Jurassic art: Island artist sculpting lifelike dinosaurs

A Charlottetown dinosaur aficionadoand sculptoris working on a new project,creating a family of lifelike dinosaur sculptures, all in his own home.

ChrisRuprecht, a chef by day andsculptor by night, is currently creating a miniature baby raptor,a project he saidhas already taken him fourmonths.

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"I want it to be really highly detailed and really well done.Speed too far forward and you tend to make mistakes," said Ruprecht.

This is in addition to the nine metre-long replica of the T. rex in the Jurassic Park movies that Ruprecht began building a few years ago.

The model he's working on now is almost 80 centimetreslong and made up of about 3.5 kilograms of clay.Ruprecht will eventually bake the sculpture and give it a paint job.

Ruprecht uses everything from professional sculpting toolsto guitar string, plastic wrap and even fake nails to achieve the realistic texture of the dinosaur's flesh.

"There's lot of small details. Like, I try and make sure that at every angle there's something interesting to look at and that it looks realistic and not like a toy," he said.

A love for everything Jurassic

Ruprecht saidhis love of dinosaurs began at a young age and grew after watchingJurassic Park for the first time.

"I spent more time watching the behind-the-scenes footage than anything else because I wanted to see how they made the dinosaurs," he said.

Ruprecht's fianc Kayla Walsh saidwhile his passion is a little unusual,she wouldn't have it any other way.

"I think it's great that he's able to create all these incredible things for people to see. He's great at what he does," she said.

Ruprecht said he plans to create a bigger model once his current project is complete.

Ruprecht saidhe hopes to eventually display his models at an art show and while this is hisfirst sculpting project, healso said he'sconsidering holding a class in the future to share his sculpting techniques.

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