The Making of Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana

Posted: March 2, 2012 - 09:26 , by royal

Contributed by Peter May, President, Research Casting International Ltd.

We held a press preview day at our shop last week to launch the ROM’s major summer exhibition – Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana. Of the 17 dinosaur skeletons to be exhibited, ten are pretty well finished; just final paint to be applied.

Putting this collection of skeletons together has been a challenging task! We’ve had to source skeletons from Africa, South America, Madagascar and even Antarctica. Palaeontologists throughout the world have lent support, and are all very excited about the upcoming exhibit. We have moulds for some of the skeletons in house and we are looked after the casting directly. Some of the other skeletons have been ordered from museums and workshops in the different countries, and the logistics of shipping them has been a challenge. We have just received the skeleton of Ouranosaurus from Italy and a container of cast skeletons is en route from Argentina.

Over the next few weeks we’ll be blogging from the shop about the different techniques used to develop these fantastic dinosaurs – from the initial casting process, to mounting the skeleton and finally to finishing. We’ll show the traditional techniques as well as introduce for the first time ever the complete digital development of one of the largest dinosaur skeletons ever found – the Futalognkosaurus!

Stay tuned for more behind the scenes of the making of Ultimate Dinos!

Ultimate Dinosaurs: Giants from Gondwana opens at the ROM on June 23, 2012.

Brett Crawford and Jeff Haworth shooting some sparks