Making dinosaurs come 'alive'

Many people love dinosaurs, but perhaps not as much as a group of Chinese designers and craftsmen dedicated to making perfect lifesize dinosaur figures.

In Southwest China, Zigong city is home to a Jurassic period site, Dashanpu, where workers building a parking lot unearthed a large number of dinosaur fossils in 1979.

The city's prehistoric ties with dinosaurs have nurtured the success of the animatronics production industry. There are 19 companies in Zigong making animatronic dinosaurs for theme parks and safaris in more than 60 countries and regions. Its annual export revenue totaled 62 million yuan ($9.25 million) last year.

Deng Peilin, a Zigong local, knows a lot about the species that ruled the world long before humans did. As the owner of Zigong Dinosaur Landscape and Art, Deng has become a successful businessman.

His company makes over 1,000 life-size dinosaurs for clients both domestically and overseas each year.

He is a frequent visitor to the Zigong Dinosaur Museum, built on top of the fossil site and home to the remains of almost all the dinosaur species who lived between 205 million and 135 million years ago.

"Zigong was once a haven for dinosaurs. I've learned a lot about the fossils," Deng said. "The paleontologists taught me about dinosaurs so I can make them look as real as possible."

At Deng's factory, workers brushed paint on a gigantic tyrannosaurus to be exported to Jordan.

Their knowledge of dinosaurs helped Deng and his workers meet varied demands from customers. "For example, carnivorous dinosaurs had brightly colored skin, whereas a herbivore's skin looked less shiny and was similar to the environment it lived in," he said.

Deng also memorized the specifications of a lot of dinosaurs. "For example, the Omeisaurus lived in the middle Jurassic period that is now China. An Omeisaurus tianfuensis was 22 meters long, while a Tyrannosaurus was usually 12 meters long," he said.

"Sometimes, customers ask us to inflate the size of animatronic dinosaurs," Deng added.

The largest product that Deng's company made was a Diplodocus - 23 m tall with a 66-m-long spine - twice the size of a real Diplodocus. It was sold to a buyer in Ankara, Turkey.

Zigong's animatronics industry started in the 1990s when a businessman from Taiwan invested in a production line to make props for theme parks. Deng was an art designer for the company at the time. "Simulated animals were a huge success. I remember people got up at 6 o'clock in the morning to wait in line to buy a ticket to see an animatronic dinosaur. Hence, I made up my mind to open my own factory," he said.

Over the years, the materials and techniques used for making the dinosaurs have been upgraded. Now, manufacturers use aluminum alloy and stainless steel for bones, and high-quality silica gel and sponges for the skin.

In Zigong, animatronic dinosaurs are still made by hand, and it takes as many as 26 steps to make them. To produce one dinosaur, 10 to 20 people have to work for as many as 40 days.

Besides dinosaurs, Deng and his colleagues make other animals. A gorilla and a mammoth will be shipped to Orlando in the United States, and several brown bears are ready to be sent to Guatemala.

Manager Jiang Qiaoyu wanted to get creative about a three-story-high Tyrannosaurus. "I'm thinking of stuffing a used car into its mouth, which I think will make it look more stunning," he said.

Xinhua