Need help with Orthocone sculpture

**Sordes** · Jun 07, '08, 8:56am

Here are finally some pictures of my new model. At the begining I wanted to sculpt it with open arms, but it ended up with closed arms. As this looks a bit boring, I added a fine structure on most parts of the surface (sadly hardly visible at the photos) and a lot of small skin appendiges, similar to those seen in cuttlefish. It was really a lot of work, and I needed several hours a add all of the about 60 pieces of sculpey. I could imagine that it would look very cool if it was painted.
I choose this comparable unconventional idea not only because it looks more interesting than plain skin, but also because I could well imagine that some of the more ground-dwelling species of nautiloids had actually such skin structures

**Architeuthoceras** · Jun 09, '08, 12:05am

NIce interpretation Sordes, very Cuttlefishy.

**Phil** · Jun 09, '08, 6:10am

Those orthocones came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, so why shouldn't the soft parts have varied enormously too? That's the nice thing about your lovely models Sordes, because we don't realy know what they looked like, you are never wrong!

Look forward to seeing the finished model as ever!

**cuttlegirl** · Jun 09, '08, 6:54am

Its face looks so expressive.

**modelnut** · Jul 09, '08, 11:40am

WOW!

Looks fantastic!

Wonder why the Forum didn't let me know about new additions to the thread? It did before.

I have made absolutely no progress on my scupture.

My apartment flooded and then I got sick.

Thankfully it didn't go so far as pneumonia. Hopefully I will be getting my life back together soon and can resume the project.

I did find an illustration the pertains to orthocones. This one is much more nautiloid-like. http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e9...ut/LuisRey.jpg

Looks a bit to complex. Don't know if I want to go that way.

You folks have been at this longer than me. What do you think?

-Leelan

**Sordes** · Jul 09, '08, 11:47am

I have also again a lots of ideas for new models, but as usual no time... I suppose the first new one could be a thylacine of something like this, or a catfish or a cuttlefish, but I know nothing for sure. I would love to sculpt an ammonite, but I would need a very good fossil no make a cast of the shell, because I will hardly manage to sculpt the complex shape of the ammonite shell.
Perhaps I will also once again sculpt a new orthocone (I´m still not happy with it, but I made some sketches which would be probably okay as a model), and I would not make it very nautilus-like. Nautiloids were surely different from the modern nautilus, and surely also different from modern squids (damn aptychus-problem!), but I suppose they were not as "primitive" as nautilus.

**modelnut** · Nov 06, '11, 12:10pm

Click image for larger version.

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Found this on Deviantart.com . http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&se...ocone#/d1fj5t0

I am resurrecting my Cameroceras model after three years. My original work broke into three pieces when I moved. Got married two years ago as well. I came upon the pieces the other day and thought "Why not?"

- Leelan

**Cuddlycuttlefsh** · Nov 06, '11, 3:06pm

Aw...man, right when I showed up the shows over. That was a very nice sculpture though, if I had one of those epic nautiloid mask things you can where on your head I'd totally show up in class wearing one of those. I wonder what my professor would say....

**modelnut** · Nov 06, '11, 4:00pm

CC,

The show is not over. Sordes has done several fine sculptures and this fellow did his --- and a very large one it is too.

Mine will be maybe fifteen inches when it is finished. I have to let the putty set for eight hours before I can do any more work. And I have yet to decide whether my orthocone will be more sqid-like with ten tentacles or more nautiloidish with umpteen smaller tentacles. I probably won't decide until I have the head finished . . .

I will certainly keep you p[osted.

- Leelan

**Cuddlycuttlefsh** · Nov 06, '11, 4:39pm

Wow I can't wait, lucky me my cuttle senses told me to come back to this forum!

**modelnut** · Nov 09, '11, 3:43pm

OK. The shell is repaired. But further research gives the shell length as 6 meters. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroceras Mine is representative of 9 as mentioned on TV and my old research.

Do I really want to chop off 33% of what I have now? 10 inches down to 7?

- Leelan

**Cuddlycuttlefsh** · Nov 09, '11, 6:49pm

Why go through the frustration, I'd just keep it like it. Wouldn't want to break it again.

Wikipedia ehh? Still skeptical about that too.

**Terri** · Nov 09, '11, 7:04pm

Wikipedia ehh? Still skeptical about that too.

Check out the references...excellent. I will say though, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if someday a fossil were found representative of a 9 meter Cameroceras. I swear I thought I had read about one found in (I think) Arkansas by students, but I can't find the article

.

**modelnut** · Nov 09, '11, 9:02pm

Now to decide whether to give my sculpt a nautiloid face or a squid one. Oy.

- Leelan

**Architeuthoceras** · Nov 10, '11, 9:30am

Originally Posted by Terri

Check out the references...excellent. I will say though, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if someday a fossil were found representative of a 9 meter Cameroceras. I swear I thought I had read about one found in (I think) Arkansas by students, but I can't find the article

.

That USGS paper may help with your Tennessee stuff

The Arkansas fossil was a large Rayonnoceras, a Carboniferous Actinocerid, most links to the story on TONMO are old and broken

Originally Posted by modelnut

Now to decide whether to give my sculpt a nautiloid face or a squid one. Oy.

- Leelan

Go with the squid

**Sordes** · Nov 13, '11, 7:31am

Hi Leelan, nice to see this old thread has resurected. I started some time ago a reconstruction of an ammonite, which I wanted to sculpt directly on a cast of an original shell. When it is finished (anytime...) it will become part of the exhibition at the paleontological museum at Tübingen, Germany. I had a lot of discussions about the reconstruction of nautiloids, and I tried to get some more useful information. I came to several conclusions, which could possibly help you. Stupidly there are no soft body impressions which would tell us how living nautiloids really looked like, but still there are some few things we can conclude from this abscence. Even in deposits in which perfect belemnite fossils with fossilised hooks and ink sacs were found, ammonites show nothing. So we can for example conclude they had next to sure no chitinous hooks on their arms. It seems even not that probable they had large suckers too, as they would have fossilized at least sometimes. There are a lot of indications for planctivory in nautiloids, so it´s well possible they had neither very strong and big tentacles, nor big and partly chitinous suckers. As the multiple tentacles in Nautilus are only a secondary development which form during embryogenesis when the ten original tentacles split into many small tentacles, it´s seems more probable that the most primitive cephalopods which were ancestral to Nautilus and nautiloids had ten tentacles, and perhaps ammonites and othrer nautiloids conserved this original bauplan as next to all other cephalopods did too.
When I sculpt my ammonites, I will use Spirula as a reference, as it seems to have a lot in common with early ammonites. Instead of big suckers (like those of many modern cephalopods) or sticky and grooved tentacles as those of Nautilus, I will give my ammonites multiple small sucker pads as those of Spirula. They would be useful for a planctivore and would also most probably be too fragile to fossilize. I would connect the arms at their base at least partly with some skin, and would completely renounce a hood, despite the fact that I sculpted this on my earlier versions. All in all, I would make the whole ammonite comparably similar to Spirula, but of course with some changes, for example to fit the shape of the shell´s opening. I would also make proportionally smaller eyes I think. Spirula is small, but a planctivorous dish-sized ammonite probably didn´t really need bigger eyes.

**Terri** · Nov 13, '11, 10:21am

I started some time ago a reconstruction of an ammonite

Hello Sordes, I hope you can keep us updated on your progress, I can't wait to see your ammonite.

**Terri** · Nov 13, '11, 10:31am

I am resurrecting my Cameroceras model

Leelan, sorry I'm a little confused, is that your work in post #27? I keep going back to look at that model, the color banding in it looks so similiar to an orthocone I found from the middle Ordovician (450mya(ish) ) it's freaking me out a little.

**Sordes** · Nov 13, '11, 11:13am

Terri, sadly I will most probably not be able to finish the ammonite within the next half year, as I don´t have time for such things at the next months. A model of similar size as the one at Leelan´s last post is also planed for the museum at Tübingen, but I suppose this will need even more time. I think the model which Leelan linked is in a czech museum.