Review and photographs by Mikko aka Dinomike, edited Plesiosauria.
This magnificent version of Ankylosaurus magniventris has been very difficult to obtain in Europe since the import prices from Japan are quite steep. However, I managed to obtain this Late Cretaceous creature when a shop in Britain finally took Favorite’s Soft Model series in their selection.
This sculpture, crafted by the Japanese paleoartist Kazunari Araki and manufactured by Favorite, is something to marvel at. The sculpture is a revisited version of the older Favorite Ankylosaurus which was more or less a Euoplocephalus with the head of an Ankylosaurus. This time the anatomical details are very accurate – as far as its body parts are known. The Ankylosaurus, even though quite archetypal among dinosaurs, is not fully known. For instance its limbs have not been fully discovered but they are thought to have resembled those of other ankylosaurids. Thus, they are thought to have five-toe feet.
The proportions of the model are pretty much in order even though the famous club may be a tiny bit too big. The scutes and spikes on the back of the animal seem to be of the right animal this time and highly resemble the ones on the Carnegie Ankylosaurus, although they are a bit smaller and less bulky looking. Araki’s sculpture portrays a heavy animal marching straight onward with one foot off the ground. The pose and coloring is less striking than Papo’s battle posed Ankylosaurus.5 The color scheme is quite pleasing with bluish-grey accentuated with mild yellow scutes and a white underbelly. The overall appearance is that of a stern yet mild-tempered creature. There are some violet paint strokes to accentuate shadows.
The level of details in this sculpture is very pleasing though it’s no Papo. It’s reasonably priced (available from Amazon.com here), so I would highly recommend this model to anyone who desires to have an up-to-date version of this fantastic animal.
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I like the colour scheme of this this Favorite Ankylosaurus, but its head really doesn’t look like the distinctive head of Ankylosaurus. The front half of its snout in particular looks off – it looks too compact and its nostrils appear to be misplaced.
“The pose and coloring is less striking than Papo’s battle posed Ankylosaurus.”
The colouration of this Favorite Ankylosaurus looks much more striking than the Papo figure’s to me! I think the Papo Ankylosaurus’s pose is absurd. What is it supposed to be doing in that pose, imitating a scorpion? It’s also an impossible pose for an ankylosaurid as the vertebrae in the last half of their tails overlap each other or are fused together, rendering the tail stiff and straight. This immobile part of the tail forms the “handle” of the tail club and evolved before the tail club knob. As Victoria Arbour and Philip Currie have said, if ankylosaurs evolved a heavy club on a tail without the “handle”, it would have been more like a flail than a club, and more likely to injure the ankylosaur wielding it.
Really worth the ¥630 if you buy it in Japan. A really solid ankylosaur figure!
Wonderful.