Well, let’s go back to a prehistoric animal, and a 3D-printed one no less. This is another Shapeways model, from creator mmfrankford. The specific model is their take on Diplocaulus, the famous and popular boomerang-head ‘amphibian’ from the late Palaeozoic.
As I’m sure I mentioned before, I used to grab a bunch of Shapeways figures on an annual or so basis, and this would have been one of them. Based on records on the website, it might have actually been on my first order, in or around 2010–although the red colour makes me think it should have been later. It’s not like Diplocaulus figures hadn’t been made before, but it probably seemed neat at the time. And to be fair, the price for it, compared to some, was fairly minimal. The choice of a red one was probably just for variety–clearly, I’m not a big fan of painting them, so it’s fun to break up the colour palette on the shelf.
As far as a Diplocaulus model goes, it’s a little skinny, and certainly lacks the detail and liveliness of ones like the Kaiyodo Dinotales version of Diplocaulus. And could definitely use a more flattened tail befitting an aquatic organism (and also as indicated by skeletal material). Decent detail, though of course the monochromatic colour and fairly low print resolution makes it hard to tell (yeah, I should probably at least pull a dry brush across most of them). But it’s a neat one on the shelf, so I would still recommend the model, especially for Palaeozoic fans. And just because I’m so helpful, the model is still available on Shapeways and still not a bad price (fancy colours will cost extra of course). So maybe check them out–and then see what other fauna you can find there…it’s a deep well now!
