Onicrafts

Olenoides: Living and Fossil

Olenoides serratus, the Burgess Shale trilobite known from fossils that preserve its legs and antennae, built twice: once as the living animal and once as the fossil it became. The living one has a full underside of walking legs, plus antennae and tail cerci. The fossil is hardened leather, flattened into a slab of shale.

Leather Olenoides serratus trilobite in glossy red-brown with long spines and antennae, beside its black fossil counterpart in a shale slab
Living and fossil
Leather Olenoides serratus trilobite in glossy red-brown with long curved spines, antennae and tail cerci, in hand
The living trilobite
Side view of the leather trilobite showing the domed head and spines
Side
Underside of the leather trilobite with its rows of walking legs, antennae and hypostome
Underside, with legs
Underside of the leather trilobite showing the legs and antennae, held over the workbench
Underside, another view

The build

Photos in order.

Pencil pattern for the trilobite's thorax segments with a wet-formed spine row
Pattern and first segments
Wet-formed undyed thorax segments with curved spines, in hand
Thorax segments
Undyed wet-formed trilobite thorax with tail and spines
Thorax and tail
Undyed trilobite body assembled on its paper pattern
Assembled on the pattern
Undyed leather leg assembly with paired walking legs and antennae, in hand
Leg assembly
Undyed leather trilobite next to the finished black fossil slab
Undyed, beside the fossil
Leather strip with dye tests labeled oxblood, mahogany, saddle tan, yellow, red and honey
Dye tests
The dyed trilobite thorax and spines before the head goes on
Thorax, dyed

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