By Jessica Anstice
Dandenong North’s Phil Martin is into dinosaurs so much that he has created eight large dinosaur fossils made from pieces of wood.
His dinosaur dreams began when he was just 10 years old.
“I wanted to build dinosaurs and have my own dinosaur park but of course I didn’t know how I could possibly do that,” he said.
“I had a couple of attempts but they were big failures. Now that I’m 50 I thought that this is a good time to have another go.
Mr Martin has built eight dinosaurs to date.
“I got the patterns from the internet, printed them off and cut out all the little shapes,” he said.
“Then I drew them really big on thin pieces of wooden board, then cut the pieces out and painted them bright colours before putting it all together.”
From drawing it all out to cutting it up and painting it, it takes Mr Martin between 30 and 40 hours to complete a dinosaur.
He has created and named all different types of dinosaurs including his largest which is five metres long and two metres high, Bronte, the Teenage Brontosaurus. Bronte is made up of 35 pieces.
The first dinosaur he built was the red one, named Big Red. Big Red is a Raptor and is made up of 45 pieces.
Others he has built include a Triceratops, Steg the Stegosaurus, Tank the Ankylosaurs and a Pterodactyl.
On Saturday, 10 November at the Narre Warren North Uniting Church, all Mr Martin’s dinosaurs will be on display. If you love dinosaurs, then be sure to come along and visit the Dinosaur Fossil Experience between 10am and 4pm.
“We’re putting all the dinosaurs in the garden for children to come along and see them,” Mr Martin said.
“We’re going to have a fossil hunt, some colouring and I’m also going to have one of my dinosaurs that I’m going to pull apart and I will have the children help to put it back together.
“There will also be information about all of the different types of dinosaurs.”
Mr Martin has always been an arts and crafts lover. He attends the Narre Warren Uniting Church art group every Wednesday.
“I made my first dinosaur three months ago and I really had no thought of people coming to see them,” he said.
“I just wanted to build a dinosaur and that was enough to make me happy. But then when I saw the children’s reaction when I brought it to Sunday School. The children were just so excited to see it.
“I don’t know how many more dinosaurs I will build because we’re running out of room at home but I’m just happy to show them off and see how it goes.”
Working as a lollypop man and as Santa at mostly Myer for around 24 years, Mr Martin has always loved children.
“Dinosaurs are very unique. I think the size of the dinosaur is very different to the animals that we have today,” he said.
“That sort of thing interests children.”
