Big Tooth! (Part 3)

I draft a mock up for a poster to promote a fictitious display of the fossil tooth of the Megalodon.  Take a look at it here.

Image of shark acquired through Stock.XCHNG

Big Tooth! (Part 2)

This is a continuation of Part 1 of this big tooth.


For this part, I have tried to paint my tooth.  I gathered my water colour paints and had some hopes to make the tooth look a little more lively.  Unfortunately, as you will find out that it is problematic.





As I was gathering the paints, I noticed a permanent marker, so I took it and started to colour the top or actually the tooth's crown or base.  It seem to be acceptable.  However, when I got to the tooth's other part, the marker seems to be absorbing the ink.  As I noticed the marker started to dry up, I thought that the marker is probably dry.  I took another one to colour and soon after that, the same thing happened.  So, it means that paints must be used.

I started to paint from the crown and it seem to be good.  When I got further down, the Super Sculpey does not seem to absorb the paint.  Not only does it not absorb, but instead, it seem to be too light compared to the crown.  So, that means water colour paints does not work.  So, I went to buy around bottle of paint and tried again.

This is how it looks when water colour paint is applied to it.  I have to get Acrylic paint.  The images may not necessary show, but when the paint is dry, it cracks and peels.  When I apply for paint to it, when the dried portion become wet again, it just would not absorb and keeps the tooth looking like a bad paint job is done.

In the mean time, I noticed that some parts that I applied more Super Sculpey, is still soft.  I didn't put the tooth into the oven again for I'm afraid the stud base will smoke again.  So, I used a blowdryer and used that to heat the Super Sculpey and hardened up that portion.

Da daah....here's the final painted version.  The previous layer of water colour paints started to crack after it had dried up.  I had to clean it off as much as I possibly could by wetting it to reactivate the paint.  Using acrylic paint, it stuck on and made the tooth the colour I intended it to be.  While it was drying, I photographed it as if it was taken out of the water.

Front of tooth.

Rear of tooth.

Finally, I singled out the background.  Here are the final product...ready for display at the ROM ...xD

Front part.

Rear part.

The final part of this portion of the project is make a style guide.  Below is my version of the style guide.

Thank you.  The amount of hours that I spent on this portion of the project including research, sketching, modelling, painting, producing style guide, and travelling, is approximately 15 hours.  This is my very first time on such project.  I anticipated a shorter time.  However, since I'm not an artist, I'd probably do this in lesser time next time if I have the opportunity to do it again.

Big Tooth! (Part 1)

You know the largest tooth of the ocean...I got me one of them...  Well, I made me one...sorta.

I did a little researching on the tooth of the biggest shark ever, that does not exist anymore, called Megalodon (means big tooth in Greek) and lived a long...really long time ago.  It's length spanned to almost 20 meters...yes, that's meters...in length which is approximately 67 feet long.

So, I had the opportunity to make a replica of this.  This is the first part.  So far, I've already spent approximately 6 hours including research.

Prior to starting, I gathered some tools.  This is my very first sculpting.  With only have a block of Super Sculpey clay, I looked around the house to see what I could use to make sculpting tools.  Found some paper clips, metal frame coat hanger, chopsticks, some ties which I collected to tie plants onto support poles...(I didn't know that these came in handy and I was unhappy when the toy manufacturers had to use unlimited ties to strap down a toy in the box it came with).  Anyhow, I also had to build a support base to hold the model up.  With some 2X4's lying in my garage, I used a few screws, to made a very simple but later found it not very sturdy and almost caused a fire...oops...don't tell me wifey... xD.

So, this is how I envision what the final product will look like.  I planned for a length of 6 5/8" by 4 3/8 " wide.  After some brief research and look at some photographs, I sketched the front, back, side, and top view briefly.   I know my sketches are really scary and not artistic at all, but I'm not all that concerned.  I just need something to model the replica as a reference.  So, it'll have to do.

Next thing I did was to construct a tool to make the sculpting. I used 2 different sizes of paper clips and using the toy ties that I've been collecting, I wrapped it around the chopstick.

When the basic tool is constructed, I didn't want to take too much fresh aluminium foils to wrap the support frame.  I just recycled newspaper, crumbled them, and wrapped it around the metal frame and shape it as close to the shaped I sketched.












Then I used about two sheets of approximately a little more than a foot each, wrapped the newspaper shaped tooth, and moulded it to look more like the tooth model I sketch and also to hold the newspaper crumbles in place.


At this point, I started to knit and gave the super sculpey clay a massage, flattened it, and wrapped it around the foiled model.  When it was done, the model looked delicious and is ready for an oven.  Does it not look like shwarma...hmmm...now I'm hungry.  Sorry, I got carried away...but I'm still hungry.

The is the front

The rear of the tooth

After some moulding and making the tooth model smooth, it starts to look more in shape.

When the tooth's surface was at an acceptable range, I preheated the oven to 130º C...which ended up being only 130º F instead and this also caused some problems as you will see really soon.  Anyhow, I when the oven was ready, I placed the model into the oven and felt somewhat strange as 130º C does not feel very hot.  While the model was inside the oven, I changed the setting to 275º F and then gave it a few more minutes to bake.

Do you see what the results were for using this 2X4?  It seem this stud was stained and when I opened the oven door, smoke started to emerge from the bottom part of the stud that was resting on the bottom of the oven.  Anyhow, a little excitement and adventure for my tooth modelling.

When the tooth clay model is hardened somewhat, I realized that I forgot to put in the crack that I had in the sketch I made.  So, I quickly craved a crack on the base of the tooth.  It didn't quite turn out as I wanted it to.  Since this endeavour was without prior experience, I didn't know what to do.  I could now mould more clay onto the base of the tooth and make the crack and then bake it again.  However, the support base I used seemed to be stained, although it seemed somewhat pleasant, I don't want the house filled with the aroma of smoked wood studs.  I will have to see if I could make it look better with paint.

On the back of the tooth's base, I poked some holes to give it pores.  Now the next part is going to be painting it...don't know what to expect from that part now.  I hope I don't spill paint all over the place.

Part 2 of this is coming up...access it here.