Palaeoart

Polacanthus Reconstruction: Part 11 ‘Caudal Spines’

 

Previously I wrote about sculpting a pair of the enigmatic ‘Splate’ spines. Something I will be returning to later. With a pair of Polacanthine Splates finished, the next job was to sculpt all the spines of the tail.

Based on a couple of different interpretations I needed to sculpt between 22-24 Caudal Spines, now that’s a lot of spines! Fortunately they get smaller towards the end the tail.

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Unlike the ‘Splate’ I do have a cast of an (early to middle) tail spine to refer too. So I measured the spine and drew it at just over half scale to make a template.

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With the outline marked on the extruded polystyrene I cut the shape out and started to carve the spine.

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Once the first spine was finished I carved the other spine of the pair.

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With the first pair of Caudal Spines finished I repeated the process by sculpting the second pair of spines (using the first pair as an example).

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At the end of the day I took a group shot of all the pairs of spines (Cervical - Pectoral, to Caudal) sculpted to date.

Next time I will complete the process of sculpting the remaining Caudal Spines.

 

Dinosaur Expeditions Blog

Hello,

Welcome to the Dinosaur Expeditions C.I.C. Blog.

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Dinosaur Expeditions is a Community Interest Company based on the Isle of Wight, United Kingdom.

We were created by local fossil enthusiasts to promote responsible fossil collecting and the creation of original palaeoart.

We have set-up the Dinosaur Expeditions Conservation and Paleoart Centre (a.k.a. The Dinosaur Expeditions Centre) at the site of the former Dinosaur Farm Museum, near Brighstone in the West Wight.

We are next to six and a half miles of coastline exposing 125 million year old, Lower Cretaceous mud; regarded as one of the best localities for Dinosaur fossils in Europe.

This blog will showcase the work our volunteers do to discover and conserve new fossil discoveries and then interpret them through palaeoart.

Thanks for reading.

Oliver

Dinosaur Expeditions C.I.C.

www.dinosaurexpeditions.co.uk