PNSO : New for 2023

[SenSx]

Not gonna lie, with every latest release I'm a bit surprised they haven't done a 1:35 scale Cerato... thinking back on their recent releases it's such a mystery to me
Why they haven't done that animal yet. Same with Dilophosaurus for that matter...

Totally agree with this ^

Most of the other companies afaik haven't really come up with Ceratosaruses, the closest of which is Rebor's, and that one seems to be discontinued. Papo's is another, but that one seems much too stylised for me. Others that I've seen are high-end resin models with bases, which aren't really what I'm looking for...

But fingers crossed to see what else PNSO is gonna come up with next, every release just has me so hyped. Can never get enough of the amazing sculpt work and paint jobs, even though many palettes and patterns - especially on theropods - are considered boring by many people (and which I don't necessarily agree with).

-----

BTW, has anyone here heard of another rumoured 2023 list of PNSO upcoming models floating around? Similar to 2022's which predicted the Acro, Sucho, etc?

I have the Nanmu Ceratosaurus.
Because I was first JP collector, but that figure isn't entirely based on JP3, and I'm not specialist, but it does not seem too inaccurate.
It's a bit big for 1/35, proportions are probably a bit different and it might be slighlty stylized but I've seen worse with JP designs or figures, and it's honestly my favorite Cerato on the market.

[Jose S.M.]

A 1/35 Ceratosaurus would be welcomed, hopefully not in their museum line but on the regular one. They already made Torvosaurus and Allosaurus so Ceratosaurus is missing to complete the trinity.

[SenSx]

Yes but I still feel the Herrerasaurus is the a bigger omission on the market.
Cerato has at least been made here and there, even if there isn't one consensus.
But one of the first medium size theropod only has the ugly fat Collecta, and the Schleich monster

[Lynx]

Yes but I still feel the Herrerasaurus is the a bigger omission on the market.
Cerato has at least been made here and there, even if there isn't one consensus.
But one of the first medium size theropod only has the ugly fat Collecta, and the Schleich monster

The newest CollectA is ugly and fat? What?
The figure looks fine besides an awkward pose, which, is that's the only thing to be complained about, that's not a bad figure.
Megalosaurus has a perfectly fine representation, and while I wouldn't mind PNSO making one, it's represented just fine in the market.

There isn't even a Schleich Megalosaurus.

[SenSx]

Yes but I still feel the Herrerasaurus is the a bigger omission on the market.
Cerato has at least been made here and there, even if there isn't one consensus.
But one of the first medium size theropod only has the ugly fat Collecta, and the Schleich monster

The newest CollectA is ugly and fat? What?
The figure looks fine besides an awkward pose, which, is that's the only thing to be complained about, that's not a bad figure.
Megalosaurus has a perfectly fine representation, and while I wouldn't mind PNSO making one, it's represented just fine in the market.

I'm talking about the Herrerasaurus (I'm jumping from on subject to the other sorry), I don't find it very beautiful...
The head is weird, especially from the front, and it looks fat to me on the sides 

The Megalosaurus is good, just a bit small.
I actually liked it much more in hand than on pics or videos.
Actually I'd be very happy if Collecta decided to make a deluxe version out of it.

[Lynx]

Yes but I still feel the Herrerasaurus is the a bigger omission on the market.
Cerato has at least been made here and there, even if there isn't one consensus.
But one of the first medium size theropod only has the ugly fat Collecta, and the Schleich monster

The newest CollectA is ugly and fat? What?
The figure looks fine besides an awkward pose, which, is that's the only thing to be complained about, that's not a bad figure.
Megalosaurus has a perfectly fine representation, and while I wouldn't mind PNSO making one, it's represented just fine in the market.

I'm talking about the Herrerasaurus, I don't find it very beautiful...
The head is weird, especially from the front, and it looks fat to me on the sides 

The Megalosaurus is good, just a bit small.

Ah alright, I was confused because I thought you meant first discovered.
100%, Herrerasaurus really needs a new figure.

[Quiversaurus]

Yes but I still feel the Herrerasaurus is the a bigger omission on the market.
Cerato has at least been made here and there, even if there isn't one consensus.
But one of the first medium size theropod only has the ugly fat Collecta, and the Schleich monster

The newest CollectA is ugly and fat? What?
The figure looks fine besides an awkward pose, which, is that's the only thing to be complained about, that's not a bad figure.
Megalosaurus has a perfectly fine representation, and while I wouldn't mind PNSO making one, it's represented just fine in the market.

I'm talking about the Herrerasaurus, I don't find it very beautiful...
The head is weird, especially from the front, and it looks fat to me on the sides 

The Megalosaurus is good, just a bit small.

Ah alright, I was confused because I thought you meant first discovered.
100%, Herrerasaurus really needs a new figure.

Agreed on the Herrerasaurus front. It's one of my favourite species and I really like the JWE/JWE2 in-game models, although Mattel's multiple takes on the species kinda frustrate me cause the proportions are so weird on those toys... Hoping that an accurate, up-to-date model is made soon!

-----

Also, I saw previously on an earlier page of this thread that the rumoured 2023 list contains a flurry of sauropods and marine critters - not the biggest fan of these, but still excited to see what PNSO has in store! If anyone has any additional info on this please share!

[Sim]

This is why all the nationalistic stuff needs to be removed from these animals.  As an American I take zero pride in T-rex being considered one of the top LAND predators of all time.  What does it have to do with us?  Absolutely nothing!  We need to think about what the globe looked like during those times, weren't all the continents connected?  Didn't everything start from one large continent?  It seems really silly to me to take pride or ownership over something that had nothing to do with our modern concepts of borders or territories etc.  where I live right now was thousands of feet under water a couple hundred million years ago, LOL.

If I was British I WOULD take pride in Megalosaurus but not because of the fossils themselves, but because of the historical legacy which basically kicked off the study of these amazing animals.  Even the naming systems were established there at that time and THAT is WAY more important than where the animals are found IMO.

Well, it's fine if you don't take pride in prehistoric animals from where you live, but some people do as it's something they can relate to.  I don't think it's silly.

[Fembrogon]

It's only problematic if it turns into some kind of competition or hostility. If anything a little more "pride" in regional fossils is probably an advantage for paleontology, by encouraging more marketing, merchandise, awareness, etc. in said discoveries.

[SenSx]

I'm definitely not proud of the dinosaurs discovered in my country 

[Stegotyranno420]

There is nothing wrong with having nationalistic/patriotic pride in the dinosaurs of your fatherland.

[CARN0TAURUS]

It's only problematic if it turns into some kind of competition or hostility. If anything a little more "pride" in regional fossils is probably an advantage for paleontology, by encouraging more marketing, merchandise, awareness, etc. in said discoveries.

If I said that more money is being spent digging for dinosaur fossils today and in more places worldwide than at any other time in human history, would you agree with that statement?  If you agree with that, how has the science itself been affected?  How has it benefitted and how has it suffered as a result of the increased influx of money? 

I was talking to my son one day and he was unhappy that T-rex specimens are being sold to billionare private collectors from all over the world.  From a nationalistic POV should I be up in arms about American farmers making money from fossils they find on their own private property?  Should the US government behave like other governments and basically take whatever is found there in the name of national and scientific interests?

I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm not going to be a hypocrite and pretend I wouldn't want the money if I found something on my property.  On the other hand, if one of those T-rex specimens ends up being displayed  in a foreign country introducing millions more young people to the world of dinosaurs, is that a bad thing?

[KeU]

What is so special with Meraxes ?
For me it's just a smaller Giga, but I'm a noob, and I don't know the story about it.

Me too.

Stegotyranno nailed it in his response above.
Just enough differences to classify a different genus but overall pretty similar.
Something like Daspletosaurus, Tarbosurus, and Tyrannosaurus. There are minor proportion and width differences but they can pass of as another simply by changing scales.
That's why all of us get bored easily with repetitive Carcharodontosaurid or Tyrannosaurid releases.
More the former since it is more common.

[Duck]

Does anyone have an estimate for when the Meraxes formally releases? (Judging from past PNSO release)

[Stegotyranno420]

@CARN0TAURUS you have a good point. Ultimately everyone should be able to enjoy dinosaurs and everything all came from pangea, and also ethnic groups move arpund all the time. But I think you are looking more into economic/legal things instead.
About ethnic groups migrating, many Americans are of European stock, but they still feel affinity with American dinosaurs. Personally I am of Kshatriya stock, so whilr my direct ancestors are of Indian subcontinent my distant ancestors are of Eastern European steppes, but that does not mean I should all of a sudden start liking those dinosaursinstead of subcontinenal ones. No group owns the right of their dinosaurs, but they often have a closer affection with those of their country. Not making a hard point, but interesting food for thought. While it may seem a bit tense to some folks, this discussion is very eye opening and interesting, and in my opinion can have its own thread.

[Fembrogon]

If I said that more money is being spent digging for dinosaur fossils today and in more places worldwide than at any other time in human history, would you agree with that statement?  If you agree with that, how has the science itself been affected?  How has it benefitted and how has it suffered as a result of the increased influx of money? 

I was talking to my son one day and he was unhappy that T-rex specimens are being sold to billionare private collectors from all over the world.  From a nationalistic POV should I be up in arms about American farmers making money from fossils they find on their own private property?  Should the US government behave like other governments and basically take whatever is found there in the name of national and scientific interests?

I don't know what the right answer is, but I'm not going to be a hypocrite and pretend I wouldn't want the money if I found something on my property.  On the other hand, if one of those T-rex specimens ends up being displayed  in a foreign country introducing millions more young people to the world of dinosaurs, is that a bad thing?

I think I'm losing track of what we're arguing over here. This just started because @Sim said they're partial to British dinosaurs, right? Our notions of national boundaries may not have bearing on the lives of prehistoric creatures, but it's how we understand the world today and our frame of reference for history. I don't see anything wrong with being partial to "X genus" for the simple reason of having once treaded the same region as we do today. You previously mentioned your current home having been underwater in prehistory; personally, if I were living somewhere like, say, Kansas, I would definitely be contemplating the notion that mosasaurs once swam over where I'd be living, and that would be pretty cool.

Your hypothetical argument about the rex skeletons sounds to me like the sense of competition I mentioned. There's a difference between saying, "hey, that dinosaur was discovered in my state/country, isn't that cool?" and saying, "That dinosaur was found in my region, therefore no one else may have it." They're not the same, and if the so-called "pride" we're discussing conflates into the latter case, then that's a problem. I don't think that's what's happening, though, and it's not what was being implied here in the first place.

I do agree with this:

I think from a purely historical point of view Megalosaurus is just such an incredibly important subject and the sheer lack of figures does that history a massive disservice.  I have the tiny collectA figure but we need a proper 1/35 scale version from PNSO.

If I was British I WOULD take pride in Megalosaurus but not because of the fossils themselves, but because of the historical legacy which basically kicked off the study of these amazing animals.  Even the naming systems were established there at that time and THAT is WAY more important than where the animals are found IMO.

...But is that really exclusive from the "nationality"? History doesn't exist in a floating bubble; it's tied to places as well as to times. One can admire the history of Megalosaurus and acknowledge (even endorse) the fact that it happened in Britain without turning it into some sort of British empirical achievement, or something like that.

I digress, this is a weird tangent we got into and I probably shouldn't have thrown in my two cents.
I do agree that Megalosaurus deserves more toys, given its significance to paleontology. For that matter, we are sorely lacking in Hylaeosaurus figures, which always gets overshadowed but was still significant to the coining of dinosauria.

[spinosaurus1]

The toe isn't as proportionally large as that of a cassowary or a dromaeosaur; in fact it probably wouldn't have been that obvious in life.



https://www.deviantart.com/iofryy/art/Meraxes-gigas-Focus-of-the-left-and-right-foot-922353497

Still, it's just enough bigger for one to wonder what purpose it served. I don't know if the publication addressed this question at all.

something about the scaling in that image doesn't look right tbh. with the actual foot material the enlarge foot claw is distinctively larger in comparison to the rest of the toe claws

[Antey]

Regarding the discussions about the "nationality" of dinosaurs - the dispute began with the possibility of selling the skeleton abroad. It seems to me that this skeleton will be exhibited. But it is very important that the scientific community has free access to its research. That is why I am categorically against fossil sales. Because a private person acquiring a dinosaur has full and unlimited rights to him. He can hide it not only from the public, but also from science. In the end, the ownership right allows him to even destroy the skeleton. He is a full master! Archeology items in my country cannot be in private property. I'm not sure that the law also applies to paleontology items. Sometimes a ban on the search for archeology objects by private individuals creates difficulties. We are sometimes brought by randomly found artifacts, but we cannot accept them due to the illegality of the source of admission. But in the UK, for example, very good laws that do not interfere with private research and at the same time protect the finds in the face of science. In paleontology, you can also find a compromise.

[ceratopsian]

I agree compromise can work very well to increase scientific knowledge. For instance, in the UK the Portable Antiquities Scheme has resulted in a tremendous increase in our knowledge of British Iron Age coins.

[Faras]

Decided I'd wait for better deals so only got my Giga today. Quick briefing as there are many video reviews around now.

Best things of new Giga are its bulk (especially the muscular neck):



And brilliant head sculpt with surprisingly well painted teeth and perfect jaw articulation:




Glottis?



Common issue

Tail (from above):


Some scales on left side of tail:



IMO it's definitely their best Carcharodontosaurs so far, though Meraxes might be better considering lower price, will see I guess.

Does anyone have an estimate for when the Meraxes formally releases? (Judging from past PNSO release)

Domestic release at 8pm tomorrow (4th), price is same as Torvosaurus.