PNSO : New for 2023

[oscars_dinos]

Ive been waiting to see how he looks compared next to gamba. Honestly I never agreed with the people saying this was too similar to gamba that it wasn't worth it. I thought this because I have actually always had a weird dislike for gamba        which I didn't/don't have for this new Lucas, (I honestly mainly think its a paint scheme thing). I will say the more time passes gamba does look more and more like a figure that I will eventually pull the trigger on (and if so will probably touch up a lot with paint). Seeing these two closely related Dinos together makes me want them both more, I feel like they complement each other in an odd way.

[Stegotyranno420]

This is everything I expected Gamba to be. He is so muscular and robust. I enjoyed D @DinosDragons review of it, and now I might get it for my Birthday if the Mesozoic Life Spinosaurus is not released by then.
Off to a great start

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Lana just put up the Giga, 59.99 free shipping and no tax :

https://lanatime-shop.com/products/pnso-17?fbclid=IwAR37-xYT6ugNoZtHosaJXrBwvVn8crQbzOKzfIhamEOk3xmAHFXVh9XeNFA

Thank goodness, I just got one I like more     

And I appreciate that    it helped me get this one so we both did well I think lol 

Too bad for me that apparently doesn't apply to Canada - 35 USD shipping to Toronto. Oh well, I'll have to wait for a sale.

You could message and ask them? I think they established a warehouse in California or something is why they do it to the US. they make one big shipment to there then can sell it and still make money even with free shipping.

[SidB]

Lana just put up the Giga, 59.99 free shipping and no tax :

https://lanatime-shop.com/products/pnso-17?fbclid=IwAR37-xYT6ugNoZtHosaJXrBwvVn8crQbzOKzfIhamEOk3xmAHFXVh9XeNFA

Thank goodness, I just got one I like more     

And I appreciate that    it helped me get this one so we both did well I think lol 

Too bad for me that apparently doesn't apply to Canada - 35 USD shipping to Toronto. Oh well, I'll have to wait for a sale.

You could message and ask them? I think they established a warehouse in California or something is why they do it to the US. they make one big shipment to there then can sell it and still make money even with free shipping.

Thanks, @Blade-of-the-Moon , I'll try that! Advice much appreciated.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Lana just put up the Giga, 59.99 free shipping and no tax :

https://lanatime-shop.com/products/pnso-17?fbclid=IwAR37-xYT6ugNoZtHosaJXrBwvVn8crQbzOKzfIhamEOk3xmAHFXVh9XeNFA

Thank goodness, I just got one I like more     

And I appreciate that    it helped me get this one so we both did well I think lol 

Too bad for me that apparently doesn't apply to Canada - 35 USD shipping to Toronto. Oh well, I'll have to wait for a sale.

You could message and ask them? I think they established a warehouse in California or something is why they do it to the US. they make one big shipment to there then can sell it and still make money even with free shipping.

Thanks, @Blade-of-the-Moon , I'll try that! Advice much appreciated.

Not a problem, I hope it works. They've been helpful to me when I've had to contact them.

[CARN0TAURUS]

Ive been waiting to see how he looks compared next to gamba. Honestly I never agreed with the people saying this was too similar to gamba that it wasn't worth it. I thought this because I have actually always had a weird dislike for gamba        which I didn't/don't have for this new Lucas, (I honestly mainly think its a paint scheme thing). I will say the more time passes gamba does look more and more like a figure that I will eventually pull the trigger on (and if so will probably touch up a lot with paint). Seeing these two closely related Dinos together makes me want them both more, I feel like they complement each other in an odd way.

@imnewhere
I agree, I can't wait to display my gamba next to this new giganotosaurus.  Plus I don't see them updating gamba anytime soon.  The overbite and the stripes are it's only weakpoints, otherwise it's a fantastic figure and given the figure's body language, displaying it with it's mouth open eliminated the overbite issue and makes it pop.

As for the paint, I'm debating whether or not to do something about the stripes, not a full repaint but a touch up that'll make the hastily applied stripes look more natural.

[Jose S.M.]

I don't even like big theropods that much but that video made me want to get all 3 PNSO carcharodontosaurs. I don't know they just look good together and I don't think the Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus look the same. Definitely closely related but not same-y

[CARN0TAURUS]

This new Giganotosaurus has me wanting to finally finish the touch up work on my "black gamba"

I added some burnt umber mixed with black to cover up the stripes, it's not going to be a full repaint and I'm using the PNSO paint that was already there but it still has a ways to go, detailing, dry brushing, a micro wash here and there etc.

It's going to be a bit darker than it originally was. BUT, I hated the way those stripes looked before.  Even unfinished as it is I enjoy looking at it more on the shelf now

[oscars_dinos]

NOW THAT IS NICE!!! Like I said I don't have gamba yet but when I eventually do I'll more likely then not try to match the promotional images, but your repaint is a nice remix, not completely throwing out that old paint scheme but deff making it look cooler

[Paleo Flo]

A very cool upgrade

[Antey]

I don't even like big theropods that much but that video made me want to get all 3 PNSO carcharodontosaurs. I don't know they just look good together and I don't think the Giganotosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus look the same. Definitely closely related but not same-y

I also thought. Before that, I tried to buy only one representative of the theropod group, for example, carcharodontosaurids are represented only by carcharodontosaurus. I missed the Acrocanthosaurus, although it is very good. Initially, I wanted my carcharodontosaurids to be represented by their most impressive representative - a giganotosaurus, but old Lucas was ugly. Didn't like gigs from other manufacturers either. But the appearance of such a luxurious Lucas number two makes me get my wallet out. The video shows how good it is. Perhaps this is the best theropod created by the PNSO. But having bought it for Gamba, I will have to consider the possibility of buying their Acrocanthosaurus. Because the three of them display an amazing variety of carcharodontosaurids. Must have!

[Sim]

Mark Witton made a blog post at the end of January that made me think of things discussed in this thread.  This is the blog post: http://markwitton-com.blogspot.com/2023/01/can-studies-of-living-animal-colour.html#comment-form

The first thing is the evidence he presents that is in favour of large predatory dinosaurs having camouflaging colourations.  PNSO has been giving mostly this kind of colouration to their predatory dinosaurs, so there's support for them not being flamboyant.  I think striking colourations that helps disguise them would still be very possible e.g. the PNSO Acrocanthosaurus and Wild Safari Albertosaurus.

The second thing is his reconstruction of Spinosaurus in that blog post.  His comments on Spinosaurus and other spinosaurids apparently being able to be colourful makes sense to me.  Spinosaurus's sails apparently were for display as every other option is countered.  Maybe that's how Spinosaurus was able to evolve: as spinosaurids became more geared towards prey that would basically only see underwater, large display sails, and possibly colouration, were able to evolve as their prey would never see those areas.
Witton's illustration of Spinosaurus is striking but I would expect Spinosaurus to be more colourful.  It makes me want an adult 1:35 Spinosaurus from PNSO that has that more traditional sail shape but that is more colourful than Witton's.

[Eatmycar]

I definitely understand and agree, camouflage would've probably been the norm...

But I think they could find a balance between "flamboyance" and natural. Some of their figures do have very nice paint jobs that I like. Suchomimus, Sinopliosaurus, and again, the Deinocheirus come to mind for good color schemes.

Frankly, I wish they'd be a little more bold like Safari Ltd in terms of color. Dark wash it and make it blend better (especially for the PNSO figure costs!) and find a more exciting middle ground.

[Antey]

it's amazing how people who want to have a scientifically accurate dinosaur reconstruction demand to give it the color of a parrot! There is nothing scarier than a giganotosaurus painted like a rainbow trout.

[Stegotyranno420]

it's amazing how people who want to have a scientifically accurate dinosaur reconstruction demand to give it the color of a parrot! There is nothing scarier than a giganotosaurus painted like a rainbow trout.

It is not just Giganotosaurus that they want to make rainbow . I mean it can work with some smaller dinosaurs, and if exectuted correctly ceratopsians, but I always seen larger dinosaurs as dark beasts, with the exception of some sauropods or hadrosaurs.

[Sim]

I definitely understand and agree, camouflage would've probably been the norm...

But I think they could find a balance between "flamboyance" and natural. Some of their figures do have very nice paint jobs that I like. Suchomimus, Sinopliosaurus, and again, the Deinocheirus come to mind for good color schemes.

Frankly, I wish they'd be a little more bold like Safari Ltd in terms of color. Dark wash it and make it blend better (especially for the PNSO figure costs!) and find a more exciting middle ground.

Safari doesn't strike me as having more "bold" colour schemes.  They use yellow SO much and their colour schemes are not as complex as PNSO's (understandably as the Safari figures are much cheaper).

PNSO does use washes and blends colours better than Safari (which doesn't inherently make Safari inferior, since some animals have sharply contrasting colourations).  And as for finding "a more exciting middle ground", I think that's just your personal taste not being satisfied as I find PNSO's colourations great.

[thedeadlymoose]

it's amazing how people who want to have a scientifically accurate dinosaur reconstruction demand to give it the color of a parrot! There is nothing scarier than a giganotosaurus painted like a rainbow trout.

The GR Toys Carcharodontosaurus is kind of like that and it does indeed look beautiful and scary.

There is a strange, common illusion that "realistic" or "scientifically accurate" means "colored like a small backyard lizard -- no, not the cool looking ones". This isn't particularly realistic or accurate. It's based on personal aesthetic preferences. There's nothing wrong with that, but parrots themselves are literally dinosaurs with the ultimate realistic coloration: coloration that actually exists. They are not mega-predators, but mammals stole that niche...

And, will you look at that... even with a much more physically limited mammalian color palette, leopards and tigers have the kind of coloration that people would call unrealistic and flamboyant if it didn't already exist and so we weren't already used to it.

I don't see anything wrong with some species being drab, just as in real life. I do see something quite wrong with implying that this should be across the board, and that it's beyond the pale for an extinct dinosaur to have the color, of, well, a living dinosaur.

(Though I'd sooner apply parrot logic more directly to ceratopsians & small ornithischians, personally. Which is also equally controversial!)

Not to mention -- drabness being associated with giant size is a mammal thing. The few larger ground birds we know can look quite flashy, though they are of course imperfect examples.

Still, a giraffe is just as real and realistic as an elephant. And it's easy to imagine a wider color palette for giraffes and similar creatures without mammal fur color limitations.

As for camouflage, many of the brightly colored species that come to mind are in fact using camouflage colors. We just don't notice because we're taking the camouflage out of context and assuming a generic drab environment across the board.

Edit: Also, I'm going to be honest, Mark Witton has long been intimidated into taking sometimes unrealistically conservative-but-less-accurate assumptions about coloration, like a lot of paleoartists,  after experiencing yearslong harassment from going "too far" with realistic but nontraditional speculation. Mockery and community pressure is fairly relevant to these discussions and what we think of as "actually realistic." But a lot of this stems from professional embarrassments and heavily inside baseball arguments about whether Tyrannosaurus or Pachyrhinosaurus are allowed to have fur or bright colors, following the same kind of reconstruction logic that insists upon skinniness and lack of feathers across the board unless essentially proven otherwise beyond a shadow of a doubt.

This is not a good barometer for actual realism.

[Sim]

Parrot colouration is "realistic" for them, not for plenty of animals which aren't coloured like them.  There are non-mammal extant mega-predators: monitor lizards, crocodylians, raptors, sharks...

I don't agree with your argument about leopard and tiger colouration.  Those kind of patterns don't seem unrealistic to me even if they were not known to exist.  I don't think anyone is arguing for "drabness" or dull lizard colours in dinosaurs, just not flamboyant colourations in most large predatory dinosaurs.

I don't think Witton is being dishonest with what he has blogged about.  I trust him.  Even in the blog post I linked to, he illustrates Spinosaurus with lips, which is untraditional.

[thedeadlymoose]

Parrot colouration is "realistic" for them, not for plenty of animals which aren't coloured like them.  There are non-mammal extant mega-predators: monitor lizards, crocodylians, raptors, sharks...

I don't agree with your argument about leopard and tiger colouration.  Those kind of patterns don't seem unrealistic to me even if they were not known to exist.  I don't think anyone is arguing for "drabness" or dull lizard colours in dinosaurs, just not flamboyant colourations in most large predatory dinosaurs.

I don't think Witton is being dishonest with what he has blogged about.  I trust him.  Even in the blog post I linked to, he illustrates Spinosaurus with lips, which is untraditional.

I'm aware of the predators you mentioned, of course, but they are in niches significantly less equivalent to most dinosaurs that we examine. Not including spinosaurids -- in fact, I think your observations, and Witton's, are spot on there.

I'm not really sure what you're saying about leopard and tiger coloration -- I wasn't speaking of your personal aesthetic preferences (nor indeed responding to you directly), and I cannot speak for whether you would find those unrealistic. But I'm fairly confident in my statement as a general observation. Those are indeed flamboyant colorations, and I do think they're realistic for large predatory dinosaurs. I'm definitely arguing against those colorations being unrealistic for large predatory dinosaurs.

I admit I'm genuinely shocked to see that I came across as accusing Witton of dishonesty. I apologize for that, because it definitely wasn't my intent. I can see how I came off that way.

I don't think that he's at all being dishonest. I'm speaking from having observed him for years, and observed the harassment focused on him, as well as other artists -- but especially focused on him -- and observed how that's altered his blog posts. This is not dishonesty. I should probably clarify that I am, in other areas (definitely not paleoart) a semi-public figure, and I know exactly what it's like to undergo that kind of sustained negative attention. So I'm extra sympathetic to him, and also meant my assessment sympathetically. It would be almost impossible to not change one's approach in the face of such pressure, to increase one's social caution -- speaking from experience. Knowing this, it genuinely didn't occur to me that it sounded like I was questioning his honesty. Hopefully this clarifies a bit.

Witton himself has spoken about this sustained negative response in assorted comments in the past. I don't know that he would agree that it's affected his approach, but nevertheless his approach has indeed changed on balance.

I do certainly trust and admire him, and support all his work whenever I can!

Still, I fear I may have stepped outside the scope of this thread by getting into such detail, especially because I wouldn't have applied it to his recent spinosaurid post at all. Mea culpa.

[stargatedalek]

Parrot colouration is "realistic" for them, not for plenty of animals which aren't coloured like them.  There are non-mammal extant mega-predators: monitor lizards, crocodylians, raptors, sharks...

I don't agree with your argument about leopard and tiger colouration.  Those kind of patterns don't seem unrealistic to me even if they were not known to exist.  I don't think anyone is arguing for "drabness" or dull lizard colours in dinosaurs, just not flamboyant colourations in most large predatory dinosaurs.

I don't think Witton is being dishonest with what he has blogged about.  I trust him.  Even in the blog post I linked to, he illustrates Spinosaurus with lips, which is untraditional.

Not only are plenty of raptors, IE; secretary birds, Harris hawks, hawk eagles, king vultures, etc. all quite colourful with dramatic patterns, but there is good reason to think the largest traditional raptor, Haast's eagle, was among the more decorative with red display features and stark black and white patterning. Let alone the host of other carnivorous and omnivorous birds with colours and patterns to rival parrots, like hornbills (plenty of which are primarily carnivorous), kingfishers, toucans, hoopoe, cassowary, and storks.

Crocodiles are ambush predators, they are not an appropriate point of comparison for dinosaurs. Monitor lizards living in areas with less mammals tend to be more colourful, arboreal monitors that feed more heavily on other reptiles and birds tend to be brighter in colour regardless of size.

It is also worth noting Haast's eagle was the only particularly large raptor that did not have large mammals in its environment.

Sharks, while most are not traditional ambush predators, have counter-shading specifically for the purpose of camouflage while swimming in open water. Sharks that don't live or hunt in open water tend to be heavily patterned, some for camouflage and some decoratively.

The only ecosystems on the planet today that are not "coloured" by mammalian influence are marine. And most large marine animals are found in the open ocean and use counter-shading specific to their environment, meaning near-shore marine ecosystems are probably a safer point of comparison.