Jurrassic Park Accuracy

[MTrcic]

Please guys, It's Mike, Mr Trcic was my dad.

Roostercat, I focused on sculpting the head and neck of the full size rex, thinking that this was where most of the action was going to take place on camera. So while I was helping out the other sculptors (we had about 20 at most), with the proportion and form on the body, I pretty much kept the head and neck for myself. We did elephantine texture on the rest of the body simply because of time restraints. It's an easy texture to teach people to do and it goes pretty fast. All of the other key sculptors were busy with their own dinos. I always felt that ILM, under Phil Tippet, would "fix" anything that we did wrong anyway. Now THERE'S the real hero. Without Phil whispering in Stephen's ear on how the dinos should look and act it would have been a dreadful film, (can you imagine the raptors drooling at one another for communication rather than "chirping", it almost happened if it were not for Phil). If you look at the rex from the point after the Explorer attack and on, he looks less like our rex. Our rex had this stupid blocky maxillary area, the ILM rex becomes more streamlined.

Bcutty, I have a couple I'd like to do, just need to find the time.

Spike, Heyas!

[bcutty]

Any chance of a 1/15 T-Rex Mike?
Thanks.
Brian.

[MTrcic]

I really didn't intend to hijack Stix's post to talk about kits I might do. I'd Be happy to answer any JP questions though. On the matter of kits let me just say, I have no plans to release any dinos in the near future. I do have a 1:8 scale rex and some others that I'd like to do though. That will be down the line though. It's possible that I might do new Kinto sculptures but I have nothing on the horizon.

[stix]

I'm so glad to hear your responses that you can hijack all you want ! Back to JP sculptures, the elephant skin impression is usually done with cellophane over the clay and then scratching with a modelling tool. Can you describe how you go about scales and other interesting skin textures (in the JP DVD bonus material, it looks like you can see someone creating pebbled skin by applying small drops of crazy glue?). Thanks.

[MTrcic]

LOL, I guess it does look like we were sculpting with crazy glue. In the movie industry almost everything needs to be done quickly, (Jim Cameron was fond of saying, "You can have it quick, good or cheap, and you can pick any TWO combinations, but you can't have all three"). In sculpting the 1:5 scale rex, I discovered that a little melted roma dot on scales here and there looked really cool. In an effort to get it done quicker I started experimenting with making a roma slurry, diluted with alcohol. I put this slurry in empty super glue containers and topped it with a fine, hollow, steel needle, the kind used to apply fine drops of glue. It worked pretty well once the mixture of the clay was worked out, kind of hit and miss. We'd place large dots of clay over the scale work, as the alcohol evaporated the dots would get smaller and become very subtle. We used these on just about all of the maquettes after that.

I was kind of the McGuiver at Stan's I usually made custom tools to help get the job done quicker. Each one of us had his own technique for doing scale work. We really didn't use stamps, it was all done by hand one scale at a time. Joe Orosco had a great technique that would look like he was carving a human brain pattern for the Triceratops skin, but when he was done it was truly remarkable.

[roostercat]

LOL, I guess it does look like we were sculpting with crazy glue. In the movie industry almost everything needs to be done quickly, (Jim Cameron was fond of saying, "You can have it quick, good or cheap, and you can pick any TWO combinations, but you can't have all three"). In sculpting the 1:5 scale rex, I discovered that a little melted roma dot on scales here and there looked really cool. In an effort to get it done quicker I started experimenting with making a roma slurry, diluted with alcohol. I put this slurry in empty super glue containers and topped it with a fine, hollow, steel needle, the kind used to apply fine drops of glue. It worked pretty well once the mixture of the clay was worked out, kind of hit and miss. We'd place large dots of clay over the scale work, as the alcohol evaporated the dots would get smaller and become very subtle. We used these on just about all of the maquettes after that.

I was kind of the McGuiver at Stan's I usually made custom tools to help get the job done quicker. Each one of us had his own technique for doing scale work. We really didn't use stamps, it was all done by hand one scale at a time. Joe Orosco had a great technique that would look like he was carving a human brain pattern for the Triceratops skin, but when he was done it was truly remarkable.

:"You can have it quick, good or cheap, and you can pick any TWO combinations, but you can't have all three" the best quote!!! I will use it for sure!!

Also have noticed that on the trike skin.

JP question:

JP T rex is bigger than a real T rex skeleton?

The "Crash" supposed final design for the JP T rex is very different to the final sculpt, then , final T Rex was modified from that or probably exists a TOP secret final Crash T Rex design ??

Thanks Mike.

[MTrcic]

JP question:

JP T rex is bigger than a real T rex skeleton?

The "Crash" supposed final design for the JP T rex is very different to the final sculpt, then , final T Rex was modified from that or probably exists a TOP secret final Crash T Rex design ??

Thanks Mike.[/quote]


The T. rex anatomy was manipulated somewhat acording to Stan's wishes. The lower legs were slightly lengthened, the rib cage was shortened, arms were slightly lengthened, and the tail was made longer. The muzzle was made much wide too. I was just looking through my copy of "The Making of Jurassic Park" by Don Shay. Page 2 shows drawings that Crash did at Stan's request AFTER all the sculptures were done. On page 20 there is a Crash drawing of the T. rex. This is the first drawing that he did for JP, started before we had the project in order to excite Spielberg. Page 99 of the Jurassic Park Cinefex #55 shows two Crash T. rex illustrations. The upper one is the second T. rex that Crash designed for Stan. Much of his own thoughts went into this one, we all loved it. The lower drawing was done after the 1:5 scale rex was sculpted and cast. To my knowledge the illustrations that Stan had Crash do as a guide for me to follow for the sculpture of the T. rex have never been published. I have slides of them somewhere. If I can find them I'll post them.

[roostercat]

JP question:

JP T rex is bigger than a real T rex skeleton?

The "Crash" supposed final design for the JP T rex is very different to the final sculpt, then , final T Rex was modified from that or probably exists a TOP secret final Crash T Rex design ??

Thanks Mike.

The T. rex anatomy was manipulated somewhat acording to Stan's wishes. The lower legs were slightly lengthened, the rib cage was shortened, arms were slightly lengthened, and the tail was made longer. The muzzle was made much wide too. I was just looking through my copy of "The Making of Jurassic Park" by Don Shay. Page 2 shows drawings that Crash did at Stan's request AFTER all the sculptures were done. On page 20 there is a Crash drawing of the T. rex. This is the first drawing that he did for JP, started before we had the project in order to excite Spielberg. Page 99 of the Jurassic Park Cinefex #55 shows two Crash T. rex illustrations. The upper one is the second T. rex that Crash designed for Stan. Much of his own thoughts went into this one, we all loved it. The lower drawing was done after the 1:5 scale rex was sculpted and cast. To my knowledge the illustrations that Stan had Crash do as a guide for me to follow for the sculpture of the T. rex have never been published. I have slides of them somewhere. If I can find them I'll post them.[/quote]

I'll LOVE TO SEE THAT ILLUSTRATION!!.

I know that JP dinos are not the best or more accurate but I love thta movie and those dinos cause they are great actors ! , LOL and that movie was very important for my in my childhood
I am a big fan of JP and its a dream come true to be talking ( or writing) to one of the creators of that movie.


Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer to our questions, you are a great guy

[raydrz]

aside from the wonderful info here, i'm just so star-struck reading this thread...2 of my fav paleo modellers (shaneF & steveR)...galileo...mikeT (didn't even know you were a lurker around here)...spike & martin...

thanxxx to all of you for this awesome 'round table' discussion

[scifirex]

Mike, I had read something years ago that your Daspletosaurus sculpture was created out of your frustration at not being allowed to sculpt an accurate T rex for JP. Is that story true?

Your Daspletosaurus is my favorite therapod sculpture, and I still kick myself for never having picked up a resin cast of it!

Not to stir things up, but can you speak on the subject of James Gurney's plagiarism of your Daspletosaurus in his painting of Giganotosaurus for National Geographic? I've never read your side of things. Were you upset, or do you consider it "the sincerest form of flattery"?

[MTrcic]

John,

Thanks so much for your kind words. Yes. The Daspletosaurus grew out of frustration from working on the JP rex. My friend Shannon Shea and I were working at Stan's on T-2 when we got a hold of the manuscript for the not yet released book, "Jurassic Park". We read it over a holiday weekend, this must have been late summer 1989. We both thought how great it would be if it were made into a movie. Later on, after the book was released we heard rumblings that it was going to be made into a movie, by Spielberg, no less. Being completely mercenary we decided then and there that whatever studio got the effects we would jump ship and go work on it. As fate would have it, it fell right into our laps at Stan's. Stan pulled me off of T-2 and said to me, "You're going to sculpt a T. rex". My dream had come true. I was determined to do the most accurate movie T. rex ever. I soon found out that I would be required to sculpt a super evil, killer, movie T. rex instead, the "Ahnold Schwarzenegger" of T. rexes. The rex went through a circular design phase, where we started out with a pretty good design based on the fossils, then we tried to figure out how we could improve it and make it scarier, (at the end of this phase it looked like hell), and I spent the rest of the time trying to fix it and bring it back to a sense of realism. During the bad design phase the rex was going to have moving "cheeks" and "eyebrows". It had this wavy, snarly lip-line. UGH! I had Stan take a good look at it. He liked it because it was looking like the key drawing that he had Crash do, (the unpublished drawing). Then I took Stan around to the front of the rex face, you couldn't see the eyes from the front because of all the stupid over designed facial anatomy. The evil brows came down so far and the angry cheeks had come up so far that we had eliminated the binocular vision completely. I said to Stan, "Maybe that's how Grant and the kids can get away from the rex, they'll get it sooooo mad that it'll start snarling, won't be able to see them, and they'll just walk away". I started working on the Daspletosaur as a catharsis. It kept me sane. When I find my Jurassic Park artwork, I'll post the photos I took of the rex during this phase. It'll be a hoot.

Regarding Jim Gurney. I had met him during production on JP. He was in L.A. at the Natural History Museum for an exhibition of his "Dinotopia" paintings. I invited him, on the hush hush, to Stage 16 at Warner Brothers where we were filming the T. rex paddock scenes. We've been friends ever since. A few years later, Jim asked me if he could get one of my Daspletosaurus castings for the purpose of using it as reference in his paintings. Of course I was very flattered. I thought, how cool is that? My dino in a Jim Gurney painting! Jim is an incredible painter and a sweetheart of a guy.

[scifirex]

Mike, thanks so much for that reply! What a rare treat it is to get the inside scoop from the man who was there!

I apologize for using the word plagiarism in reference to James Gurney, I had read that was the case. I had never heard that he had asked your permission or knew that you were friends.

I would love to see the "alternate" design for the JP rex, it sounds laughable but I can imagine how professionally frustrating it must have been for you at the time.

[JimPV]

The T. rex anatomy was manipulated somewhat acording to Stan's wishes. The lower legs were slightly lengthened, the rib cage was shortened, arms were slightly lengthened, and the tail was made longer. The muzzle was made much wide too. I was just looking through my copy of "The Making of Jurassic Park" by Don Shay. Page 2 shows drawings that Crash did at Stan's request AFTER all the sculptures were done. On page 20 there is a Crash drawing of the T. rex. This is the first drawing that he did for JP, started before we had the project in order to excite Spielberg. Page 99 of the Jurassic Park Cinefex #55 shows two Crash T. rex illustrations. The upper one is the second T. rex that Crash designed for Stan. Much of his own thoughts went into this one, we all loved it. The lower drawing was done after the 1:5 scale rex was sculpted and cast. To my knowledge the illustrations that Stan had Crash do as a guide for me to follow for the sculpture of the T. rex have never been published. I have slides of them somewhere. If I can find them I'll post them.

There just so happens to be some Crash McCreery Jurassic Park artwork up for bid on the "Profiles in History" auction site. Would the first of these be one of the drawings done before the sculpt was completed, and the second be the one done after?

[MTrcic]

I vaguely remember the drawing with the closed mouth and detail shots of the head. The details of the head show the beginnings of the snarly brows, cheeks and lips of the rex. If memory serves me correctly I would say that this drawing was done after Crash's initial drawings and that this was heavily influenced by Stan. The transparencies that I have were of a later design that Stan wanted me to follow in the sculpting of the rex. For this "final design" Stan had Crash do a front and side view. By the way, I went to the auction page and they are auctioning off the front view rex. To my knowledge this illustration has never been published in the USA.

The second illustration of the roaring rex was done after completion and casting of the clay sculpture.

[JimPV]

I vaguely remember the drawing with the closed mouth and detail shots of the head. The details of the head show the beginnings of the snarly brows, cheeks and lips of the rex. ...I would say that this drawing was done after Crash's initial drawings and that this was heavily influenced by Stan.

Yeah, I'm not surprised. I was thinking that that closeup of the head with the snarling brow/lips looked too "Hollywood-ized" to be one of his initial, accurate renderings. Plus the legs and tail look as long as the post-sculpted drawing, not shorter as you said his earlier legs and tail were.

The transparencies that I have were of a later design that Stan wanted me to follow in the sculpting of the rex. For this "final design" Stan had Crash do a front and side view. By the way, I went to the auction page and they are auctioning off the front view rex. To my knowledge this illustration has never been published in the USA.

Thanks for all the input. Terrific hearing from someone who was there!

[mjonesgraphics]

I'm rather late to this thread as I discovered it while searching the forums. I just wanted to say thanks for Mike Trcic for posting here. I was lucky enough to get a Styracosaur bust fom him YEARS ago.

Mark