1. Sketches help Paysnoe plan the look of the sculpture.
2. A moldable clay creates a richly textured skin.
3. Paints give the sculpture a lifelike finish.

BENJI PAYSNOE

Dinosaur Artist

Benji Paysnoe uses his artistic abilities to bring prehistoric creatures to life as large-scale sculptures

As a kid, Benji Paysnoe dreamed about working in a real-life Jurassic Park. Today his job lets him do the next best thing: He builds lifelike dinosaur sculptures. Paysnoe is a paleoartist who uses art to show what life on Earth looked like millions of years ago.

Paysnoe combines creativity with scientific evidence to make sure his depictions of long-extinct animals are as accurate as possible.

BENJI PAYSNOE

PROUD PAIR: Paysnoe with his favorite sculpture, Rudy the Diabloceratops

Though Paysnoe has built many dinosaur sculptures in his career—along with ancient mammals, fish, and insects—his favorite piece is a Diabloceratops, which he named Rudy. This dino is similar to a Triceratops—but it has four horns on its head instead of three. Rudy travels to different events with staff from the Arizona Museum of Natural History. To allow people to interact with the 2.7 meter (9 foot)-long sculpture, Paysnoe added a fun touch: a saddle. Visitors can climb onto the dino’s back and pretend to ride it! Recently, Paysnoe spoke with Science World about his work re-creating incredible creatures from the distant past.

How did you become a paleoartist?

I’ve always been interested in science. In college, I studied ecology—the interactions between groups of animals and their environments. During that time, I volunteered in my local museum’s paleontology lab. I heard that they needed an in-house paleoartist. I was fully self-taught as an artist. So I showed them some of my work, and they hired me. I always wanted to educate people about how cool science is. And I’ve found that the best way to hook people is through a picture or sculpture.

How do you make your sculptures as life-like as possible?

Every time I start a piece, I approach experts in the field. I ask paleontologists, “Based on the information we have about this animal, how do we go about making a detailed sculpture?” Sometimes I borrow real fossils—bones and other preserved remains of organisms—to work from. I can measure them and make molds from them to add detail to my sculptures.

Really well-preserved fossils can provide information about the texture or color of a dinosaur’s skin or feathers. For example, we know that some smaller dinosaurs had feathers that were iridescent—they bent light into a rainbow-like effect—just like the feathers of modern pigeons. We can also make inferences about how a dinosaur may have looked based on the environment where it lived. Tyrannosaurus rex was probably not bright purple. Instead, it probably had colors that helped it blend in with its forest habitat.

“There are so many amazing dinosaurs, I wish I could make them all!” —Benji Paysnoe

What’s your process  for creating a dinosaur sculpture?

I sometimes make sketches to help me visualize the sculpture. Then I build a steel skeleton. I add muscles made of either carved foam or spray foam. Then I cover the foam muscles in a material called epoxy clay to create the dinosaur’s skin. It’s moldable, kind of like Play-Doh. I make stamps of skin textures like wrinkles or scales to apply over large areas of the body. I hand-sculpt a lot of other details. Once the epoxy clay hardens, it’s time to bring the dinosaur to life with colorful paints.

What are the most challenging parts of your job? 

Many dinosaurs are absolutely massive. It can be hard to fit them into a building. So I have to think about how I can bring these pieces to life in a way that’s cool and also functional. That may mean doing something unexpected, like making a sculpture of half of a dinosaur and painting the other half onto a wall.

Museums and exhibitions need certain dinosaur species for their exhibits. So I don’t always get to make as many different ones as I’d like. There are so many amazing dinosaurs, I wish I could make them all!

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