at the San Diego Natural History Museum where a Stegosaurus skeleton from the American Museum in New York was on display. After taking a few pictures I was told that photography was verboten, but in reviewing my photos, I was delighted to find that I had gotten the shots I needed, and they showed the front legs in a vertical configuration! To be honest, I was not that impressed with the way the joints articulated in that mount, but I decided to go ahead and make the necessary changes. Clenching my teeth, I snapped the front legs off from the scapulas and used a wire cutter to do the same to the rear legs. Of course, this caused the spine to snap at the the lumbar-sacral junction, so I used that as an opportunity to insert a long steel pin for future stability. Next I used a razor saw to make the necessary angled cuts to separate each humerus from the ulna with its olecranon.
As far as the front legs were concerned, I had a hard time finding good images of skeletons with them straightened rather than bent. There are plenty of pictures of life restorations in that configuration, but most museum skeleton displays don't seem to have been adjusted. This summer I had gone to a display at the San Diego Natural History Museum where a Stegosaurus skeleton from the American Museum in New York was on display. After taking a few pictures I was told that photography was verboten, but in reviewing my photos, I was delighted to find that I had gotten the shots I needed, and they showed the front legs in a vertical configuration! To be honest, I was not that impressed with the way the joints articulated in that mount, but I decided to go ahead and make the necessary changes. Clenching my teeth, I snapped the front legs off from the scapulas and used a wire cutter to do the same to the rear legs. Of course, this caused the spine to snap at the the lumbar-sacral junction, so I used that as an opportunity to insert a long steel pin for future stability. Next I used a razor saw to make the necessary angled cuts to separate each humerus from the ulna with its olecranon.
After some
putty and sanding, new articulations were
formed and reinforced with pins.
Old elbows New elbows
Old elbows New elbows
The femurs
were easier to fix. I chopped of the
revised heads and made new ones with extra
sprue, leaving them around one and a half
centimeters shorter, then glued them back
into the hips, using the base as a
template for location.
Each of the feet has a pin that fits into
the base, so the whole thing can be
removed. Some extra
touch-up on the paint was all that
remained. As with any model, there
are definitely ways to improve this beyond
what I already did, but at this point
there are no major issues eating at
me. I may still add some cervical
ribs, but I will probably leave the legs
alone unless there is some future
revelation that determines once and for
all that they are bent after all.
RESIN FATIGUE IN ALLOSAURS
TYRANNOSAURUS EVOLUTION
My Tyrannosaurus skeleton is an ongoing project. After several moves I noticed that a couple of toes were broken off and as long as I was gluing them back together I decided to adjust the arms. They had been in the standard pose reaching forward with palms facing down. Current thinking is that they are supposed to be hanging down and pronated so that the palms are facing inward. Cutting through the elbow joints was a bit tougher than I anticipated and I ended up having to re-glue both entire forelimbs, including the scapulae back to the ribs without benefit of locating pins as I removed them when I first put the kit together. Well, anything for accuracy, right?
RESIN FATIGUE IN ALLOSAURS
It was 2014 and
while I found it hard to believe, my
Ants Allosaurus was twenty years old!
Although I tend to think of my
models as fairly durable, I noticed
that this one was starting to show its
age. Over the years I have have
had to repair it a number of
times, most extensively when the right leg broke off during a move and required a metal pin in the hip socket to hold it in place and at the same time the head and first cervical vertebra snapped off and also needed a steel pin for stability. The tail is quite a lever arm and has broken in several places but I always just used superglue and kicker to repair it. Over the past year or more I have tried to ignore an increasing sag there but finally had to admit that the tip was dropping to the level of the ankle as there was bending in the resin at multiple joints, not just loosening in the glue bonding the pieces together. Pretty soon it would be regressing to become a tail dragger, a dinosaur depiction considered seriously out of date. As I moved the tail up and down I realized that it would almost have to become a solid mass of superglue to have any hope of rigidity and that would be even uglier than having the tail touch the ground. I briefly considered a wire support but discarded the idea on aesthetic grounds and besides there was the likelihood that it would continue to sag between the pelvis and any support and end up looking like a pony ready for the glue factory.
times, most extensively when the right leg broke off during a move and required a metal pin in the hip socket to hold it in place and at the same time the head and first cervical vertebra snapped off and also needed a steel pin for stability. The tail is quite a lever arm and has broken in several places but I always just used superglue and kicker to repair it. Over the past year or more I have tried to ignore an increasing sag there but finally had to admit that the tip was dropping to the level of the ankle as there was bending in the resin at multiple joints, not just loosening in the glue bonding the pieces together. Pretty soon it would be regressing to become a tail dragger, a dinosaur depiction considered seriously out of date. As I moved the tail up and down I realized that it would almost have to become a solid mass of superglue to have any hope of rigidity and that would be even uglier than having the tail touch the ground. I briefly considered a wire support but discarded the idea on aesthetic grounds and besides there was the likelihood that it would continue to sag between the pelvis and any support and end up looking like a pony ready for the glue factory.
With a little
downward pressure the tail snapped off
and a little bit of flexing showed
where other loose joints were as they
gave way.
Then it was
Dremel time, an always
anxiety-provoking activity.
Holding parts like these steady
while trying to drill directly
through their centers without having
the bit come popping out the side a
few vertebrae down the line and
avoiding snapping off transverse
processes demands a steadier hand
than I usually have. The
holes also have to line up with each
other, something that can be tough
to accomplish when the tip of the
drill keeps skipping around on
contact with the pieces.
I tried to make sure that the holes
extended through at least a couple
of vertebrae in each direction so
that wire would provide some serious
stability.
While I was at it, I decided to correct the listhesis between the two vertebrae on the right side of the largest hunk of tail . (That's the poor alignment between the bones causing a step-off where the arrow is pointing) and those bones were not loose at all, so I had to cut them apart before drilling. I then inserted lengths of stiff wire into the holes and slid the bones back over it like a string of pearls, adjusted the bend in a few places and exhaled.
I am pretty happy with the way it looks now and wish I had used a lot more wire and pins when I built it in the first place or better yet, brass connectors like Brant Bassam recommends on his website but this fix may last a while and a complete retrofit would probably be more hassle than it is worth. I'll know more in a few years if there are no new drags, sags or gravitationally induced snaps. As of 2019 it is holding up nicely!
While I was at it, I decided to correct the listhesis between the two vertebrae on the right side of the largest hunk of tail . (That's the poor alignment between the bones causing a step-off where the arrow is pointing) and those bones were not loose at all, so I had to cut them apart before drilling. I then inserted lengths of stiff wire into the holes and slid the bones back over it like a string of pearls, adjusted the bend in a few places and exhaled.
I am pretty happy with the way it looks now and wish I had used a lot more wire and pins when I built it in the first place or better yet, brass connectors like Brant Bassam recommends on his website but this fix may last a while and a complete retrofit would probably be more hassle than it is worth. I'll know more in a few years if there are no new drags, sags or gravitationally induced snaps. As of 2019 it is holding up nicely!
TYRANNOSAURUS EVOLUTION
My Tyrannosaurus skeleton is an ongoing project. After several moves I noticed that a couple of toes were broken off and as long as I was gluing them back together I decided to adjust the arms. They had been in the standard pose reaching forward with palms facing down. Current thinking is that they are supposed to be hanging down and pronated so that the palms are facing inward. Cutting through the elbow joints was a bit tougher than I anticipated and I ended up having to re-glue both entire forelimbs, including the scapulae back to the ribs without benefit of locating pins as I removed them when I first put the kit together. Well, anything for accuracy, right?
Old
arms
New arms
Come to think of it though, I should have added a furcula. Next time!
IMPORTANT LINKS
PLACES TO SEE AND FIND AMAZING THINGS
PREHISTORIC TIMES
THE source for almost anything about dinosaur models and sculptures.
SKULLDUGGERY
Manufacturer and seller of great fossil casts.
VALLEY ANATOMICAL
Manufacturer and seller of great fossil casts.
BLACK HILLS INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL RESEARCH STORE
Finders of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus and manufacturers of great skeleton casts.
TAYLOR MADE FOSSILS
Fascinating catalog of fossil casts, including an extensive line of pterosaurs.
KRONENOSTEO'S BONECLONES
Great source for resin casts of skulls and complete skeletons of animals both extant and extinct.
DINOSTOREUS (FOR HEALTHSTONES SKELETONS)
Extensive catalog of dinosaur skeleton and skull sculptures.
ECHOES IN TIME
Nice selection of resin dinosaur skulls in 1/2, 1/3 and 1/10 scales by Lasha Tshondia.
BRANT BASSAM'S BRANTWORKS
Lavishly illustrated tribute to model dinosaur skeletons and the people who make them.
GASTON DESIGNS
Sells full-size casts of dinosaurs and the source for the Platt Apatosaurus.
DOYLE TRANKINA'S SCULPTURES
Wonderful sculptures, including the flesh-on-one-side/bones-on-the-other Tyrannosaurus.
HORST BRUCKMAN'S GALLERY
Page after page of beautiful dinosaur models, including some rare skeletons.
TABURIN'S WOODEN DINOSAUR SKELETONS
Facebook gallery of Ryoji Tabuchi's hand-carved dinosaur and prehistoric mammal skeletons.
MODEL MUSEUM
Huge gallery of model dinosaurs, including some skeletons.
Vwuvwu's Dinosaur Museum
This guy makes 3D prints of a wonderful variety of dinosaur skeletons as well as a Smilodon. I haven't seen one up close, but it the images on his Facebook gallery are impressive!
Dinosaur Replicas on Shapeways
Desert Dinosaurs
Many of the other skeletons I mentioned can be found on Ebay and Amazon.com, or through TheFind.com
THE IMAGE ON THE FIRST PAGE AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM CAME FRO THE BOOK NEXT OF KIN, GREAT FOSSILS AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
BY LOWELL DINGUS RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS 1996
Come to think of it though, I should have added a furcula. Next time!
IMPORTANT LINKS
PLACES TO SEE AND FIND AMAZING THINGS
PREHISTORIC TIMES
THE source for almost anything about dinosaur models and sculptures.
SKULLDUGGERY
Manufacturer and seller of great fossil casts.
VALLEY ANATOMICAL
Manufacturer and seller of great fossil casts.
BLACK HILLS INSTITUTE OF GEOLOGICAL RESEARCH STORE
Finders of Sue, the Tyrannosaurus and manufacturers of great skeleton casts.
TAYLOR MADE FOSSILS
Fascinating catalog of fossil casts, including an extensive line of pterosaurs.
KRONENOSTEO'S BONECLONES
Great source for resin casts of skulls and complete skeletons of animals both extant and extinct.
DINOSTOREUS (FOR HEALTHSTONES SKELETONS)
Extensive catalog of dinosaur skeleton and skull sculptures.
ECHOES IN TIME
Nice selection of resin dinosaur skulls in 1/2, 1/3 and 1/10 scales by Lasha Tshondia.
BRANT BASSAM'S BRANTWORKS
Lavishly illustrated tribute to model dinosaur skeletons and the people who make them.
GASTON DESIGNS
Sells full-size casts of dinosaurs and the source for the Platt Apatosaurus.
DOYLE TRANKINA'S SCULPTURES
Wonderful sculptures, including the flesh-on-one-side/bones-on-the-other Tyrannosaurus.
HORST BRUCKMAN'S GALLERY
Page after page of beautiful dinosaur models, including some rare skeletons.
TABURIN'S WOODEN DINOSAUR SKELETONS
Facebook gallery of Ryoji Tabuchi's hand-carved dinosaur and prehistoric mammal skeletons.
MODEL MUSEUM
Huge gallery of model dinosaurs, including some skeletons.
Vwuvwu's Dinosaur Museum
This guy makes 3D prints of a wonderful variety of dinosaur skeletons as well as a Smilodon. I haven't seen one up close, but it the images on his Facebook gallery are impressive!
Dinosaur Replicas on Shapeways
There are 3D prints of dinosaur
skulls and complete skeletons from
several sculptors, including Dinosaur
Replicas ( Strick67)
and Vitamin
Imagination_VI. Use
the search function to find
more. They can be ordered in
a variety of scales as well
as various materials, including
different plastics and even
metals.
Desert Dinosaurs
Desert
Dinosaurs is making some very nice
looking skeleton models. Of
course, there is an Allosaurus and
a Tyrannosaurus, but they also
have an interesting Carnotaurus
and a Tylosaurus that looks great
hanging from the ceiling like a
whale. Their models are cast
resin and much like the Ant's
model, almost every bone is cast
separately. In addition to
their website, they have a great
Facebook page.
Many of the other skeletons I mentioned can be found on Ebay and Amazon.com, or through TheFind.com
THE IMAGE ON THE FIRST PAGE AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM CAME FRO THE BOOK NEXT OF KIN, GREAT FOSSILS AT THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
BY LOWELL DINGUS RIZZOLI INTERNATIONAL PUBLICATIONS 1996
THE
DEINONYCHUS SKULL PROFILE ON PAGE 1
CAME FROM DINOSAUR! BY DAVID
NORMAN, PH.D PRENTICE HALL 1991