The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[Halichoeres]

Thanks for stopping by, everyone!

Nice additions and glad you got the PNSO Torosaurus.
As much as I love the BoTM models they are simply too big and expensive for me🤣

The big ceratopsians really are gigantic. As Sim points out, though, these guys are similar in size to Kaiyodo:



That said, they were not cheap. Good toys are expensive to make and made to be expensive, I guess, especially with all those points of articulation. I don't know how Kaiyodo figures are sold as cheap as they are, but I guess maybe gigantic volumes of sales would do it?

@Halichoeres you can consider without trouble PNSO's Zhuchengtyrannus a Tyrannosaurus, since David Hone itself notes that may chinese museums uses specimen RTMP 81.6.1 ("Black Beauty") to represent Zhuchengtyrannus. I haven't it, but I can say that the hindlimb lenght thing looks minimal to me (and there is variation in this regard among Tyrannosaurus), the skull is cleary a Tyrannosaurus skull. Only thing it might differ (the model, not Zhuchengtyrannus itself since we don't have them) is arm lenght but as I said I havent the model to compare it with Wilson. To me, it works perfectly as a stand-in for Tyrannosaurus.

PS: great acquisitions!

Thanks! I mostly used it because it was closer to where I was standing than my Battat rex, but it's nice to know it's so similar.

@Halichoeres , L @Leyster 's suggestion for the Zhuchentyrannus is probably the most practical, unless you want to try jumping backwards trough flaming hoops and get the rare Favorite one, maybe through Brett, if he could swing it.

I actually have the Favorite one, but it's been retired from my collection in favor of the PNSO version and maybe I can save another seeker a flaming hoop or two!

Great batch! And assuming you'll be getting rid of the 1:6 versions of those BotM (in addition to the Torosaurus), I think you'll be saving a decent and totally welcome chunk of shelf space!

I haven't decided. My 1:6 dromaeosaurs are in my office at work, where I actually have shelf space to spare. I don't mind having two of an animal if they're different scales, although then again 1:6 is larger than I prefer for most organisms. And after all, even if I replaced the Dromaeosaurus and Linheraptor I'd still have a pretty broad selection of Creative Beast theropods on the shelf!

[Faelrin]

I used to have my Velociraptor posed for years on end on its jumping rod in the middle of the Desert pack base (with the blue raptor on the ground). You can see it in my collection thread. No idea how it managed that for so long, though I think the tail may have been using the wall of the shelf it was in for support. I'd have to check my images again.

That said I do imagine the smaller, and thus lighter ones have it much easier. 

[Halichoeres]

I used to have my Velociraptor posed for years on end on its jumping rod in the middle of the Desert pack base (with the blue raptor on the ground). You can see it in my collection thread. No idea how it managed that for so long, though I think the tail may have been using the wall of the shelf it was in for support. I'd have to check my images again.

That said I do imagine the smaller, and thus lighter ones have it much easier.

Ah, that's good to know. The legs of my Buitreraptor sag a bit, but that's a separate problem related to the little foot pegs.

And now, echinoderms of the Devonian! All of these are from the Oumcraft (Oammararak) Life... game, which reached my door earlier this year. This game more than quadrupled the size of my echinoderm collection.


Helianthaster
Scale: 1:20
Early Devonian
Most sea stars have five arms, but other numbers occur. This figure has 16, the same number as the best-preserved specimens of Helianthaster from Germany's Hunsrück Slate. Many famous fishes occur in the same formation, such as Drepanaspis and Pteraspis. The latter would have to be pretty small to be in scale with this figure of a rather large sea star, however.


Scyphocrinites
Scale: 1:20
Late Silurian to Early Devonian
You won't catch crinoids doing this anymore. The bulbous part at the top is a float, much like the bladders you find on kelp to keep their thalli near the surface. The float let Scyphocrinites bob along in the water upside-down, feeding from the plankton-rich surface waters with its dangling arms. Hard to render on a figure without suspending it, but I think Oammararak did an admirable job.


For accuracy, the crinoid should be at the top of this photo, but I didn't want to go to the trouble of rigging that up.


Cupressocrinites
Scale: 1:4
Early to Middle Devonian
Named after a cypress tree, thanks to its handsome silhouette. I think crinoids always have their arms in multiples of five, and this figure has six, but the extra isn't obvious from most angles and the overall impression is very much suggestive of Cupressocrinites.


Ancyrocrinus
Scale: 1:6
Early to Middle Devonian
Another descriptively named crinoid, this one after the Greek word for "anchor." Most crinoids had/have a rootlike structure that they use to fix themselves more or less permanently in place, but Ancyrocrinus had a thick, hooked structure that lay on the substrate. It would have held it in more or less the same place most of the time, but a strong enough current might have dragged it through the mud--better than being snapped in half!



Placoderms (probably mostly antiarchs and ptyctodonts) crunched through crinoids so much that crinoids actually averaged larger after they went extinct. This Groenlandaspis by Yowie was probably more of a fish-eater, though, so these crinoids can rest easy for now.


Ammonicrinus
Scale: 1:2
Middle Devonian
I'm not sure whether this crinoid was named after its resemblance to ammonites or directly after the horns of Amun, but unlike either, it wasn't permanently spiral. It was flexible and probably unfolded to gather food, and coiled up to present predators with an all-ossicle surface. Kind of a roly-poly on a stick.


Rhenocystis
Scale: 1:2
Early Devonian
The echinoderm that looks like a placoderm, one of the bizarre, symmetry-breaking stem-group taxa that lived on Paleozoic seafloors. It's hard to know which side is even the top, or which end is the front, but some trace fossils are consistent with them pulling themselves along by the 'tail' with the convex side dragging through the substrate. As with Helianthaster, we have the Hunsrück Slate to thank for this weirdo.


With Kaiyodo's Psychopyge for scale.

[Faelrin]

I really like seeing more of these and reading the short descriptions of each. Really appreciate seeing the painted versions as well. Helps to bring them to life in a way, alongside some of the other figures in your massive collection.

[BlueKrono]

Rhenocystis is... an echinoderm? 🤯
It's cool learning about this stuff from someone as knowledgeable as you.

[Sim]

Ah, that's good to know. The legs of my Buitreraptor sag a bit, but that's a separate problem related to the little foot pegs.

I think I remember you mentioning your Mononykus was sagging as well.  In these situations you could use the small posing rod they come with to support them instead of the foot peg.  They were included after I suggested the foot peg might not be enough to hold the figures up.

[Dusty Wren]

Man, I love crinoids. What a wonderful group of oddballs. It's great to see how much care Oammararak put into depicting them, especially on such a small scale. The Ancyrocrinus is stunning for its size.

[Primeval12]

@Halichoeres Does this Moros interest you? Someone in the Jurassic community made them and is selling them. Better than the Mattel one and more in scale. Unfortunately, it is not colored though .

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125457972976?_trkparms=amclksrc%3DITM%26aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20160908105057%26meid%3D5bb1df81a72049db9ac0e219779b2947%26pid%3D100675%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D15%26sd%3D165621240494%26itm%3D125457972976%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057%26brand%3DJurassic+World&_trksid=p2380057.c100675.m4236&_trkparms=pageci%3A12f29e24-1f53-11ed-9bc7-6a7e40e89282%7Cparentrq%3Ab36e2acb1820a44ceb3ada39fffd1b8a%7Ciid%3A1

[Leyster]

Very interesting read! All these echinoderms were new to me

[ceratopsian]

New to me too and complete amazing. As for Rhenocystis...!

[Halichoeres]

Thanks, everyone!

Rhenocystis is... an echinoderm? 🤯
It's cool learning about this stuff from someone as knowledgeable as you.

Well, I could be a BIT more knowledgeable--I accidentally posted a photo of the wrong echinoderm. I've fixed it now. Most of what I said about Rhenocystis is true, but it doesn't look nearly as placoderm-like as the Ordovician period's Enoploura:


They are both completely weird animals, but Rhenocystis as an echinoderm is a little less mind-blowing than Enoploura, which could easily stand in for some osteostracan.

Man, I love crinoids. What a wonderful group of oddballs. It's great to see how much care Oammararak put into depicting them, especially on such a small scale. The Ancyrocrinus is stunning for its size.

Agreed, they are extremely impressive considering how small they are. They're really at the limit of what I can capture with my phone camera--I think it's time I bought a real one.

@Primeval12 thanks for the suggestion! I'd seen that figure on eBay before, and while it is a better representation of the animal than Mattel's, I don't really love it. More importantly, because dinosaurs sensu stricto, especially theropods, are made in so many media by so many digital and traditional artists, it would cost a lot of time and money to keep up with them all. So I only branch out into non-toy formats for fish and occasionally plants, and I limit myself pretty strictly to mass-produced toys for true blue dinosaurs. Conveniently, BotM has a Moros forthcoming, which reduces the temptation to buy the 3d-printed version you've linked to.

Ah, that's good to know. The legs of my Buitreraptor sag a bit, but that's a separate problem related to the little foot pegs.

I think I remember you mentioning your Mononykus was sagging as well.  In these situations you could use the small posing rod they come with to support them instead of the foot peg.  They were included after I suggested the foot peg might not be enough to hold the figures up.

Yeah, that's what I do now. That was a good suggestion on your part!

[Halichoeres]

Some Cretaceous dinosaurs that came my way recently


Safari Ltd Albertosaurus
Scale: 1:30 - 1:35
Sculptor: Doug Watson
Released: 2022
Maastrichtian of North America
There's quite a little string of Watson tyrannosaurs now! One thing I like about this one is that it reflects the longer digit II compared to digit I. I also think the striking pattern is a nice change of pace (I am not in the camp that thinks that every large carnivore has to have camouflage as mammals perceive it). This replaces the old Carnegie Albertosaurus, which had a solid 18-year run as the most up-to-date version available.


The figures are similar in size, although the Qianzhousaurus is made to a larger scale (more like 1:25).


Safari Ltd Zuul (Dino Dana)
Scale: 1:30 - 1:35
Released: 2022
Campanian of North America
The sculpt is really pretty good, although the pliable spikes got pretty bent somewhere between Dongguan and my apartment. The paint work is commensurate with the price.


The other ankylosaurs in this photo are to a somewhat larger scale, between 1:25 and 1:30. Still, the Zuul is made to a larger scale than Safari's most recent Ankylosaurus, and to the same scale as PNSO's.


Safari Ltd Patagotitan
Scale: 1:70 based on limb elements
Sculptor: Doug Watson
Released: 2022
Albian or Cenomanian of South America
On the whole, I like this figure. I'm always interested in a new sauropod, and Patagotitan is one of the more completely known titanosaurs. Even though it's 1:70, this isn't a tiny figure, and it captures the wide-gauge heft of a titanosaur. I guess I'd have preferred the neck be more upright and the rear feet have only three claws. The head is a little large, too--scaled by the limbs, it's 1.5 meters long, and although no skull is known for this genus, that's more than three times the length of the skull of Sarmientosaurus. Oversize heads are pretty common, especially on sauropods, maybe to give them a little more personality.


It dwarfs some similarly-scaled titanosaurs from CollectA. A part of me wishes I had these in a larger scale, but a more practical part of me is happy they're small enough to fit on my shelves.


Make the head the right size with this one neat trick!


PNSO Acrocanthosaurus
Scale: 1:30 - 1:35
Sculptor: Zhao Chuang or someone in his workshop
Released: 2022
Aptian or Albian of North America
Less obviously lipless than some of PNSO's other offerings. I think the tail is a bit short and the head a bit large, but it's a big improvement on the Papo version that it replaced. The more proportionate limbs, the nice fleshy hump along the back, the tasteful color scheme--it's a nice piece of work.


This is where the support rod fits best!

[Stegotyranno420]

Congrats on the Acrocanthosaurus @Halichoeres .
I gotta say out of all the pictures on the internet, yours best demonstrates the figure's life-like details.

[Faelrin]

Good haul there. I really hope to display this Acrocanthosaurus when I can get to it, with the Safari Ltd Sauropelta and Rebor Deinonychus clan I already have (and maybe the Tenontosaurus corpse if I can get my hands on that someday as well). I know the Sauropelta will probably be too big to be in proper scale, but it is the best version on the market right now, other then PNSO's. Nice to know it's in or close to 1:35 as I've been waiting years for a decent Acrocanthosaurus in that scale.

[ceratopsian]

The first photo of the Albertosaurus is a stunner - wonderfully atmospheric.  It makes the dinosaur look highly attractive - and threatening - in its striking patterns.  Your photo is the most successful I've seen in making it look like a living creature.

As for Zuul - I'm beginning to think I might do best to send one to Martin for a repaint.  It's as you say a decent sculpt, but I don't think I could ever quite come to terms with that green!

[Concavenator]

That's a great haul you got, congratulations.

I'm also enjoying this latest wave of more colorful Safari dinosaurs, I've grown tired of yellow being used over and over on their figures. Such a fresh and welcome change.

I didn't know that Albertosaurus had its digit II larger than the I, is that a specific trait of Albertosaurus or is it shared with other tyrannosaurids?

Aside from your concerns on the Patagotitan (which I share) I also wish it had osteoderms, since they were present in other titanosaur taxa like Alamosaurus, Ampelosaurus and Saltasaurus. It was rumoured that PNSO might be releasing a Patagotitan soon, so hopefully that one corrects this one's weaknesses. The Safari one is still a nice figure on its own (and at least, it renders the pose of the AMNH mount, even if that pose surely wasn't the most neutral one for the creature!) it's just that I think it could've been a bit better.

When it comes to the Acrocanthosaurus, initially I was misled by the promo pic due to the perspective it had, so I thought its head was waaay oversized and the the tail much too short (so at first, despite liking the figure, I thought I just had to pass on it), and while the final figure's proportions may not be totally spot on, it's a clear improvement on what it looked like it was going to be. Did you measure how much bigger the head and shorter the tail are compared to how they should be? Comparing the PNSO figure to Franoys' skeletal, I think its proportions are fairly good (just eyeballing). I think the biggest problem is the tail, even considering a slight curvature, it appears to be a bit too short indeed. The head appears to be slightly bigger than it should as well (and maybe the neck a shade short?), but I wouldn't say these are as noticeable as the tail thing.



Even if its proportions aren't perfect, it's probably the nicest version of the species so far. Up until this one, the Battat and the Kaiyodo were the most accurate ones I'd say (even more so than the Safari 2012). There's also the upcoming BotM, which might possibly surpass this one, though it will be way bigger and much more expensive. No more info regarding the GR Toys version yet, even if it was a very early WIP, its proportions looked good.

[bmathison1972]

Nice, Halichoeres! I bought the Patagotitan as soon it was on Safari's site, but had a bad shipping experience (with FedEx, NOT Safari), so now I'll wait for the Zuul and Albertosaurus to be available at Happy Hen Toys.

[Halichoeres]

Congrats on the Acrocanthosaurus @Halichoeres .
I gotta say out of all the pictures on the internet, yours best demonstrates the figure's life-like details.

I discarded about 8 other photos before I settled for this one; I'm glad it's proving useful!

Good haul there. I really hope to display this Acrocanthosaurus when I can get to it, with the Safari Ltd Sauropelta and Rebor Deinonychus clan I already have (and maybe the Tenontosaurus corpse if I can get my hands on that someday as well). I know the Sauropelta will probably be too big to be in proper scale, but it is the best version on the market right now, other then PNSO's. Nice to know it's in or close to 1:35 as I've been waiting years for a decent Acrocanthosaurus in that scale.

I keep hoping someone will actually make a live Tenontosaurus...

As for Zuul - I'm beginning to think I might do best to send one to Martin for a repaint.  It's as you say a decent sculpt, but I don't think I could ever quite come to terms with that green!

It is a very vibrant shade, like a lump of turquoise. I would be very interested in how it would look with a new coat of paint. The eye paint spills over the actual eye, so if that were properly executed that would go a long way toward making it look more realistic.

@Concavenator
I am not sure how widespread the finger size difference is. I noticed it on the figure and then looked it up in Mallon et al. 2019 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334117086_A_Problematic_Tyrannosaurid_Dinosauria_Theropoda_Skeleton_and_Its_Implications_for_Tyrannosaurid_Diversity_in_the_Horseshoe_Canyon_Formation_Upper_Cretaceous_of_Alberta_A_PROBLEMATIC_TYRANNOSAURID_SKE). Apparently a fair number of tyrannosaurs are preserved armless, which makes sense--it's one of the parts that would be easiest to lose by rotting in a river a little bit before fossilization.

I wonder how many titanosaurs had osteoderms. Like a tyrannosaur's arms, they would be easy to lose before fossilization, but maybe some taxa really didn't have them! Hard to prove the absence of something.

As for the Acro's proportions, according to Table 1 in the description of NCSM 14345 (Currie & Carpenter 2000), the skull is 1230 mm measured along the side from premaxilla to the posterior tip of the quadrate, and the femur is 1277 mm, so the head is about 96% the length of the femur. On the figure, the head is about 105% the length of the femur. So it's similar to the excess in the Corythosaurus figure, although it's much more noticeable on Corythosaurus because of the crest. This kind of minor slop is par for the course for PNSO. As for the tail, the difference is really minor compared to the skeletal diagram in the same paper: Currie & Carpenter have the distance from hip joint to tail tip is 2.3× the distance from hip joint to shoulder, and on the figure it's about 2.2×. I think the height of the hump makes the tail look proportionally shorter, and in any event the tail is not completely preserved, so I think PNSO is actually fine on that score. As for GR Toys, they have lately had more misses than hits, so I'm not holding my breath that their Acro will be an improvement on this one.

Nice, Halichoeres! I bought the Patagotitan as soon it was on Safari's site, but had a bad shipping experience (with FedEx, NOT Safari), so now I'll wait for the Zuul and Albertosaurus to be available at Happy Hen Toys.

oh, that's a bummer. I used to have problems with Fedex at my old address, but my building now has a doorperson, which makes package receipt way easier. I might also order from Happy Hen in the future, for the simple reason that Safari's in-house fulfillment is pretty careless with packaging.

[Faelrin]

@Halichoeres There's the Wild Past one, but it's a 3D printed one you have to paint. I remember D @Dino Scream3232 has shown it off before in reviews, or images on instagram. Though I agree there should be an option for a mass produced accurate living one. It's one of the better known ornithopods too, as far as I'm aware.

Edit: Also thanks for making note of the measurements of the PNSO Acrocanthosaurus figure and the fossils. A shame its head is slightly too oversized, but it's still a beautiful figure otherwise.

[SBell]

@Halichoeres There's the Wild Past one, but it's a 3D printed one you have to paint. I remember D @Dino Scream3232 has shown it off before in reviews, or images on instagram. Though I agree there should be an option for a mass produced accurate living one. It's one of the better known ornithopods too, as far as I'm aware.

Wasn't there a perfectly mediocre Tenontosaurus from CollectA as well?