Marmaduke was started about 10 years back in a moment of madness. In fact he was actually only meant to be a metre long model, which then morphed into the concept of a neck and head of the beast, to be mounted outside our offices as a talking point and draw card for our services. Well, you know how ambition is – soon we were sawing out an entire spine, legs, pelvis, and a monstrously long tail. The head was the hardest part – every photograph of a T Rex head is different and I looked at literally thousands of images. First step was to make a maquette – a small reference model from which I could scale up to create a larger skull. Well, in theory that was a great idea, but the reality proved to be more difficult.
I knew that they had done CAT scans of T Rex heads and thought that Google would throw up some images of these, but alas, the pickings were pretty lean. The head you see now is the third attempt – the other two are now fossilising in the uMngeni Municipality land-fill site, there to confuse palaeontologists in years to come along with some limbs which also made it onto the scrap heap of history.
Foam, plaster and a good dose of patience went into our Marmaduke – it is a tricky thing sculpting a femur or a tibia, but that is but the half of it – sculpting a mirror image of a bone is even more difficult as it needs to look exactly like its counterpart. Suddenly I took a great interest in the bones on my dinner plate – whether they were drum sticks or lamb chops. By the way, the bones of a chicken are very similar to that of a T Rex, and their feet even more so. I got odd looks when I went to buy a single chicken foot at the walkie-talkie* section of the local Spar – I didn’t explain why I only needed one – it was a long story and I would still be explaining to this day. Those tiny bones in a chicken’s foot are uncannily similar to those of T Rex.
Marmaduke came perilously close to going extinct while his creator had to deal with some of life’s curved balls – perhaps better termed destructive meteorites – which came winging in from outer space to lay waste to his well laid plans, but that is another story. The long and short of it is that after years of ongoing building, several weekends of sustained work got all the parts assembled and transported to our offices in Hilton where he has now taken up staring implacably at fascinated children.
So what has been the best part of all of this? Well, the rewards have been many, which include ongoing entertainment at home for family and friends, money into the coffers of the local hardware shop, white polystyrene balls piling up like snowdrifts amongst the petunias, burnt patches on the veranda from dodgy welding and plaster patches adding a beautiful texture to patio floors. Then of course there is a deep sense of satisfaction at a job well done. And finally the delight on the faces of the local kids as they pile out of the car and make a bee-line for my office window, to push their noses up against the glass and be transfixed by this amazing beast called Tyrannosaurus Rex.
There is a website, www.thedinozone.com for all things dinosaur. Marmaduke has his own Facebook page too, with images of his construction for those who might be interested. I have a colouring-in book for those who want it – email me on dinoman@thedinozone.com and I will send it along. There is also going to be an open day next month – again email me for details.
And finally, the largest and most complete T Rex skeleton ever found is housed in the Field Museum in Chicago. In a moment when true inspiration fails, they called her Sue. Now I have nothing against the name Susan, and am fully agree that the lady who found this wonderful beast needs to be acknowledged, but Sue is such a pedestrian name for a dinosaur. And now others are being named in similar fashion, with names like Stan, Jane and Bucky. Heaven preserve us! Cant we come up with something more theatrical or gothic like Isambard, Athanasius or Ethelinda? Marmaduke has already been taken I am afraid. Perhaps we need to hand the naming of dinosaurs over to rock stars or an aesthetic committee composed thereof.
*Walkie talkies is the local term for chicken heads and feet – a cheap and tasty source of protein here in South Africa
