3D modelling a Triceratops continued

Tempus fugit. No kidding - my tempus has fugited like a mad thing this summer and it's taken until now for me to post the next installment of my occasional series on Building a Dinosaur in 3D over at Paleo Illustrata. Now we get down to business and actually start the modelling process, pulling polygons and dropping symmetry objects in our pursuit of the mighty Triceratops.

From this egg-shaped blob will emerge a beautiful Triceratops . . . hopefully.

It's worth checking out 3D World magazine, which has a feature and tutorial on the subject of modelling dinosaurs and is definitely worth a pike.

Back to building a 3D dinosaur - research

Our subject in the Field Museum, Chicago.

After a brief hiatus I've managed to post the latest in my occasional series on building a 3D dinosaur over at  Paleo Illustrata. This post outlines the research involved before preparing to model a Triceratops in 3D; some of this will be old hat to may of you but hopefully it will provide pointers to anyone wanting to have a go at creating ancient life reconstructions on the computer. This subject is already being covered by some fine artists and inspiration can be gained by swinging by Angie Rodrigues' brilliant blog where she's modelling an Olorotitan which is setting the standard (gulp!) by which all other 3D modellers might be judged, and also have a gander at thoracosaurus.blogspot.com where Evan Boucher created an animated Thoracosaurus neocesariensis for his masters thesis and is a accomplished piece of reconstruction complete with the methodology.

What differentiates all of these blogs is that there are as many ways of constructing a workflow, methodology and artistic experience and creativity to create 3D reconstructions as there are artists, so hopefully I will be adding to rather than reproducing the work of other workers. As ever, comments very welcome!