Art, movie props and models
Hi, I’m Timo. I’m a maker of museum grade dinosaur fossil and natural history replicas.
As a kid I was obsessed with inventing, art, model making, sculpting and painting everything from airplanes to beetles, dinosaurs and all kind of stuff. I’m from a very artistic family. My uncle Jonny Reinert, for example had the Guiness Wold Record in building the biggest bottle ship. I always loved visiting museums and expositions and I studied industrial design in Germany and did a lot of technical work. It was years later, when I visited a natural history museum with my kids that we saw these great models and real fossils and I thought about the fun I had as a kid with sculpting, art and painting. In university I learned the art of sculpting with polymer clay and all the other classic materials, such as plaster, marble, clay and mold-making and casting techniques as well. Later I learned steel welding, 3D CAD and sculpting, metal casting and a lot more. Most of these Skills aren’t required anymore in industrial design (except 3D stuff on the computer, it’s mostly that today).
My interests in science, movie props, history, art and sometimes nostalgia, guides me in my projects.
A little inside into my work:
1. It all begins with an idea. From a movie, a picture or whatever. With my Dodo sculpture for example, I started with resource material, like pictures and scientific papers and I bought books about it. With my steel sculptures, I usually just make a little sketch, first. Between the first idea and a finished sculpture there can lay many years or just hours.
2. After that I make some sketches, a 3D-Model in SolidWorks, Zbrush, Cinema 4D or I just start building a wire armature.
3. After that, I start sculpting or building. With a Skulpture I mostly set it up for mold-making. Depending on the geometry of the sculpture and my approach. Sometimes I just make a one off Skulpture, without mold making.
4. After casting the parts, I put everything together and make some corrections and changes with epoxy clay. That’s why no two of my models are the same in detail and that’s on purpose. It’s makes every sculpture a unique piece of art.
6. Then I paint and weather my sculptures with a lot of different techniques, from airbrush to dry brush.
7. I love to work with wood in original techniques. Sometimes I think, I give the baseboard more time and love then the hole rest of the sculpture. That why I use only the best woods and materials for my bases like real shellac and brass.
Thank you very much for your interest!
The most important part in my works is to ensure the best possible quality for my clients!
If you have any questions, just feel free to contact me here on Etsy in German or English.