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The collaboration of artists and researchers

Morphology of articulation face tells us how the bones were connected, since each articulation face generally provides a limited range of bone movement. Still, though the range is relatively small in most dinosaur articulations, every angle we determine would make a great difference in the posture as a whole.
People who worked for this reconstruction project were sculpters and other artists all called together by Hiromi Maruo. Though reconstruction is always based on latest scientific theories, it couldn't have been completed without the sensibilities of these artists.

"We watch those bones for nearly a month and just suddenly understand what it is all about. A glance means nothing. There are some things you can see only if you watch it over and over again. Like, how much space do we need between the fifth and sixth vertebra? You can feel the answer after watching those bones every day."

---Reconstruction Staff

The dinosaur researchers from Mongolia and the Japanese artists do not understand nor speak each others languages. They learned to communicate by gestures and by pointing at their own bodies. Rinchen Barsbold sometimes made poses pretending himself as a dinosaur.

For a more realistic pose --- Garudimimus

Garudimimus as "looking-back beauty" style.

The posture of Garudimimus which we call the "looking-back beauty" in Japanese, was the conclusion of a tough disscussion between Barsbold and the staff.

"We wanted to show it as if it was alive. We disscussed a lot and decided to place it "looking-back." It couldn't be better if the forelimbs were complete."

--R. Barsbold.

Restoring its last figure --- Harpymimus

Harpymimus as death pose.

The Harpymimus is placed with its head pulled back. This is how the fossils were found, i.e., how the Harpymimus died. It is thought that postmortem muscle contraction after death caused this figure. The cervical vertebrae were fused and deformed and could not set straight, and niether could we figure out what the original bones looked like. Therefore, the Harpymimus was reconstructed in this last figure.

If bones were missing...

It was our policy to do this reconstruction only with real fossils even if any were missing, as with the Homalocephale. We determined the sizes of the missing bones by examining skelton figures from scientific papers, or by making full sized drawings. We kept that space of the missing bone open between the real bones.

Trials and errors

The determined dinosaur postures were a result of many trials and errors. It was not rare to find out that the arrangement on the table was not correct. Once we even changed the posture after the reconstruction was half done.

"Many times, while reconstructing, we felt that something was wrong. The form of a articulation wouldn't match to the required bone direction, so I told Dr. Barsbold that the right and left bone might be placed opposite. He told me I was right, and that I had good eyes. Of course he also would sometimes mention that we should work over on the reconstruction again. You see, we just had to go back and forth so many times."

--Reconstruction Staff

Rehearsing with a puppet

A dinosaur puppet was also made in some cases to decide the dinosaur posture. This puppet was made by tracing the silhouette of each bone on a plywood board, and connecting the articulations with wires.

"We moved each bone with this puppet and discussed about the postures. Making a puppet might sound troublesome, but it was much easier than trying many moves on the real fossils."

--Reconstrution Staff

-> 3. Fitting the bones along the steel bars

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