Hi there, First time inthe figure forum, I seen a Dinosaur diorama at my Hobbyshop (modelland) that i’m interstent to buy,now I want to do a good job on that the kit, its not the diorama that I need hlp on its the dinosaur its-self. Tamiya 1/48 Tyranosaurus rex (figure the name), but I mostly been doing miltary vehicules but I want the t-rex to be my best model.
Does anyone has any advise on what to do? Any help will do on the dino.
Only thing I could think of is to really fill the seams well with some kind of putty. On a tank, a seam doesnt look like a big deal, because it just looks like 2 metal plates coming together, but on a person or an animal, a seem would look really unnatural. HTH
T-Rex,
I’m in the painting stage on the Tamiya 1/35 scale Triceratops. One suggestion on seams (especially those most visible like along the head, back, and tail)-- I used liquid cement, and held the parts tight enough to allow a bead of cement to squeeze out along the seam. Then I used a seam scraper (better than an exacto blade) to remove the excess and ended up with an invisible seam line that required no filling at all. Also, for some of the other seams that I did have to fill (leg joints) I made use of the wrinkles and folds that are molded into the plastic— extending them or creating new ones across and diagonal to the seam line. I mostly used files for this, but in one spot I used my 15watt soldering iron with the fine tip which I also used for making zimmerit on my Tiger I. This technique effectively makes any seam lines disappear into the generally wrinkled/folded look of the surrounding skin.
Painting is both easy and hard. Easy in the sense that no one knows what these animals really looked like, so anything you do is “correct”. I decided that triceratop males displayed “mating” colors, so I embellished my base green and brown coats with yellows, oranges, and reds along the spine, around the perimeter of the circular skull plate, at the bumps on the skin, and on the cheeks and snout. Painting is hard in that you really need to do a lot of preshading, highlighting, and layering and blending of different colors. I used Tamiya acrylics and my AB, but I can see where artist oils might be another way of accomplishing the blending and shading that is necessary to get a “natural” look.
I have the T-Rex, Stegosaurus, and Raptors yet to build, but I’m really enjoying this (my first) dino kit. It’s such a change of pace and perspective from the mostly “pre-determined” approach to aircraft, armor, and ships.
TomB