Pteranodon: Work In Progress

Sometimes when working on a piece of artwork I hit what I call the point of no return. This is when a creative decision has to be made that can't be undone.

I reached that point this weekend with my Kong battling the Pteranodon sculpture. I couldn't continue work till I committed to how the flying reptiles wings would be posed. And more importantly how Kong would be grasping his opponent.

After planning ahead I decided that the Pteranodon has to be sculpted ( and painted ) before it can be put in Kong's grasp. At the moment I'm toying with the idea of sculpting the hands directly onto the reptiles wings and attaching them to Kong near the completion of the sculpture.

Before I got to the complicated work I thought I'd insert the reptile's eyes.

Then I procrastinated a little longer by making Kong's hands. They are a block of balsa wood and braided green floral wire.

I purposely left the wires long and glued them into holes I drilled in the wood hand.

Okay I couldn't put it off any longer. I folded the Pteranodon's wing into the pose I had decided on and used a bulldog clip to keep the screen out of the way.

I then locked it in place by beginning to model Apoxie Sculpt clay over it.

The wing is delicate being made of a single strand of aluminum wire and plastic window screen.

I learned of the technique of using screen as the armature for wings in a great book titled: Dinosaur Sculpting by Allen A. Debus and Robert Morales.

Amazon.com: Dinosaur Sculpting (9780965146302): Allen A. Debus: Books

The book is a good introduction to sculpting dinosaurs in polymer clay. I found the only slight drawback was that the pictures are in B&W. I was spoiled by the color cover of the book and wanted to see more of Mr.Morale's outstanding dinosaur sculptures in color.

I'll update as work on the Pteranodon progresses.