Scott Copeland’s Velociraptor

This was a Lindberg “Jurassic Park” Velociraptor vinyl model, I found him at a garage sale for a buck! Of course his hands were broke off, he was put together badly, and he had a pretty primitive “tiger” paint scheme done with a brush and thick craft acrylics.

Since the price was right I had some fun and fixed him up fast and furious over the weekend. First I reattached his hands and took care of the many gaps and seams with Bondo. Whoever built him had misaligned the body halves and legs, I had to use a lot of putty to get everything semi-smooth, then I hit the vinyl seams and puttied areas with Squadron sanding sticks till everything was smooth and rounded again. Then with a needle in a pin vise I rescribed the scales and lines that had been puttied over or sanded smooth, and added some more ‘bumps” on his skin with squadron putty. This really helped hide the repairs to his “thighs” where they joined the body.

Next, for a basecoat I used MM’s “panzer interior buff” enamel with a drop of white and thinned out. Normally enamels are a no-no on vinyl kits, but it’s what I had on hand and I figured the old paint job would do as a primer. It airbrushed on fine and smooth. That took care of Saturday and I let her dry overnight.

Sunday I sanded a few ‘holidays” in the paint and putty. I mixed up some acrylic Testor’s light tan with a few drops of olive drab and yellow. Because of the deep sculpted “folds” in the ‘raptor skin I had to use Hobbico liquid mask, masking tape and frisket just wouldn’t lay flat enough. After masking his eyes, belly and face patches I airbrushed him him with several light coats, fading it as it moved to his belly.

After that dried I removed the liquid mask. I had already decided to paint her in a scheme used in BBC’s “Walking With Dinosaurs” during the segment on the Utaraptors, they had a cheetah-inspired coloring with distinctive black mask around the eyes. I sealed the whole thing with Dullcoat, then mixed some MM acryl “flat black” with a drop of craft acrylic “raw sienna”, and thinned it. Then I dialed down the pressure on the compressor, and applied the lines on the body and neck as thin as I could. They looked too uniform at first glance, so I took a paintbrush and dabbed them here and there randomly till they looked more organic. I made several different sized holes in a plastic coffee can lid and used this for a loose mask for the “spots” on his tail, legs and body. I used a brush on her “mask” round her eyes. After I was satisfied with his “stripes” I sealed him again with dullcoat.

I had gotten a set of “the Detailer” in various colors,and hadn’t had a chance to try them. I used the brown and yellow, these aren’t really paints but thin tints. They airbrush fine straight from the bottle, thin easily with water, and mistakes or overspray wipe away with a wet cloth. They brought out a lot of the scales and detail. I lightly used the brown on the shadow areas and yellow on the high parts. I painted his eyes with Testor’s “gloss white”, then painted the pupil with an Imex brush and gloss black. Then I used the green detailer color to tint the eye, I think it worked out great and looks quite “lizardly”. The claws were drybrushed with flat and gloss black paint.

I am really happy with how she turned out, since she was built I can’t comment on the quality of the fit but Horizon nailed the sculpt, though the base is a joke.I’ll probably cut away the plain cheesy base, and mount her on a flat rock. More importantly it was a fun quick project and I tried some new stuff.

Scott Copeland