Oh my! A Daily Deviation! In less than two days since i put this up! Thankyou so much everyone and DeviantArt! This is my first and only one!

My special project. This has taken me almost two months to complete, made of wire, foil, epoxy glue, Super Sculpey polymer clay, Liquid Sculpey and various coats of white spirit. A number of things inspired me to make a sculpture, but it was the book on Stan Winston ( ‘The Winston Effect’ ) that really got me sculpting. When I was attending university, if I missed the bus home, I would walk around Canterbury until the next one arrived – one of my favourite pass-times was to go in Waterstones and browse film, history and music books. I stumbled upon The Winston Effect and decided I’d buy it cheaper online – but I always forgot. I can’t recall how I managed to remember to buy it, but I did and managed to get one of the special edition signed copies recently One of the most amazing books I’ve looked at (haven’t read it all yet), Stan Winston and his studio of artists are simply masters. I decided then and there I’d make a dinosaur sculpture. Ahh but which dinosaur to choose, well I figured when I was a kid, I remember wishing I had that little baby Velociraptor from Jurassic Park, so I figured I’d make what the child version of myself never had. Thus followed lots of sketches and eventually a little concept sketch of what pose I’d put him in. I also made a little prototype out of red fimo to give me a three-dimensional insight to how he would sit.

Then I drew a profile full-body sketch of what he’d look like, trying to get it as anatomically correct as possible. I scanned this and then printed it out to the size I would make the sculpture. With that done, I made the wire frame, carefully making sure the size matched up to my drawing. I bulked out the belly, neck and head with foil, and put some epoxy glue around the shoulders and pelvis. Then added clay, building up the shape gradually, creating muscle tone etc etc. The scales took the longest, and drove me up the wall being so fiddly, intricate and time consuming. I’ve gone over several areas of the sculpture because I felt it didn’t look right.

I feel I could add more to it, but I fear the clay drying up and going horrible (as I’ve seen with some useless fimo experiments I never could be bothered to bake) – plus, it has taken me long enough already. He’s going in the oven tomorrow, there might be the odd crack here and there, but hopefully he’ll be alright. I’ve dubbed him ‘Little Bird’, simply because I’d play my ocarina when taking breaks from sculpting. Playing 村時雨 Village Rain, the song reminded me of a bird, then I started thinking of the ancestry of dinosaurs, little dinosaurs playing with their siblings…and the name stuck for my sculpture.

Thankyou so much to and who both very kindly gave me valuable tips when i set about making this sculpture - your encouragement and advice really helped me and inspired me.

I will get round to painting this at some point.

*Note: Yes I know Velociraptor did not have this exact anatomy - so please people stop trying to be smart-alecs by telling me it isn't a Velociraptor - believe me, being told countless times over what i already know is tiresome so save your breath. The point is that it is my tribute to the great late Stan Winston, and I love Jurassic Park*