Articulation research

Considering my project is focusing on articulating skeletons as well as deer, I decided to research

some famous articulations and their creators. The most breathtaking one I found was one by

Mike DeRoos, where he articulated an entire Blue Whale Skeleton, which he titled Cetacea, Which is the name of the family the blue whale, dolphins and porpoises come from.

Another famous articulation is from a prehistoric animal, called Sue.Sue was a large, very near complete 

Tyrannosaurus rex, which is on display in the Natural History Museum in Chicago

As you can see, pretty much all of the skeleton minus a few minor parts, is there. she is a very impressive articulation. Her real head was not used in the articulation as it would've been too heavy to support itself that far off the ground, so a light plastic cast was used to replace it.

Deer Articulation Work In Progress 5

I finally got the deer suspended, and this was the point where I decided to begin work on the ribs. The ribs go from shortest/thickest to longest/thinnest, but as some of them are broken its quite difficult to figure out which ones go where. So far I've only done half of one side, as shown below. I also decided to add the pelvis to the Sacrum in this session, so the deer had more support on its legs.

The deer from the side, showing the way the ribs change throughout the ribcage.

The ribs are quite difficult to work with and require a lot of patience. They only have a small part of the spine to connect to and due to their weight they fall down quite often whilst you're working.

Deer Articulation Work In Progress 4

From this point onwards, my deer has begun to look much more deer like. I'd completed one of the legs in this time session. I'd also added the hooves to one of the feet, as you can see from the images. Considering this is my first ever articulation, I am quite pleased with the way it is turning out. I am excited to see the final product of this, even though it only has three legs.

The deer from another angle, showing the work I've done and the angle of the ribs.

Close up of the leg I've completed. The leg was quite unco-operative so I had to include wires into the joints to make it more sturdy.

Deer Articulation Work In Progress 3

When I got it into college, I began articulation almost immediately. I began with the spine, first, as it is the structure that everything holds onto. I used a long, thick wire going through the gaps in the bones and through the actual bones themselves to hold it together, so it is very sturdy.

Then I got to adding the neck. I used a much thicker wire/tube combination for the neck as it was thicker and required the head to be sat atop of it, which is very heavy.

When I'd gotten the neck attached, I then decided to attach the head. I drilled two wires through the skull and the atlasbone and after a lot of gluing eventually got the two to stick together firmly.

Once I was done with the entire head/spine, I decided to work on the front limb. Deer have very strange front limbs but this was all I managed to get done in the session. Here you see the Scapula (also known as the shoulder blade.) the Humurus and the Radius. I had still to connect the Ulna.

Deer Articulation Work in Progress 2

Once the deer was clean, and I decided which parts should go where including the ribs, I decided to take it into college, where I would be articulating it. I laid it out on a table with every bone I had, to try and get a visual image of the size. Luckily Roe deer are not very large deer.

I decided to stick some of the toe bones together to see how the toes work. I love how dinosaur they look with the hooves without their covers on them. 

Deer Articulation

Throughout my project, I have decided Im going to be combining my love of taxidermy with my love of deer by articulating a near complete deer skeleton. I received it from ebay. Sadly it arrived in less than clean condition, so I had to spend the night cleaning the bones and deciding where they went.

As you can see, the deer isnt in the most clean condition ever.  When I unboxed it I concentrated on which types of bones went together, and laid it out on a table. After this, I then got to the first stage of cleaning, degreasing. Which required soapy warm water and an old toothbrush. When I had gotten all of the dirt and remaining flesh off the deer, I then focused on getting the parts put in order.

The first section I got was the cervical vertebrae, the atlas bone and the 6 bones behind it which make up the neck. The atlas bone attaches to the skull. The next vertebrae I figured out were the Thoratic Vertebrae, which make up the start of the spine, and are the vertebrae the ribs attach to. To the right of those is the Lumbar Vertebrae, which are the ones which cover the organs. They also have the sacrum (which connects the pelvis and the tailbone to the body) attached to them.

Once I had organised the vertebrae, the most important part of the skeleton in my opinion, I got to work with the other parts, the sternum, which goes opposite to the thoratic vertebrae, and the legs. The skeleton had gone through its first phase of cleaning now, and i bagged up each parts individually so it was easier for me when I got into college after cleaning them.

Connections project

The next project we have to do is based on connections. I have chosen to base mine on wildlife and life after death, namely deer and articulation/taxidermy. Deer mean quite a lot to my life as they were some of the first animals I ever recall seeing in the wild, and it was a large herd of them, bounding through a field. The tight family really touched me, and I plan to mainly focus my project around them. 

However, as I am also interested in taxidermy and bone collecting, I have chosen to also conjoin my vision project with this project, only developing it further into something more than just photographs.

I plan to use several different types of mediums in this project, including 3D, Traditional painting and drawing, Photography and digital work. I especially look forwards to doing more low key photography, similar to my previous project, and I intend to focus more on traditional art. 

Research

I have chosen artists who mainly focus on nature and taxidermy as their interests to research, they are as follows

Martin Ridley

Martin Ridley paints fantastic natural images of wildlife with a lot of detail involved in them. They have natural lighting and are very well drawn. The deer are anatomically correct and there is a lot going on in the image. The deer are all in the centre aside from the main Stag, which actually draws the attention of the piece to him.

He also painted the following piece, which has a lot more contrast and more of an atmosphere to it. The fog in the mountains give it a sense that the deer are lost and are not sure of their way, the bellowing stag is like he is calling out into the silence, waiting for a response or a sign of life. The amount of detail put into the pieces is phenomenal

Polly Morgan

I researched Polly Morgan in my last assignment, but I still find her work very spectacular. I love the way she breaks borders and creates Taxidermy in a contextual art style, giving it life and personality, whilst still showing that it is very much dead.

The name of her piece involving a deer is titled "Endless Pains" and even though the animals are dead it still expresses the pain they were experiencing before death, like they still have agony on their faces. The little birds involved in the piece add a quite peaceful touch to the images, making it seem like they are angels trying to sooth the animals.

Ben Hall

Ben Hall is a fantastic nature photographer who takes absolutely breathtaking images of animals in their natural environments. His pictures have a very deep atmosphere to them, which makes them stand out from the rest, in my opinion. My favourite photos of his would have to be the ones of the deer.

The colours and the lighting in this picture are beautiful, and the way the deer is looking directly at the camera. Even though the heather is purple, the orange hue of the image makes it blend in, and gives it a general warm tone. 

This is another picture I love by him, the way the dusk sky gives the picture an intense atmosphere, like it just came out of a movie. The power of the piece is beyond epic and the two deer fighting slightly to one side makes it obvious which one is currently losing, they are still the main focus and it adds more of an impact than if they were in the center.

I like the way this photo is quite abstract, almost like a painting, due to the motion blur. I have intentions on making a painted piece similar to the style of this photograph, where it is surreal and minimal but you can still tell what they are.