The best figure of every species, according to Halichoeres

[ceratopsian]

Mandegeria is gorgeous.  It has a very convincing body texture.  I can imagine him swimming round in a museum diorama, complete with weeds etc.

[Roselaar]

Wow, those Paleozoo figures are absolutely stunning! Incredible detail and paint jobs! Love it!

[stargatedalek]

Wow, those Paleozoo figures are absolutely stunning! Incredible detail and paint jobs! Love it!

They aren't painted, they're printed in coloured sandstone.

That new Mandegeria looks amazing.

[Bokisaurus]

Those are awesome 3D figures

[Ravonium]

That Mandegeria is probably the best Paleozoo figure I've seen so far. Congrats on acquiring it 

[Halichoeres]

D'oh! I misspelled Mandageria, of course.

Thanks for the comments! I think this is one of the best Paleozoo models to date, although I still have a major soft spot for the Remigolepis. I'm surprised this one isn't back in stock on the site yet; I got this copy months ago.

[Halichoeres]

I don't collect Cenozoic stuff, but I really just wanted to look at this beauty up close, and I want EoFauna to have spectacular success.


Palaeoloxodon antiquus
Scale: 1:35
Released: 2018
Pleistocene of Eurasia

Now let's see EoFauna make some sauropods!

[Shonisaurus]

I congratulate you @Halichoeres  for your new acquisition, although like you I am of the same opinion that Eofauna should make sauropods or theropods like those of Asier Larramendi's book, if they are the same as their paleoartistic pictorial recreations, they will be a serious competition to the other dinosaur companies of collection and toy.

A sauropod like the argentinosaurus of massive PVC at scale 1:35 would be great.

[RobinGoodfellow]

A sauropod like the argentinosaurus of massive PVC at scale 1:35 would be great.

An Argentinosaurus (35mt long in real life) at 1:35 should be a 1 mt long (39 inches) figure... 

[RobinGoodfellow]

I don't collect Cenozoic stuff (...)

Now let's see EoFauna make some sauropods!

..I know I won't be so popular on DTF but I really hope EoFauna will make more Cenozoic animals because I collect them.. 

[Halichoeres]

I don't collect Cenozoic stuff (...)

Now let's see EoFauna make some sauropods!

..I know I won't be so popular on DTF but I really hope EoFauna will make more Cenozoic animals because I collect them.. 

Haha, I don't know, I think Cenozoic things are pretty popular on the DTF. I mean, this year's Safari assortment was almost half mammals and only a couple of people seemed to have a problem with that. Anyway, if EoFauna continues to do exclusively Cenozoic stuff, to me it will be a little like JW figures: not my cup of tea, but I'm glad that other people are enjoying them.

[Halichoeres]

Late Cretaceous stem-birds! (i.e., ornithodirans)


Colorata Quetzalcoatlus (World's Largest Pterosaurs exhibition)
Scale: 1:40
Released: 2008
Maastrichtian of North America
I had a loose copy of this figure for a pretty long time, but I really wanted the base that came with it. What a great base! All pterosaurs should come thus equipped.


Vitae Zhejiangopterus
Scale: 1:18
Sculptor: Cheung Chung Tat
Released: 2018
Campanian of Eurasia
One of the better known azhdarchids, so it's nice to see it made into a figure. I was a bit disappointed to see it didn't come with a base as shown in the promo photos. There isn't even a hole or notch to accommodate one, which makes it better, I suppose, as a flying toy, but harder to display. This replaces the old Dinosaur Train Zhejiangopterus from Takara Tomy.


Next to Stygimoloch for scale (they would never have met in life).


Learning Resources Struthiosaurus
Scale: 1:35-1:40
Campanian-Maastrichtian of Eurasia
This is my ugliest recent acquisition. It doesn't even look like Struthiosaurus, which was a nodosaurid and wouldn't have had a tail club. The company that sells these specifically calls it a Struthiosaurus and I'm a sucker for a 1:40 thyreophoran, even if it looks nothing like it should. I'm confident that someone here has seen this same mold sold as some other species, as it looks like a generic bin figure.


Vitae Zhejiangosaurus
Scale: 1:30-1:35
Sculptor: Chueng Chung Tat
Released: 2018
Cenomanian of Eurasia
This should wash the taste of that horrible Struthiosaurus out of your mouth. This lovely little figure is based on what is currently a nomen dubium, but mostly because the description wasn't very good. The available material, although far from complete, is probably enough to find some good autapomorphies if examined closely.


Late Cretaceous ankylosaurs. I choose to interpret the Ankylosaurus as retching at the appearance of the Struthiosaurus.


Takara Tomy Stygimoloch (part of a desk accessory set)
Scale: 1:30-1:35
Released: 2018
Maastrichtian of North America
It might not be obvious from looking at it, but the rocks on this figure's base are arranged to hold a smartphone. I won't be using it that way, of course. Man, I've been buying a lot of Stygimoloch lately (though officially there are now only two in my collection, this one and the Ania, also by Takara Tomy).


Papo Therizinosaurus
Scale: 1:30-1:35
Sculptor: Seo Jung-woon
Released: 2018
Maastrichtian of Eurasia
I really wanted to like this. But there are enough things that bother me that I think I won't keep it. The CollectA version, though not as beautifully sculpted, and not as lively, has the toes more or less correct (four-on-the-floor) and has better-proportioned claws. It's peculiar to me, given how Papo products tend to emphasize the monstrous aspects of animals, that they should shorten the claws so much. I'm not sure I buy the safety argument, but maybe. Could also be a molding limitation, although CollectA seems to have done okay in that respect. Long story short, I'm still waiting for a satisfying version of Therizinosaurus or a close relative.


Vitae Chilantaisaurus
Scale: 1:60
Sculptor: Cheung Chung Tat
Released: 2018
Turonian of Eurasia
As you can see, the scales of the Vitae line are kind of all over the place, but average out to the nominal 1:35. I'm not sure why they made this one so small; Chilantaisaurus was a very large theropod, so big that Benson and Xu (Geol. Mag. 145: 778) referred to it as "colossal" in their opening sentence. It goes pretty well with some of my smaller sauropods, anyway. I actually really like the blue highlights on a muted brown background, suggesting a tradeoff between sexual selection on the one hand and ordinary natural selection on the other.


Next to the Kabaya Saichania for scale.

[Carnotaurus]

Those are great new additions Halichoeres!  Well, that struthiosaurus is not my cup of tea but those vitae are gorgeous!

Greets!

[Shonisaurus]

I congratulate you Halichoeres for your new acquisitions. The good thing about the Vitae dinosaurs, both the sinraptor and the chilantaiosaurus, is that they are kept correctly standing without the need of a base and, most importantly, with small feet. That for me is a positive detail that has in favor of this brand of prehistoric animal toys.

On the other hand I have these wonderful figures of dinosaurs Vitae and I can assure you that they are great. Thanks for sharing.

[ceratopsian]

It's always interesting to read your thoughtful comments on your new figures.

[Roselaar]

Lots of interesting new figures there, well done! Am I seeing a number of potential Unique Species there, per chance?

[Halichoeres]

Thanks, everyone!

I congratulate you Halichoeres for your new acquisitions. The good thing about the Vitae dinosaurs, both the sinraptor and the chilantaiosaurus, is that they are kept correctly standing without the need of a base and, most importantly, with small feet. That for me is a positive detail that has in favor of this brand of prehistoric animal toys.

On the other hand I have these wonderful figures of dinosaurs Vitae and I can assure you that they are great. Thanks for sharing.

My Sinraptor has to lean on something to stay upright, but so far my Chilantaisaurus is impressively stable.

Lots of interesting new figures there, well done! Am I seeing a number of potential Unique Species there, per chance?

Whereas the Struthiosaurus is good enough for my quirky collection, I don't know if it rises to the level of the USL. However, I think the Chilantaisaurus and Zhejiangosaurus do. And the Zhejiangopterus should knock off the Dinosaur Train version, which now that I'm looking doesn't seem to be on the USL in the first place. Was there another that escaped my notice?

[Roselaar]

Whereas the Struthiosaurus is good enough for my quirky collection, I don't know if it rises to the level of the USL. However, I think the Chilantaisaurus and Zhejiangosaurus do. And the Zhejiangopterus should knock off the Dinosaur Train version, which now that I'm looking doesn't seem to be on the USL in the first place. Was there another that escaped my notice?

I don't know of any other Struthiosaurus figures... but this one, no. Just no. 

As for the Zhejiangopterus, I guess it just never got on my radar before and nobody mentioned it to me.

I guess I ought to add these Vitaesaurs to the list then.

[Halichoeres]

I've been looking at this Papo Therizinosaurus a little more and I finally realized why the hands look so wrong. Probably the claws are too short, but just as bad, the fingers are too long. It's almost as if the sculptor decided that the unguals should be half covered in skin and scales (never mind that the knuckles are in all the wrong places even in this scenario). Here for comparison is a shot of the manus from Zanno 2010 (J. Syst. Paleontol. 8:503):



This toy takes the hands, which are almost the only part of the anatomy that has ever been found for the species, and gets the proportions pretty much backward. It's a real shame, because the artistry of the sculpt is undeniable.

[Halichoeres]

More Cretaceous sarcopterygians!


Chialu Brachauchenius
Scale: 1:70
Released: ~1955
Barremian-Turonian
I've been looking for this one for quite a while. One of the earliest sauropterygian figures, but it's only been done once since, as a tiny, tiny miniature by Innovative Kids. This is hardly a toy, being made of bonemeal over a wire frame. It's also not very accurate, having a weird dorsoventrally flattened whale-like tail. But it's a Brachauchenius, so I had to have it. With my luck, that means CollectA will come out with a brand new one in 2019 now that I've found this.


With the CollectA Hydrotherosaurus for scale.


Papo Actinistia incertae sedis
Here's a weird one! The promo pics for the Papo Land of the Dinosaurs playset don't offer too much detail, but there was clearly a fish in the little pond. The playset is a messy anachronistic hodgepodge, with what look like cycads, grasses, horsetails, and this insect that looks like a wasp. The horsetail makes this seem like a freshwater environment. Coelacanths now are marine, but during the Cretaceous there were several freshwater species, including some mawsoniids. I don't know what this one could be; it looks like a faithful if stylized modern coelacanth, but at least it's painted a different color! Interesting touch from Papo.


Papo Acrocanthosaurus
Scale: 1:35
Sculptor: Seo Jung-woon
Released: 2018
Aptian-Albian of North America
Everybody makes an Acrocanthosaurus but I find ways to dislike most of them (especially CollectA's). This one is pretty good. Kind of wish I'd waited to buy the 2017 edition, as this coloration is a big improvement.


Favorite Baryonyx walkeri (Fukui Museum)
Scale: 1:30
Sculptor: Kazunari Araki
Released: 2018
Barremian of Eurasia
This is the Baryonyx that's been missing all this time. I found all the existing ones objectionable to one degree or another. I was almost ready to buy the Mojö version until this one rescued me. Replaced my Papo monstrosity.


Favorite Neovenator salerii (Fukui Museum)
Scale: 1:30
Sculptor: Kazunari Araki
Released: 2018
Hauterivian-Barremian of Eurasia
Another winner. It's a little shrink-wrapped, but not as bad as some of Araki's previous efforts. And the paint job obscures some of it anyway. I love this color scheme. Sim suggested it might be because I'm hungry for pizza, a possibility I can't reject outright. This replaces my CollectA Neovenator.


England in the Early Cretaceous was rough.