The name Guidraco means “malicious dragon,” and looking at its head with that tall crest and mouth bristling with dozens of long, pointed teeth, it’s definitely an appropriate name for this Chinese anhanguerid. Although a relatively obscure pterosaur, it’s pretty famous here on the Dinosaur Toy Blog thanks to CollectA’s colossal 2015 toy.
And here we have Yusen, the second ever toy of Guidraco, courtesy of PNSO. This 2018 miniature is sculpted in a flying pose with his wings fully outspread and his head angled down and turning to the right. This makes him 5.5 cm long and slightly under 12 cm wide. Presumably, he is soaring over a body of water in search of fish, his main prey, which he would have little problem spearing with those formidable fangs of his.
Yusen’s base colour is beige with airbrushed medium brown on the dorsal side and orange on the ventral side. Very dark brown is used for the hands and head, with a bit of beige on the tip of the bill and bright orange on the crest. The eyes are yellow with black pupils. Finally, the wings are decorated with black and white stripes. Unfortunately, the eyes on my Yusen have been painted very poorly indeed, with the left one missing a pupil entirely. 🙁
Yusen’s wings have a wrinkled texture to give them an appropriately leathery appearance. The same texture is used for his body, which is a bit disappointing. Perhaps the sculptor felt pycnofibres wouldn’t work out well at this scale? There is also visible shrink-wrapping on Yusen’s skull, namely the fenestrae. On a more positive note, the intermeshed teeth have been fairly well sculpted. Overall, this does indeed look like a Guidraco, although the wings are significantly wider than on most other restorations I’ve seen.
Yusen the Guidraco is a decent little toy, but I reckon I’d rank him last out of the three miniature pterosaurs that PNSO has produced. Considering the huge success of their Scientific Art Models series, it would certainly be great if they tackled a larger scale pterosaur toy or two or three.
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Small pterosaur but it shows that the size in the sculpture is not an obstacle for it to be a quality toy, the PNSO guidraco like the rest of the pterosaur miniature endorse that thesis that I have exposed.