GR Toys / Haolonggood - New for 2022

[Faras]

@Concavenator Hmm from what I know, sculptor of this Acrocanthosaurus is owner of Haolonggood. He learnt sculpting first then introduced younger brother (owner of Mu See studio) to the business, so guess they have pretty similar styles. I doubt they'd reconcile soon after reading those hate posts on Chinese forum. Real shame to see brothers bashing each other like that on a public forum.

[Shonisaurus]

That acrocanthosaurus from GR Toys looks good, let's hope it doesn't have sustainability problems.

[Sim]

@Faras, I think you missed my post below:

I would expect however that GR Toys T. Rex would be more in line with the M. See T.Rex and Quetzalcoatlus statue. Meaning it would also have lips and wouldn't be shrinkwrapped.

Sadly owner of GR Toys and owner/main sculptor of Mu See studio have some serious rivalry since Quetzalcoatlus incident (several posts on Chinese forums to bash each other), GR Toys is probably working with new sculptors, wouldn't surprise me if they intentionally make new T. rex look different from Mu See's.

Can you give more details about what happened with the Quetzalcoatlus?  From what I was able to see, the Quetzalcoatlus seemed to be made by Haolonggood only since there was no mention of GR Toys on its packaging?  Additionally if I'm not mistaken, the only figure Mu See colloborated with GR Toys on was the Spinosaurus?  The Carcharodontosaurus and Dicraeosaurus were produced in colloboration with Haolonggood.  Do you know if Haolonggood is still working with GR Toys?


As for the photo of what has been said to possibly be Haolonggood's Tyrannosaurus, it doesn't look good to me unfortunately.  I'm surprised they made it withou lips as their Carcharodontosaurus had lips.

[Faras]

@Sim Oops my apologise

Long post. Ugly drama despite the money involved isn't that much...
Link: https://tieba.baidu.com/p/7769042448 (mainly Haolonggood in the post. Mu See mainly posted in WeChat group, no clue how to post these though, eeeh)

Went on searching and seems I messed a few things up, damn:

GR Toys is a model store in Beijing and on Taobao, it's only release prior to colloboration with Haolonggood is a Megalodon figure (I thought it was another brand registered by owner of Haolonggood brand and Yilonggu co., so when I wrote owner of GR Toys what I meant was owner of Haolonggood, sorry my bad! Onwer of GR Toys has little to do with the drama).

Yilonggu co. took ownership of Mu See brand on 12 March, 2021.

Spinosaurus was sculpted by Mu See, Carcharodontosaurus was sculpted by 心言 (Xinyan, sorry I don't know his English name), I found no info for Dicraeosaurus.

I have no idea whether Haolonggood is still working with GR Toys. GR Toys' Taobao store is selling both Haolonggood and Mu See Quetzalcoatlus though.

Regarding Quetzalcoatlus incident:

Owner of Yilonggu/Haolonggood and owner of Mu See are brothers (Yilonggu produced all PNSO's 2020 releases).

According to Haolonggood: We had an agreement that Quetzalcoatlus was to be released in Haolonggood PVC line only. A few months after sculpting was done, I saw the model in 2021 WF exhibition under Mu See resin line when I was planning PVC release announcement (PVC mould was already made) and spread rumours that I stole the model. He refused all three suggestions to solve this issue - 1. pay the full cost of mould (nearly 5k USD) and take the mould; 2. recieve the same development costs as Spino; each pay a share of mould cost and destroy the mould.

According to Mu See: Quetzalcoatlus was sculpted solely for Mu See resin line, Haolonggood made mould of it for his PVC line without our permission. We had to rush out our resin release to beat his bootleg. Once he realised there's little profit left, he offered "solutions" that utterly unacceptable as the model was stolen from me in the first place. His solutions are - 1. pay him $5000 cost of moulds plus $1600 "errand fee" (all he needed to do was a few phone calls since he was producing PNSO stuffs and has deep connection to mould factory); 2. he takes the mould and pays each of us ~$1000 development cost; 3. each of us pay $1300 and destroy the mould.

More drama:

Spoiler

Haolonggood: Three founders of Mu See studio (one of them is my younger brother) quit jobs in Beijing in 2019. They wanted to start their own studio so they came to Huizhou to borrow my toy factory resources. I did all the factory work for their early resin releases. After 2021 Spring Festival, I asked learnt that the studio wasn't doing great, so I invited them for colloboration. After the incident, Mu See and his wife dared to insult mother when she asked about it.

Mu See: When we came to Huizhou he immediately suggested collaboration, saying it's to help Mu See studio. He came a dozen times, I knew my brother was a shady man so I didn't agree till he was out of works in late 2020. We signed his contract without consulting lawyer as I trusted my brother. We did most the trivia works while he contributed little. He told lies to mother, making her resent me and using her to pressure me.

[close]

[Over9K]

A House Divided Cannot Stand.

We'll be losing someone, at some point. Shame.

[KrazyKaprosuchus]

A House Divided Cannot Stand.

We'll be losing someone, at some point. Shame.

Indeed. I wish it didn't have to be this way.

[Sim]

Thanks for the explanation @Faras!  This is the most bizarre thing I have read on this forum, and I've read some pretty bizzare things in the past!

[John]

I can't wait to see what this new Acrocanthosaurus looks like when it's completed.

[Faras]

Pics from Chinese forum. Old Wilson might be better than this tbh...

[GiganotosaurusFan]

It's alright...
needs lips.

[Halichoeres]

Blechh, what a step down from their earliest releases.

[SRF]

How disappointing this one turned out. Luckily we have enough other upcoming T. Rex figures to look out for.

[CarnotaurusKing]

It might be a step down from the Carcharodontosaurus, but it's still among the better Tyrannosaurus models. Though that's not saying much, because only the Safari, PNSO and Battat models have it beat, and, soon enough, EoFauna and BotM. Interested in seeing how the Acrocanthosaurus turns out, though.

[Concavenator]

Considering the quality of their previous offerings, I agree, this Tyrannosaurus is disappointing (at least the paint app looks to be very good, and it seems they have always been very consistent on this aspect).

On the other hand, from what I can tell, the Acrocanthosaurus looks to be more in line with what we can expect from them, I look forward to seeing it finished, it looks promising.

[Carnoking]

A bit generic. I don't want to detract from the artistry, as from a technical standpoint the paint and detail aren't bad, but it sure does suffer from having a very uninteresting design.

[SidB]

Thanks for the explanation @Faras!  This is the most bizarre thing I have read on this forum, and I've read some pretty bizzare things in the past!

It's a dismal tale; then add it to the Vitae disaster (see Vitae thread) prior to last years temporary revival, and the struggles that PNSO had to regain its position in the market! It makes me appreciate the historical stability of Safari Ltd. all the more.

[Thialfi]

It's objectively okay, but definitely underwhelming compared to their earlier releases. For a second I thought I was looking at Wilson 1.0.

[Thialfi]

.

[Faras]

Guess they aren't working with Carcharodontosaurus sculptor or paint designer anymore...

[Leyster]

Paint app looks definitely in the same style of their Carcharodontosaurus (and Dicraeosaurus), those shaded stirpes on back