I'm not really an active hobbyist, but I had a small brainstorming session and made an equally small test/thing the idea was to see what could be done with the current saurus head, starting from focusing on the ideals to reach, going through identifying the differences from the current model and then conceiving the simplest way to get close enough to it first step is rather simple, the saurus oldblood from the carnosaur's kit and the warriors's depiction in total war come as obvious ideals the key differences that jumped to the eye were -size of the neck: the ideals have either longer or thicker neck -lenght of bite: the ideals have a less crocodilian jaw, more akin to a dinosaur's -snout slope: almost absent in the ideals -nasal bridge: the crest has a gradual attachment all over the top of the head -jaw musculature: massive in ideals, absent in model this was a fast shop [random saurus found on google, not mine] to transform the saurus model accordingly to the underlined elements; the result gets closer to total war's to note that the crest was shortened too in the likeness of total war's ideal and paul dainton's artworks; the crest itself may not be the most important of problems, but its size contributes in making the neck look small and the head long, reducing it helps emphasise the changes to the neck and bite too bad not everyone is good with greenstuff, let alone me, compromises can then be made for that neck and back of head a collar is easier to craft from greenstuff or bits, as could be various blings hanging on the underside of the jaw an alternative is to cut completely that little neck there's between the head and torso, it's a method that goes opposite to the previous one, but by removing the bottleneck, the transition between shoulders and head is more linear, which was the purpose of thickening the neck to begin with (don't mind the foliage and the strange contraption-skull at the waist: they were part of the "what to use to hide the small feet and waist" thought process, but that's another story) next come some attempts to replicate the new look, this was performef with a package opener, not a hobby cutter, so a certain roughness was expected by using the scales on the cheeks as points of references and by guiding the cut with preliminar pressings of the tip of the blade in 2 or 3 points along the intended curve, the new line ends up coming along rather intuitively the first head had its cheek shaved to the point the previous teeth line the second head is to show what's left of the previous cheek and how little truly it needs to be covered with greenstuff should one want to mantain the mass of the jaw and not shave (not that it removes too much though) third is untouched, for reference then here's the last image; this serves as further comparison after a slight shortening of the snout and use of mad photo editing skills to fill the nasal bridge and cover the cheek... because I don't even have the greenstuff... the heads from the carnosaur oldblood were juxtaposed to show how the new jaw fits the same style also more shopped saurus heads on the left were added because I realised only later the heads with open mouths needed a different plan, which came up to be not that different after all, just a little more stuffing and a larger cut made from a pair of lines rather than a single one (these heads too had the snouts shortened and the nasal bridge filled if it's not obvious at first glance) whole process certainly takes more time than simply gluing the pieces as they are, but with a little concentration they don't take more than a pair of minutes per side I hope these 2 past midnight ramblings are helpful (or entertaining) to anyone else toying with the idea of redeeming their sauri
That is something I have never noticed before but it makes a lot of sense. Tiny little detail does a lot. The current saurus heads seem to be very similiar to this picture from the old 6th edition book/box cover art: But in the same book we also had this artwork; and with the addition of a little "smile" it really changes the look! I always liked the second picture better... and I didn't think I would like your conversion at first but after going back through some of the artwork it is really growing on me. Nice work!