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Triceratops - 1:35 Tamiya


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I can remember admiring the Tamiya dinosaur range when I was a kid, and checking out the fantastic builds in the catalogues of the day. I never did buy one though, even though I was quite a dino fan in my youth, but I was at Monk Bar Models in York the other day (well worth a visit if you're in the area(, and there was one there for a snip, so with the vocal approval of my little boy, we went to the cash desk with this and a little Corgi Typhoon (he had been a very good sprog that day).

Yesterday, we set about building it together on the patio table, under the cover of a large umbrella to shelter us from the sun. We'd prepared the assemblies the night before during a short session while he was telling me dinner would be ready in half an hour, so it was a case of clean-up the seams with knife-edge and sanding stick (he helped with a very worn-out fine stick), and assemble the majority of the few parts in the box. It goes together pretty well considering its age, although the leg joints have some pronounced steps here and there, so some folds were reinstated and created using some files and the edge of a sanding stick. I also broke out the Milliput, and ably assisted by the Boy, we rolled out a big sausage and created a mouth to fill the void between his jaws - the dinosaur, not the Boy :rolleyes:

A lower mouth was roughly sculpted from a blob of putty pushed into the gap, then a tongue was fashioned and laid on top of it, with tiny depressions marked with a modelling tool to simulate a rough tongue. The upper mouth was created the same was as the lower, and marked in the style of an animal's mouth from memory, with the rear dropping down to hide the gap between the two halves. I also drilled and carved out the nostrils to give them more depth, and sanded a sharp edge off the eyes to give them a more rounded look. The spare Milliput was rolled into thin sausages and packed into the leg seams, then tooled to create more folds and creases to further hid the joints.

Although the joints on the legs have been well hidden now, I couldn't tell until I'd primed it whether the seam down the front of the head and neck collar would need any further work. It does :rolleyes: The seam is far too prominent and smooth, so a little extra putty will be pressed into service to hide that. Pics before priming, although I'd already started the upper mouth when it occurred to me to take some :doh:

1.jpg

2.jpg

It's primed now, which has shown up some areas not mentioned above that need work, but it's starting to look the part. I just hope I can do it justice with the painting :S

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Ok watch this with intrest never bought one but keep looking at them but what colour do you paint a dino????

I can remember admiring the Tamiya dinosaur range when I was a kid

I didnt know they had being around that long :bleh:

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what colour do you paint a dino????

Dinosaur-coloured, of course.

I can remember admiring the Tamiya dinosaur range when I was a kid ... I didnt know they had being around that long

The kits, or ... ?
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It's quite good that they've done them in the same scale as the armour, so you can see just how wickle our iron behemoths are compared to these prehistoric monsters :)

As to colour, I'm not that inventive with colour schemes, so I'll just find a good one on the net & copy that ^_^


The kits, or ... ?

I was ignoring that one Sean... I wouldn't mind, but he's around my age! :rolleyes:

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It's ok actually - a bit retro in design because that's what the thoughts were on how a dinosaur would look back then. The latest thoughts are that they were more bird-like and agile, with possible bright colouring, fur and even feathers. :shrug:

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It's ok actually - a bit retro in design because that's what the thoughts were on how a dinosaur would look back then. The latest thoughts are that they were more bird-like and agile, with possible bright colouring, fur and even feathers. :shrug:

Not a Triceratops, though. Anything that eats plants for a living needs a huge gut to digest them, especially the material that was around then, so it would have been a bit of a porker regardless. The feathers and jumping about stuff was generally for the carnivorous types.

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Yes... I was generalising :rolleyes: I've hidden the head seam now by adding small dabs of Tamiya's own putty, softened and smoothed a little with Tamiya's extra-thin glue, which look remarkably similar (if not identical) to the kit's surface texture. :hmmm: Pics later :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sounds like good fun Mike.

There is a nice Tamiya T-Rex too. It also needs the mouth sorting out (otherwise you can see through to the back of its head but it does have a tongue. I have a part-built one on my desk - trying to figure out how to recreate the bumpy skin on the seams, so your suggestion on Tamiya putty sounds good.

I also bought the Tri at Modelzone Croydon recently for £3 - hopefully not the last kit I buy from there :-(

re: colours - I found some pictures of lizards on the web and the painted the mouth light pink/flesh colour and I plan to add grey/dark grey around the edges of the mouth.

anthony

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  • 3 weeks later...

Looks like a great start, and nice to be doing something a bit different. Also "DINOSAUR!" is probably the best tag ever - a guarantee of greatness.

I've been painting a Games Workshop fantasy dino off and on lately, I should take some pictures really.

Will

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It's ok actually - a bit retro in design because that's what the thoughts were on how a dinosaur would look back then. The latest thoughts are that they were more bird-like and agile, with possible bright colouring, fur and even feathers. :shrug:

The feathers would have been on the smaller theropods - dromeosaurs and the like. But larger animals such as ceratopsians may well have had bright colouring, especially along the neck frill. Research has shown that the horns were not as strong as previously thought, so the animals would not have used them for combat. They were more likely used in a display function to intimidate predators and rivals. It makes sense to have them brightly coloured in that case.

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Ahhhh some one is up to date with dino's modern theorys!! Imagination can fly with this models!!! after all NO ONE will come up with a picture of an actual dino proving that what you did is wrong :banghead: .

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That's the plan ;) We've stalled a bit with the build, although I did start work on filling the joint between the head and the body yesterday. The boy managed to drop it on its horns a few minutes ago though, so I need to re-point two of them. Kids eh? :rolleyes:

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  • 8 months later...

Hi Mike,

Very promising start. Nice indeed.

I have recently finished one of these things. Had not discovered your thread, but came independently to the same mouth solution - your palatal vault looks much better than mine, though. Had I seen this before, I would have copied it and also the idea of making the eyes more round in shape - I only exaggerated the ''eyebrows'' with putty to make the beast look more aggressive, but left the almond-shaped eyes themselves untouched - ERROR - they look too modern. Ok, I gave this kit to a friend so I will use your idea in the next one..

What I can recommend to you is to mark the roots of the nails with little putty rolls, blending them gently witlh the toetips but having a step towards the nail.

I would like to show you my kit but I am apparently too dumb a person to make the ''insert link'' or ''insert image'' buttons work properly. If you would like to see it, you can access the working phase blog by googling " yoryi desafio triqui ", and the finished kit page by googling " yoryi desafio superado ". Text is in Spanish but pics are pics.

Congrats on the good joint work, and keep proud! :)

Edited by lentorpe
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