Mystery Egg (Kayakasaurus)

In this review, I wanted to give you something different. Today, I wanted to share with you not only the figure I got but also the entire experience of how I ended up chasing after a mystery egg! Before we start, I want to give a bit of a background on who the artist is. The artist goes by the name Kayakasaurus, if you haven’t heard of him yet, get ready! He is a very talented young man who’s sculptures I first became aware of when he shared them on the DTF several years ago under his brand Protocasts. Even then he has shown great talent and his early models of dinosaurs were very distinctive. With each passing year his skills and style just as an artist continued to grow and amaze, it’s a pleasure watching this development through the years. I have a few of his models but unfortunately never did manage to get some of his earlier ones.

Recently I decided to join the social media world as a dinosaur toy collector and created an Instagram account dedicated just for my models and photography. Social media is a whole different world and I wanted to share some of my photos in there. I started following him as well as other artists, enjoying seeing all these talents and their adventures. It is through Instagram and YouTube that I first saw some of these figures.

If you know Kayakasaurus, you may recall a couple of months ago when he released a YouTube video in which he sent five mystery eggs to various Youtubers, it was a fun watch and a very clever promo as well. These eggs contained hatchlings dinosaurs! The reviewers had no idea which species they got until they cracked the egg, complete with gooey stuff inside. In total there were -five different dinosaurs, a trio of theropods and a couple of ceratopsians. The ceratopsians were hatchling Triceratops and pachyrhinosaurus and the theropods were Albertosaurus, Ceratosaurus, and Dilophosaurus. These were larger models and all were exquisitely painted in vivid colors. I was really taken by the Pachyrhino. As luck would have it, I missed out on the very few and limited ones he put up on his Etsy store… 

So, fast forward to early May of this year (2022) when a teaser for an upcoming sale was posted on Kayakasaurus’s Instagram. Of course, I was curious and followed closely. He posted some unpainted mini prints of the models. A few weeks later, he posted another teaser, this time the models were painted! So, I was excited to learn that all five dinosaur species will have ten painted versions each, the rest were going to be unpainted. He also posted a short video of the painting process which is awesome to watch and you can really appreciate the amount of work involved in the whole painting process. But there is a twist…

Each of the painted hatchlings will be sold as blind items! Each of the painted models will be inside an egg and will be sold simply as egg #1,#2,#3,#4, and #5! Do I feel lucky enough to be taking a gamble? At first, I was a bit hesitant since I had my heart set on a hatchling Pachyrhino. Instead, I decided to try getting one of the unpainted models and forgo the painted version. The sale date was set for June 3 starting at 5:00 Pm PST on his Etsy store. When the day finally arrived, I was determined to log on to Etsy on time and not miss out! There was a slight delay perhaps due to the upload and heavy traffic, but very soon the items started to populate his Etsy page…

If you ever participated on a down to the last-minute bidding war on eBay, you will be familiar with the excitement and rush of adrenaline as the bids start coming with each second! Well, this Etsy sale was something similar although the items were not auctioned. With many fans waiting it was a mad rush to get the figures into your shopping basket when the items started to post. I started to try and grab at least the ceratopsians and as I snag one of each, I then proceeded to check out… and just when I thought I got lucky, well, a message pop up telling me that one of the items on my cart has already sold out! Really? In just a matter of five minutes? So, thinking I have time, I decided to go back and add the Albertosaurus and Ceratosaurus to my cart and rushed back to checkout…. BIG mistake!

I should have known better! Well, guess what? Once again A message pop up telling me that two of the items on my cart are now sold out! No, seriously!? The rush of adrenaline, coupled with stress and frustration temporarily left me paralyzed and in disbelief as I blankly stare at my now empty cart. After snapping out of it I had to make a decision… do I give up or should I go back and see if there are still any left. I decided to give it one last try and went back. At this point, all of the unpainted figures that I was interested in are now all sold out, yup! Only one unpainted figure, I believed it was the Dilophosaurus, was still available. I briefly considered it, but it quickly subsided since I’m not really a big fan of that species.

With my defeat in trying to acquire any of the unpainted figures I had to decide if I was willing to spend $$ and take a gamble on one of the mystery eggs which at this point we’re all still available. Still feeling the sting of defeat, I decided to take a break and walk away. That didn’t last long, after a glass (or two) of cocktail doing its job, I decided to gamble and went back and stared at all the mystery eggs watching all the number of people that had them on their baskets climb up with each refresh. Knowing that one of these eggs contains the little pachyrhino hatchling I so wanted, but which one?

My eyes settled on egg #5, would the gamble pay off? So, I once again went through the checkout process and this time there was no message telling me my item was sold out. And with one last push of my finger, just like that, I gambled and hope it pays off. Just before bed, my curiosity leads me back to “check” one last time and see if any of the eggs sold out. Sure enough, one of them, egg #4, sold out, it was the first of the mystery eggs to sell out five hours after the start of the sale. In the end all the remaining mystery eggs will all be sold out in less than 24 hours.

 I live in the same state (only an hour and a half drive) as Kayakasaurus so it took just a couple of day for the package to arrive . I was super excited to see what I ended up getting. I opened the egg and inside is the figure all wrapped up in red plastic prolonging the suspense! I have to be honest, when I finally could make out what the dinosaur is, I felt a pang of disappointment because I can tell that the model is not one of the ceratopsians but a theropod… but which one?

Finally, the mystery model is revealed and right in front of me was a delightful little hatchling Albertosaurus! Of the trio of theropod this was the one I was the most interested in if I striked- out on the ceratopsians. On the palm of my hand the little creature stares back at me with its huge black eyes as I examine its bright and happy colors. The model is small at just 2.5 ” inches long. What it lacks in size it makes up in artistry and personality. 

The model is posed in a curled-up position as if it’s still inside the egg, but it could also be interpreted as just breaking out of the egg since it is a hatchling. You can see the tail slowly unfurling and its large feet look like it just pushed itself off the eggshell. Like any hatchling or babies, its proportions are slightly exaggerated yet managed to be so without being cartoony or a caricature.

The material is lightweight since it is a 3D printed model, and as far as I can see, there are no print marks or lines that often are very visible on printed figures. The small details are crisp and defined despite its small size, you can easily see the small scales that cover the body. The musculature is well defined, even the small legs show some skin folds and suggestions of tendons which adds some tension and movement. The small nails are sharp and stick out so some care is needed to avoid breaking them accidentally. 

The colors are vibrant and fun. The head is green and slowly transitions into turquoise as it moves towards the underside half of the body, while a darker olive covers the dorsal half, flanks, and tail. A darker brown stripe begins at the back of the head and runs down the body all the way to the thigh where it terminates. This band not only separates the turquoise color from the olive green, but it also breaks up and form stripes that run down the flank. 

There is also a short blank stripe at the temple that parallels the dark brown but terminates at the base of the lower jaw. The small teeth are immaculately painted white and the eyes gold with black pupils. All the colors, with the exception of the eyes, teeth, nails, and the stripes, are all airbrushed so the transition is really nice.

The more I look at and study this small model, the more I fall in love with it. The artistry is wonderful and the overall sculpt is full of character that suggests a mischievous nature. The whole experience of chasing after, and eventually getting one of the mystery eggs, surely added to the whole story and significance of this little figure, making it one of the most memorable one in my collection.

I’m very happy to have participated in the sale and even happier to have acquired one of these little gem of a models. If you’re a fan of Kayakasaurus’s works, then this is definitely something to consider. Although at this writing the models are not available, I believe he has plans on printing more and offering them as unpainted figure, so keep a lookout for them if interested and remember his figures are highly in demand now and sells out very fast!

Supporting small business whenever possible is not only good practice, but also helps encourage up and coming talents to continue their work. Small-scale operation like Kayakasauru’s is often a one-man operation where the artist does all the work from design, sculpting, printing, painting, and all the way to the minute finishing touches. You can only image all the work the artist put into in making just one finished model, now image fifty of them. As each of these limited models are all individually hand painted expect some variations in the final colors as no two figures are alike. This makes this little gems a truly one-of-a-kind work of art that is worth the investment and effort, plus they are guaranteed to be an eye-catching part of your collection!

Well, that concludes our review today, I hope that. you enjoyed sharing this adventure with me. Thank you for joining me and I hope to see you all on the next one, until then, stay safe and healthy. Cheers!