Controversial opinions on dinosaur toys

[Sim]

I hadn't watched Dinosdragons's video on the Mamenchisaurus.  However as far as I'm aware, blue isn't a colour animals obtain from food, it's a structural colour, which is why when a dead blue animal degrades, the blue colouration vanishes.

[Turkeysaurus]

Only one of the stegosaurus variants is blue?

Unless you're counting the accent plate color on the red/geeen "fruit" variant, which seems silly to me, might as well say the blue variant with red tipped plates makes two red variants.

Not tips, it's body. I think it's more blue than green.Teal color. Another controversy. 

[Sim]

It looks more blue in some areas and more green in others, so if you think it's a second blue variant, one could also say it's a second green variant.  I think it would have been better to have used the yellow colour scheme instead of the fruity one to please a greater amount of tastes...

[Leyster]

@Sim that's true, many bird greens and blues are structural colours, not dependant on their diet.

[JimoAi]

y'all will have my head for this....

I simply cannot be bothered with Triceratops. I don't hate it but it bores me. To me I rather see the rivalry of Tyrannosaurus Vs Ankylosaurus and at the moment I am lacking a ceratopsian in my collection and I am choosing to go with Pachyrhinosaurus over Triceratops to go with E.regalis since I have an Ankylosaurus for my rex.

[Turkeysaurus]

y'all will have my head for this....

I simply cannot be bothered with Triceratops. I don't hate it but it bores me. To me I rather see the rivalry of Tyrannosaurus Vs Ankylosaurus and at the moment I am lacking a ceratopsian in my collection and I am choosing to go with Pachyrhinosaurus over Triceratops to go with E.regalis since I have an Ankylosaurus for my rex.

I mean it is controversial to put anky as the Rex rival since they are like Ceratopsians & Tyrannosaurs are like Jedis & Siths.. On the other hand Triceratops is a bit boring looking ceratopsian compared to others. It looks like a parent among punk concert. 

[Faelrin]

I imagine that comes with the overexposure or fatigue with how much attention it gets, much like T. rex. It doesn't feel as unique or special anymore because it is everywhere. I don't hold it against the real animal in anyway, and it is still really cool to see it in person (which I did at the Boston Museum of Science I went to as a kid. I vaguely remember seeing a skull of it and being amazed with how huge it was). Never-mind the plethora of remains, across its lifecycle, and with some skin.

Honestly kind of feeling that way as well with Triceratops, and some other dinosaurs. Then again, perhaps I'm just biased as I've always loved Styracosaurus more growing up, because of the horns, especially after seeing in the Valley of Gwangi, or in Disney's Dinosaur. It also doesn't get much attention, except perhaps on the figure market (though still nowhere as much as Triceratops). I was also the kid that preferred Allosaurus to T. rex (especially after the fixation that happened after watching the Ballad of Big Al, and again the Gwangi film).

Recently I've been particularly fascinated with Chasmosaurus as far as ceratopsians go, after neglecting it nearly my whole life. It's got decent material (including lots of skin), and even a juvenile (still hope the Wild Past one can see the light of day for that reason). It also lived in the Dinosaur Park formation, which is one of my favorites. It's been pretty neglected in the media, and on the figure market too, except in recent years.

[JimoAi]

from my previous posts on calling out on Triceratops, T.horridus is the most boring ceratopsian but I forgot that the Yoshi's Trike does catch my attention quite ABIT. In short, I'm bored by T horridus but am cool with the Yoshi's trike

[Sim]

from my previous posts on calling out on Triceratops, T.horridus is the most boring ceratopsian but I forgot that the Yoshi's Trike does catch my attention quite ABIT. In short, I'm bored by T horridus but am cool with the Yoshi's trike

And Triceratops prorsus gets nothing, not even a mention, typical for the species

I find Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops are so overrepresented that I slightly don't feel like they are real animals anymore.  They feel like boring caricatures.  I wish I didn't feel this way but I do...  I blame Kaiyodo in part, definitely.


I am not in love with Doug Watson's ceratopsids like everyone else seems to be.  The figures are excellent, but they've never appealed to me very much.  I much prefer Haolonggood and PNSO ceratopsids to Safari ones, generally.  On the other hand I think Doug Watson's thyreophorans and dromaeosaurids are his best work, they are excellent again but they also appeal to me very much.  I do have the Safari Diabloceratops and Nasutoceratops and I'm happy with them though, I even prefer them to Haolonggood's versions.  I wish Doug would do more thyreophorans for Safari!


I think the following figures are overrated:
1. Safari 2017 Tyrannosaurus
2. Papo rearing Tyrannosaurus
3. Papo running Tyrannosaurus
4. CollectA 2015 Tyrannosaurus
5. CollectA 2018 Tyrannosaurus
6. Schleich Dunkleosteus
7. Safari 2017 Giganotosaurus
8. Eofauna Giganotosaurus
9. Almost anything from the JP/JW franchise
10. Almost anything from REBOR
11. Anything from Nanmu

[GojiraGuy1954]

Papo Polacanthus, they could never make me hate you

[Sim]

I think Haolonggood is good at theropods.  In my opinion they have made more good theropod figures than bad ones:

Good:
1. Baryonyx
2. Carcharodontosaurus
3. Carnotaurus
4. Daspletosaurus
5. Dilophosaurus
6. Megaraptor
7. Spinosaurus

Bad:
1. Allosaurus
2. Therizinosaurus
3. Tyrannosaurus

Before anyone points out the short torso on the Dilophosaurus, I think the Dilophosaurus are still good figures, just like the Haolonggood Ouranosaurus, Maiasaura, Nasutoceratops are still considered good despite their inaccuracies.  And the Daspletosaurus is ugly, but highly accurate (to Daspletosaurus horneri).

[Joliezac]

I think the Haolonggood therapods mostly lack the paintwork. The sculpts look really nice but just look poor in comparison to newer painted ceratopsians. I'd love to get the Carnotaurus if it had an updated paint scheme.

[Duna]

Looking at my new figures from PNSO and HLG from this year, I'm sure about a thing: hand sculpting hasn't and will never get to the detail and accuracy to 3D sculpting. It is literally impossible to sculpt by hand such tiny scales as there are in the 3D sculpts, not even using "skin stamps".

[GojiraGuy1954]

Looking at my new figures from PNSO and HLG from this year, I'm sure about a thing: hand sculpting hasn't and will never get to the detail and accuracy to 3D sculpting. It is literally impossible to sculpt by hand such tiny scales as there are in the 3D sculpts, not even using "skin stamps".

Yeah, I think digitally sculpted models at their best can reach higher heights than hand-sculpted ones can.

[GnastyGnorc]

Looking at my new figures from PNSO and HLG from this year, I'm sure about a thing: hand sculpting hasn't and will never get to the detail and accuracy to 3D sculpting. It is literally impossible to sculpt by hand such tiny scales as there are in the 3D sculpts, not even using "skin stamps".

Yeah, I think digitally sculpted models at their best can reach higher heights than hand-sculpted ones can.

So I assume PNSO and HLG are digital sculpts? What companies are hand sculpting?

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Looking at my new figures from PNSO and HLG from this year, I'm sure about a thing: hand sculpting hasn't and will never get to the detail and accuracy to 3D sculpting. It is literally impossible to sculpt by hand such tiny scales as there are in the 3D sculpts, not even using "skin stamps".

Yeah, I think digitally sculpted models at their best can reach higher heights than hand-sculpted ones can.

Hand sculpt can be fantastic, if you pay a skilled artist enough and don't mind waiting on them to complete the work as it does take longer. The problem here is they can't churn out pieces that fast and it costs more hours of labor so it's not cheaper either.  So a company makes more money by doing only digital sculpts.

[thomasw100]

Digital sculpts have three major advantages. They can be easily scaled to any desired size within reasonable limits, the pose can be modified with moderate effort and corrections and modifications can be done.

[DavidJamesArmsby]

I have made a career of digitally modelling, animating, and sculpting dinosaurs. I have done a ton of both hand sculpting with clay and digital sculpting in Zbrush, Blender, Maya, everything.

Digital sculpting for your average 1:25-1:40 scale dinosaur model will pretty much always be "better". It's just much easier to achieve fantastic results. Making edits is much easier. But the real benefit is that with digital sculpting you can also be infinitely fine on an infinitely large canvas with no consideration of real-world physics to stop you from zooming in forever and carving away like a mad tardigrade mining for gold.
I genuinely don't think a hand-sculpted model can feasibly match the detail of the current PNSO models today. Unless the master is sculpted at at least 10x the final figure's size which would be far more difficult, far more expensive, and take much more time.


That all being said I far prefer to sculpt with clay, and I far prefer the look of hand-sculpted models too. The human artistry of tiny tool marks and asymmetry has a genuine and tangible charm that can't be beaten. I have passed on quite a few figures in the past (Nanmu and Rebor among others) because I can literally see where the 3D model has been digitally mirrored down the center. A model being exactly mathematically symmetrical looks unnatural and is something you will never get with hand-sculpted pieces or in nature itself.

I genuinely think that the reason so many people (myself included) admire Doug Watson and Mr. Seo's work so much is because of that wonderful traditionally sculpted feel their figures have in an age where that's disappearing.

[GojiraGuy1954]

Looking at my new figures from PNSO and HLG from this year, I'm sure about a thing: hand sculpting hasn't and will never get to the detail and accuracy to 3D sculpting. It is literally impossible to sculpt by hand such tiny scales as there are in the 3D sculpts, not even using "skin stamps".

Yeah, I think digitally sculpted models at their best can reach higher heights than hand-sculpted ones can.

So I assume PNSO and HLG are digital sculpts? What companies are hand sculpting?

Safari is the most notable one that still does hand sculpts I think. Some of BoTM is also hand-sculpted, I think.

[dinofelid]

Looking at my new figures from PNSO and HLG from this year, I'm sure about a thing: hand sculpting hasn't and will never get to the detail and accuracy to 3D sculpting. It is literally impossible to sculpt by hand such tiny scales as there are in the 3D sculpts, not even using "skin stamps".

Yeah, I think digitally sculpted models at their best can reach higher heights than hand-sculpted ones can.

So I assume PNSO and HLG are digital sculpts? What companies are hand sculpting?

Safari is the most notable one that still does hand sculpts I think. Some of BoTM is also hand-sculpted, I think.

Anyone know if CollectA does digital or hand sculpts? This page says they have a sculptor named Mathias Geiger but I don't know if the word "sculptor" could refer to digital sculpts nowadays as well.