T-Rex Sculpt (Advice Needed)

Howdy peeps ! I am still practicing sculpting and decided to do the head of a T-Rex. I absolutely adore the first Jurassic Park and it is what actually inspired me to start using Blender. I am still and have currently got five months of using Blender under my belt. This is my third sculpt ever so go easy on me ! I decided to give sculptris a go and this is the results I got from it. I then exported the sculpt and rendered it with cycles. Now, I have a couple of questions for you more experienced users !

  1. I keep getting pixelation on textures I am adding. Is this because the textures I am using need a higher resolution ?

  2. Is there anywhere I can find Dinosaur textures ? I would like to be able to try projection painting ! If there is no such place are there any tutorials on creating texture maps for Dinosaurs ?

  3. Is the decimate modifier a wise idea if I am planning to eventually animate this or would it be better to retopologise the sculpt ?

I will be curious to see your feedback and completely encourage it because I have learned a great deal from it ! Any answers to the questions I have asked would be greatly appreciated !


That’s a very nice sculpt, especially for someone who hasn’t been doing this long.

1)Yeah, lo-res is probably the problem.

2)You can try piecing together various animal textures. Search Google for “Reptile Textures” or “lizard textures,” (maybe even elephant textures.) Convert them to grayscale and use as bump maps.

3)Definitely retopo. It may not be that important for the skull, but the rest of the body will need proper topology for animation.

Steve S

Thank you very much Steve S !

In reply to the second answer. How would I go about converting the textures to greyscale ? Sorry for the noob questions :slight_smile:

Just use GIMP or Paint.net. Are you just wanting to add color? My suggestion to convert them to grayscale was for using them as bump maps.
For color and patterns, look at photos of real reptiles for inspiration–things like iguanas and alligators. Play around with some of the artistic filters in the various paint programs to help create some natural-looking randomness to patterns.

Steve S

Impressive sculpt!

Here’s a link that might help. It’s not blender, but it goes over a lot of good material.
How to Create a Realistic 3D Dinosaur in 22 Steps

Thank you Steve for the help !

So I am currently retopologising (first time) and about half way through I decided to start testing materials. This is what I have developed so far through your suggestions. It is not perfect but I think the design is starting to go in the direction I want it to.


Thank you ShadowCamero ! That link you provided gave some great insight and it is helping progress nicely !

Here is another look with more details added to the textures :


Well I have finished retopologising the head. This is what it came out like. Another question for you guys. Will I need this to be even lower poly to animate or is this mesh sound ? This is my first time retopologising anything so I am curious to see your criticisms ! Feedback would be greatly appreciated !



Okay here’s what I see. There’s a big star on the t-rex’s muzzle. Probably not good if you want to animate as stars don’t deform well. I see some triangle fans in odd places, like along the back of his jaw and his cheek. Geometry isn’t very even, there are some lines on the side of his head where it’s too dense, and too light along the length of the lower jawbone and the on the masseter muscle. You could probably do with a little less detail along the eye sockets and make the edges flow along the brow ridge better. Still, I’m not the most experienced modeler, so you would do well to get a second opinion. Here’s a markup for you:


Solid work so far though I think it’s turning out great. :slight_smile:

Cool ! Thanks for the input stonesoup ! Do you think it might be worth trying to retopologise it again ? I think the problems I ran into was that I tried adding detail too early and as a result that meant more stray vertices. Do you think it would be better to model the broader shapes first with as little vertices as possible and then start to add the detail, slowly building up the number of vertices as I go along ?

It’s probably best to start light and build up from broad shapes. Easier to fix mistakes that way. But I’ve seen people have success starting from the other direction as well. Find out what works best for you.

Cleaning up a model is a pain but I think you’re most of the way there. Grind it out and you’ll have something to really be proud of. :slight_smile:

Thank you stonesoup ! You have been really helpful and thank you for the kind words as well !