Lufengosaurus lived during the early Jurassic period and is a primitive sauropodomorph from China. A full osteology of Lufengosaurus was done in 1941 and was the first complete dinosaur skeleton mounted in China. Fortunately, much is known on its size and shape as there is quite a lot of known material. Despite being the first mounted dinosaur in China, it has not had much love in the toy world. The 2010 CollectA Lufengosaurus is one of the few toys that has been made of this interesting animal. The only other toys that I have seen, is a generic cotton filed PVC by Guangdong Big Orange Toy company and one that was recently released by PSNO.
This look and quality of this toy falls into CollectA’s interesting and frustrating early middle period (approx 2010 -2012), in which the models they produced were a step up in design and color than the early darker Procon years. The middle period figures tended to be hit a miss in terms of accuracy and look. I guess the question remains, is this figure a hit or is it a miss. Lets take a closer look.
About the toy: At 5 in (12.7 cm) long and 6.5 in (16.51 cm high) the toy is on the larger side for the CollectA standard range. The pose is static yet maddeningly interesting. The figure has a deer in headlights look to it, or better yet, looks like a kid who just got caught by their parents with their hand in the cookie jar. The figure is standing upright and its neck is twisted to the its right side at 95 degree angle. Its arms are slightly bent, elbows in, and the hands are pronated making it look like it is pushing open a door. The legs are evenly spaced and bent, and the figure is resting on its tail. The hands and feet have five digits, with the fifth digit being small. On the hands, at the end of each digit, is a sharp claw. The claw on the first digit “thumb” is bigger than the rest.
As for the paint job, it is colored for a romp through the forest. A light greyish brown covers the tail, torso, neck, and head. The legs, arms, and the underside of the figure are in a darker shade of greyish brown, it is almost charcoal in color. The arms and legs are dry bushed in a lighter grey. Starting at the base of skull, there is faint green striping all the way down to the tail. On the torso the green striping extends down to the mid flank, shoulders, and hips. With the exception of the legs past the hips, arms past the shoulders, and the underside, the figure is covered in small black lines. Inside the mouth, the teeth are uniform white and inside the mouth looks to be salmon. The eyes are orange with black pupils.
The texture on this figure is ok, but nothing to get too excited about. The body is covered in wrinkles. Big wrinkles, little wrinkles, wrinkles of all sizes. The figure is missing some of the details that that we tend to take for granted, such as nice skin folds. The skin is rather uniform outside of the wrinkles, no sagging skin, or skin being pulled taunt. There is some heft to the figure but absent are fat rolls, and muscle bulges.
Play ability: This is an awkward toy for kids. Due to the pose, I think many kids would pass on this toy for other dinosaurs. It doesn’t act like a attacking predator, or a defending herbivore. Nor is it in good position to be a fun herbivore with the upright pose and neck pointing to one side, it just ends up being awkward. Kids are kind of confused on what to do with this figure. To quote my son, “the body is nice, but the neck is weird.” The paint job is tough, so it can stand up to some rough play. The tail, neck, and limbs have some bend ability and there are no sharp edges.
Overall: There are many little inaccuracies with this toy, such as the generic head, the slightly too short neck, and the pronated hands. I understand it is harder to do on small models, but another thing that bothers me on this figure is the fact the teeth are uniform, and blunt, when in reality, Lufengosaurus had sharp teeth. Its not all bad, there are some good accurate things to say about this toy. The front legs are short, the large thumb claw is present, and it accurately depicts the animals ability to rise on its back feet. I could go further into the scientific accuracy, but I didn’t choose the toy for it accuracy.
At the time, (not anymore thanks to PNSO), this was the only Lufengosaurus toy out there. One of things that I liked the most about this figure was the interesting paint job. It looked like a German tank from World War 2, with hinterhalt-tarnung camouflage. It is a really snazzy look. I also thought the pose was interesting. Of course, once I got it into my hands and tried to find a way to display it, I learned that this figure is very hard to display due to its pose. It is hard to find an angle were it looks good and not pushing other figures off the shelf.
Of course if you are a creative person and looking to do something interesting, there are some possibilities. For example, if you have a library, you could easily turn this figure into a book end. Glue or nail it to a thin piece of metal, or plastic, and presto, it is holding up your book collection.
At the end of the day, this figure is more of a miss than a hit. With its glaring inaccuracies, and its awkward, hard to display pose, it is easy to pass on. Of course if you like how it looks or a fan of the species, go for it, as it is at a low cost and easy to find online.
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Looks like a What The Fuck face.
There’s something about the unusual pose for this model that brings up vague memories of an old Lufengosaurus illustration, possibly for the old UK Orbis magazine ‘Dinosaurs!’ But then again, I might be thinking of an old John Sibbick Plateosaurus:
http://www.johnsibbick.com/library/display.asp?product=DM23&page=13
Beautifully written review, Laticauda, as always!
You flatter me, Thank you.
The other Lufengosaurus model that I know is the one by PNSO. PNSO makes gorgeous and accurate dinosaur models that look like gems. I love this one and the Lufengosaurus by PNSO. [Let’s not make discrimination between these two among the jury’s choice, LOL :D]
Lufengosaurus had large spans in its hands to support its weight. I think CollectA tried to add this feature on this model, explaining its too pronated hands. Its head turned to the right side is awesome; maybe you can put a small attacking carnivore on its back/great in dioramas [ think about Tenontosaurus being attacked by a pack of deinonychus.] The head shape reminds me of a Plateosaurus..
I think this was one of the first attempts/models by CollectA from the old Procon line; explaining why it is not as gorgeous and accurate as the later models by CollectA. I give this one a pass; I may buy it because accurate or not, I collect/pick each and every model from each shop because I am a proud dinosaur fan.
Another ugly duckling from the old Procon line by CollectA. Is this model and the other old models from the Procon line by CollectA retired or still in production? If it is retired, I have no choice but to pick this one before there are no models of this type for sale.
Anyways, Happy end of year parties! 😀
Have a great holiday!