Have you ever dreamed of visiting a theme park that featured up-do-date, scientifically accurate (or as close to accurate as one can get) dinosaurs as opposed to tired old movie monsters? Well, that may never come to pass for real, but Dinosaurs in the Wild comes pretty danged close. This amazing attraction combines CGI and robotics to create what feels like an authentic trip to North America some 67,000,000 years. Visitors encounter icons Tyrannosaurus rex, Triceratops, and Ankylosaurus as well as lesser known marvels Alamosaurus, Thescelosaurus, Quetzalcoatlus, and the recently discovered Dakotaraptor. Paleontologist Darren Naish, who served as the scientific consultant for the exhibit, has called it, “just about the only project I’ve been involved in whereby creative decisions have actually followed the advice and opinion of the consultant.” DITW debuted in London, England, this past summer, and will hopefully be returning in the future.
Today I’ll be reviewing the DITW Tyrannosaurus rex. Created along with an imposing Dakotaraptor by a company called IVS Group Ltd., it measures a whopping 45 cm in length and slightly over 19 cm tall. That makes it one of the biggest T. rexes in my collection, easily dwarfing the ones from CollectA, Papo, and Safari and surpassed only by the Jurassic Park gang and this guy. The main colours are burgundy and black with dull yellow eyes, a pink mouth, white teeth, and grey and white claws. Matches the colour scheme of the animal(s) from the exhibit very well indeed.
Probably the first thing you’ve noticed about this T. rex is the black mane of feathers (or filaments, if you wish) covering its neck and much of its back. Gives it a rather leonine appearance, which I suspect was intentional. The issue of whether or not tyrannosaurs possessed any degree of integument is an ongoing and highly divisive one, and I have zero desire to discuss it at length here. All I will say is that the current evidence suggests that T. rex didn’t have feathers, but does not prove for a fact that it didn’t. In any case, I’ve always liked the appearance of feathered tyrannosaurs, and I think this one looks pretty neat.
The head is exactly what a T. rex‘s should look like: big and blocky with forward-facing orbits, prominent but not exaggerated brow ridges, and while the eyes are a bit sunken, there really isn’t any of that despised “shrink-wrapping” that plagues so many dinosaur toys. And, of course, the enormous open mouth is lined with savage teeth. Indeed, the teeth are really quite sharp, to the point where it’s possibly not a good idea to let very young children play with this toy. The hands are correctly positioned, but the arms look a tad too big. The neck is nice and thick, the hind legs are well-muscled, and I like how the tapering tail curves downward. The rib cage could stand to be a bit thicker, but overall, I’d say this T. rex rates pretty well in terms of anatomy. The skin on the head is covered in lots of tiny pebbled scales. Rows of osteoderms run down the top of the muzzle and the palate is ribbed. The feathery parts have a shaggy texture to them while the skin on the body and tail is covered in wrinkles of varying size.
The T. rex‘s lower jaw is hinged, although the range of motion doesn’t allow for a closed mouth. The shoulders and hips have a limited range of rotation and the tail features a hinge joint that allows it to swing from side to side, although as you can see in the image below, it doesn’t look very good. The pegs and seams at the ankles and feet make them appear as though they’re articulated, but they’re not. Stability is also an issue here. The feet don’t rest properly on a surface, so getting this toy to remain standing can be something of a challenge. I pulled it off for this photo shoot, but I’m going to use a support to display it on my shelf. Time to get the LEGO bricks out!
Overall, this is not the best T. rex toy I’ve acquired over the years, but it’s definitely impressive and possessing a certain charm. Always a pleasure to see an up-to-date rendition of the tyrant king. I reckon my son will enjoy playing with this quite a bit once he gets older. This toy was available for purchase at the DITW exhibit while it was going on, and Darren Naish was kind enough to bring a bunch to sell at TetZooCon in London this past October, which is how I got mine. Or rather, how Sean Bell got one for me, so many thanks go out to him for that! For those of you still hoping to get one, I imagine you’d best be searching eBay. Good hunting!
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Okay so, for some reason ludicrously small details like this instantly draw my eye and I can’t unsee them so now I must curse everyone.
The eyes. Look reeeeeeally close at the eyes.
The painted eyes fill the orbit but the original mold had tiny, more ‘typical’ eyes. You can see the details from the original mold underneath the paint in the last pic!
I went and took a look at some closeups of the face of the Dakotaraptor, and it looks like that one also had different eyes when the molds were cast! (It’s a little harder to tell from the pics I’ve seen for the ‘raptor because of the lighting and colour, but it does look like it).
I wonder why they decided to paint over the molded details with the larger, cartoonish eyes? Perhaps IVS Group lifted the head molds from somewhere else?
Good spot, somehow I’d never noticed that! I think these are original molds, but maybe they just gave unclear instructions to the factory (or their instructions weren’t followed closely). Reminds me of the toenails often painted on sauropod models that haven’t had them sculpted in.
This figure is a very good attempt in making scientifically accurate T.rex but still cannot bit the safari ltd 2017 en-fluffed T.rex model sculpted by Mr. Watson in terms of anatomical accuracy although it has surpassed it in size. The forelimbs are a bit large a movie monster character , although not pronated. The head with the neck portion thicker compared to the trunk portion which seems a bit awkward. All of these are maintained in the safari ltd 2017 model created by Mr. Watson. He has really created a masterpiece model of the tyrant lizard king. In spite of that he eyes are too big and look toy-like rather than giving a realistic appeal and I also don’t like too much articulation.
I have seen the praise worthy Eofauna Giganotosaurs model which has surpassed every Giga models in terms of anatomical accuracy and aesthetic beauty. I hope that they will also give us a semifeathered version of the Tyrant Lizard King which will also be anatomically accurate and praise worthy figure, not a ridiculous like this one.
Lets wait for the Eofauna model. I do believe that they will bring back the real T.rex in front of us from Hell Creek Formation 65 Million Years Ago.
Yes, I too am hopeful that EoFauna will produce a Tyrannosaurus rex in the near future. Judging from their first three toys, I’m fully confident that they’d slam dunk it.