Standing over 27 feet tall and weighing more than 20,000 pounds, Rex is the largest cantilever bronze animal statue in the world, according to Artworks Foundry in Berkeley, CA, the company that cast Rex. His unique pose—standing on a single paw—was accomplished with an impressive feat of engineering by the firm of Thornton Tomasetti. It took thousands of hours of craftsmanship to create Rex, based on an original sketch from former San Diego Zoo Global illustrator Tim Reamer. Jim Burt of Blue Rhino Studios turned that sketch into a three-dimensional model, which was later enlarged to its current size through a revolutionary 3-D printing process. Rex was funded through a generous donation from brothers Craigar and Mark Grosvenor, philanthropists and longtime San Diego Zoo supporters.