Review and photos by forumite ‘australovenator’ (edited by Marc (Horridus))
CollectA’s lineup for 2011 featured a good handful of obscure dinosaurs for us collectors to be excited about. Being an Australian however, one creature on that list got me into a fan boy frenzy. That creature would be none other than good old Australovenator wintonensis.
Australovenator was a medium-sized allosauroid theropod from Early Cretaceous Australia. More specifically it was a member of the Neovenatoridae family and is considered most closely related to the likes of Megaraptor and Fukuiraptor as evidenced by the large (huge) claw on the first finger. It is currently the largest theropod to be discovered in Australia and is also the only one known from more than a few scattered bones. Anyway, onto the figure. To put it simply, there isn’t a whole lot I can fault with it – there are a few small things, but I’ll get into that later.
No complete skull is known for the genus, so most reconstructions feature a skull similar to its close relatives. What we get is a fairly typical allosaur skull. While the figure does get the basic skull shape right, some of the finer features don’t quite stand up. While it’s impossible that the creature looked like a deranged hell beast all the time, the eyes on this figure give off a kind of frightened and goofy look. Not something one would expect from a creature that is believed to have been the top predator in its domain. To me, at least, this is slightly off-putting.
Moving on to the body we start to see more problems. That’s right – the wrists are a slight issue. While the forearms are not pronated to the extent of some of CollectA’s older figures (and some other companies for that matter) they still aren’t quite there yet. Secondly the huge hand claw that is somewhat the distinguishing feature of the genus is blunted and frankly poorly sculpted, though it can be assumed that this is for safety reasons. As for the legs and feet, well, there isn’t really much that can be can wrong here, nor is there much to be faulted.
All in all, this is certainly not CollectA’s best effort from the 2011 line up, but given that currently it’s the only figure of this particular animal on the market it’s certainly a decent enough attempt. The colour scheme is pleasing and the sculpt is fairly accurate. I would recommend the figure to any collectors who can look past a few tiny shortcomings, not to mention that until another company makes a figure of good old ‘Banjo’ this one is all we’ve got.
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[…] – A Time Traveller’s Guide. As for toys, Australovenator has been reproduced by Collecta and […]
Hi I recently got my hand on this model. Very nice. I
bought it on eBay. I also would have done anything to get it cause I love Australian dinosaurs. See ya!
Nice Review, a lot of new information!
Although many Internet users and collectors are very critical of this figure to my way of seeing honest I do not think that is wrong, otherwise I think a quite proportionate. What I do not like about this figure apart from the inaccuracies mentioned is his figure as many other Collecta is fairly rigid and this causes serious problems when placing and that any fall is broken. Moreover Collecta should do as the most colorful figures this year in terms of Deinocheirus, but anyway since 2011 have greatly improved their replicas.
The other issue with the hands is that they’ve got the claws wrong. Australovenator didn’t have one huge claw, like Baryonyx; it had two, with the third finger claw much smaller.
ahh yes, forgot to mention that
On thing I’ve noticed several times with CollectA is the rather unsubtle visibility of their stamp. I daresay it must be difficult on their relatively small figures, but here, as on the lovely Therizinosaurus, it seems to be something of a sore thumb across that belly.