Carl's new Backbone

This week, I added Carl's spinal column, ribcage, and humeri (upper arms). He's really moving along. It just brings a tear to my eye when I see how fast he's growing up... >sniff!< My big guy...

Carl gets Bone Pants!

This week, we were to sculpt a pelvis, pair of femurs, tibias, fibulas, and feet for our Imaginatomy creatures. The pelvis is an incredibly difficult bone to sculpt, especially when it is so different from a human pelvis. All the bones and landmarks are the same, but their arrangement is fundamentally different in quadrupeds. Carl's pelvis is based on that of a rhino, who has a rather vertical pelvis. It's a fun challenge. Because he is inspired partly by the elephant and the rhino, he actually walks on the tips of his toes. Elephants and rhinos (and other ungugrades, or toe-walkers) have a fatty cushion under the arch of their feet, and only the tips of their toes reach the ground.

But, anyway, it looks like he has pants on, and my wife referred to them as "bone pants," so the name stuck. I think he may get a bone shirt next week.

Carl, part 2

Here's the final wire armature for Carl's skeleton. The white foamcore base is a bit overexposed, but photos with less exposure tended to lose the definition of the processes on the spine, so I went with this photo. The processes (or bony extensions on the spine) serve to hold up the heavy head and tail, as muscles attach and support the weight, similar to cables on a suspension bridge. Because Carl is so large (in scale, of course), he has proportionately oversized spinal processes. Isn't anatomy fun?

Meet Stanley and Carl!

Here is Stanley Skeleton, my sculpture of the skeleton of a human man, named for alliteration. This was done for an anatomy class I'm in right now called Imaginatomy. The class was invented and is taught by Rey Bustos, and is a lot of fun.

We start the term learning human anatomy and sculpting the human skeleton. Stanley's left (our right) will remain just bones, but his right side (our left) is sculpted to support muscles, once I get time to put them on.

Here is the wire armature for Stanley's pet Xiphodont, Carl. Carl is my Imaginatomy project, a fictional creature created from the inside out. We had to design an animal, then figure out what its skeleton would be. Again, half will remain skeletal and the other half will be sculpted to accept muscles, time permitting. Eventually, a diorama will be constructed around Carl and will display his adaptive traits and such. I regret not having posted my progress of Stanley, so I will post the various steps of Carl's evolution from wire to skeleton. The wire armature as it appears here is still a work in progress, but I'll post pictures of the finished armature once it's done.

Here is the skeleton design for Carl. It is a combination of rhinoceros, elephant, cow, bear, and sabre-toothed tiger anatomy. I don't have an indication of scale in this drawing, but a full-grown man would be able to stand comfortably beneath Carl's head. Well, as comfortably as you could with those giant tusks...