David Silvas New Kickstarter: Articulated Dinosaur TOYS

[Halichoeres]

I know I'm not in the majority but I wish they were a smaller, I probably will get the smallest ones. By the way there's another image, of the phase two, on Facebook now, small to mid sized species.

I'm with you, I like my ceratopsians, especially the large species, about 1:40, and if I can't have that, I'd rather have about 1:24, but I'll take them at 1:18 to get this kind of variety.

Is "Vegaceratops" meant to be Vagaceratops?

I'm sure you're right.


Also: just phase 1 and 2 show a total of 47 figures, that's crazy. I think fully 20 are Unique Species List material. Unlike the raptors, it seems like he basically wants to do every known genus.

[Flaffy]

I really hoped that they would be smaller so that I can afford to purchase more species.

[Simon]

I'm getting nervous about the size thing ... I would prefer all of my ceratopsians be made in the same scale.  If David makes the smaller species 1/18, but then shrinks the giants to 1/24 or smaller, that will definitely impact how many and of which species I get.  And that will be a pity because I'd like to get one of each.

Well, we'll see what they turn out looking like.  If they are pretty enough, I might ignore the scale discrepancies...if not...well, let see what happens.  Its not like the raptors series - I had absolutely no way of evaluating those creations because I have ZERO (0) interest in "puny raptors", feathered or not.  They're just not cool creatures to me.  Interesting, yes. Cool (as in "I'd like to ogle them for hours cool") no.

Big horned monsters, though - that's a different story - and if he follows up with in-scale theropods, it might be possible to create predator/prey dioramas all in correct scale with each other ... which really gets my juices flowing ...

[Sim]

I'm getting nervous about the size thing ... I would prefer all of my ceratopsians be made in the same scale.  If David makes the smaller species 1/18, but then shrinks the giants to 1/24 or smaller, that will definitely impact how many and of which species I get.  And that will be a pity because I'd like to get one of each.

Well, we'll see what they turn out looking like.  If they are pretty enough, I might ignore the scale discrepancies...if not...well, let see what happens.

David has said more than once the figures will all be in 1:18 scale, except the smallest species like Protoceratops which will be in 1:6 scale - the same scale as the figures from the raptor series.  He's also thinking of making the smallest ceratopsian species and some of the species from the raptor series in 1:18 scale.

Its not like the raptors series - I had absolutely no way of evaluating those creations because I have ZERO (0) interest in "puny raptors", feathered or not.  They're just not cool creatures to me.  Interesting, yes. Cool (as in "I'd like to ogle them for hours cool") no.

Big horned monsters, though - that's a different story - and if he follows up with in-scale theropods, it might be possible to create predator/prey dioramas all in correct scale with each other ... which really gets my juices flowing ...

Well, with these two groups of dinosaurs we seem to have very different views.  I find dromaeosaurids fascinating, they were a diverse group of dinosaurs that were successful in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.   Ceratopsians I don't find very interesting or cool.  I guess it's mostly personal preference.  Although there is also that ceratopsids have been getting a number of good and highly accurate figures of different genera for years now.  I think they are the only dinosaur family that get this privilege.  If someone wants great ceratopsid figures, there are lots of different species, some with more than one good representation, available.  There is also that some ceratopsids only known from poor remains have a lot of their skull invented and get treated like they are a well-known animal, even when they appear to be dubious.  I also feel too much importance is given to slightly different horn/frill arrangements among ceratopsids to the point where certain ones are made out to be very unique and yet... if one looks a little further they'll find another ceratopsid with very similar ornamentation.

[Brontozaurus]

Centrosaurus, Triceratops and Protoceratops are my three must-haves so far, though it does depend on how pricey they end up being. Much as I love Triceratops it'll be the first to go if I can't afford many cause it's just so common as a toy anyway.

[The Atroxious]

Its not like the raptors series - I had absolutely no way of evaluating those creations because I have ZERO (0) interest in "puny raptors", feathered or not.  They're just not cool creatures to me.  Interesting, yes. Cool (as in "I'd like to ogle them for hours cool") no.

Big horned monsters, though - that's a different story - and if he follows up with in-scale theropods, it might be possible to create predator/prey dioramas all in correct scale with each other ... which really gets my juices flowing ...

Well, with these two groups of dinosaurs we seem to have very different views.  I find dromaeosaurids fascinating, they were a diverse group of dinosaurs that were successful in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.   Ceratopsians I don't find very interesting or cool.  I guess it's mostly personal preference.  Although there is also that ceratopsids have been getting a number of good and highly accurate figures of different genera for years now.  I think they are the only dinosaur family that get this privilege.  If someone wants great ceratopsid figures, there are lots of different species, some with more than one good representation, available.  There is also that some ceratopsids only known from poor remains have a lot of their skull invented and get treated like they are a well-known animal, even when they appear to be dubious.  I also feel too much importance is given to slightly different horn/frill arrangements among ceratopsids to the point where certain ones are made out to be very unique and yet... if one looks a little further they'll find another ceratopsid with very similar ornamentation.

Thissssss!

For me, it's all about the theropods. Sure, there are some kinds I'm not so fond of, but generally speaking, the theropod body plan is one of the most definitively awesome and beautiful things I've ever seen. Ceratopsians are alright, and I can appreciate their head shapes, but in my eyes they're not as thoroughly stunning as theropods are.

Maybe it's because I'm a theropod person and thus more nitpicky about that group than any other, but it does seem like every major toy company (excluding Schleich I suppose) can do a really nice looking ceratopsian, yet the theropods from these companies are never consistently at the same level of the ceratopsians. CollectA is probably the best example of this. Their ceratopsians are (in my opinion) their best figures, while their theropods suffer from weird proportions, awkward feather patterns,  bad paint jobs, or all of the above. As a theropod fan, I find myself intrigued by their figures, but barring a few, I usually give them a pass.

Obviously I'm much more interested in the paravians than I am in the ceratopsians, which is to say I'm not the least bit interested in the latter. The paravians aren't perfect, and as usual I have my gripes, but I'm going to get some and maybe/probably (depending on their relative sizes) set them up as mounts or familiars for my Four Horsemen bird people. I've got a whole theropodtopia display (think Zootopia, but with dinosaurs instead of mammals) I'm planning with the recent influx of feathery action figures.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Wait until David gets to hadrosaurs...

[Faelrin]

Well I have 5 raptors ordered now, 6 if I can get that Acheroraptor sometime this year.  For ceratopsians I will probably want to limit myself to 6 as well. If I have gotten this many dromaeosaurs, just because of different color schemes, mostly, the ceratopsians are going to be a whole other beast with all their fancy head ornamentation's to look forward too, aside from color choices, even when I'm not the hugest fan of that group. I really just want at the very least a Protoceratops and Styracosaurus though.

I won't lie, a hadrosaur series would be great for me as well, for the reasons above, as well as being the group containing one of my favorite dinosaurs (Parasaurolophus). Lots of integument for that group to reference from too, and if these raptor prototypes are anything to go by, that's some nice detailed sculpt work to look forward for that bunch, if done. I feel like they're kind of a neglected group as well, so that would be like a dream come true for me if a hadrosaur action figure series would happen. Until then, I may just have to settle with the JP Parasaurolophus, whenever I get around to getting it (hopefully also this year).

I'd also look forward to more theropods, and ankylosaurs, if made.

[Derek.McManus]

but it does seem like every major toy company (excluding Schleich I suppose) can do a really nice looking ceratopsian,

Schliech Pentraceratops?

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

My point was you can just about make a single hadrosaur body and just switch heads, great cost cutting maneuver.

[Halichoeres]

Guess it's a good thing Silva is alternating between herbivores and carnivores! Personally I'm on team ceratopsian all the way. I'm comfortable claiming, even without having done the computation, that the morphological disparity exhibited by ceratopsians exceeds that of dromaeosaurids, despite a fossil record of approximately the same duration. If this line actually meets its extremely ambitious goals, I'll probably try to buy about 30 of these (not that I'll actually be able to afford it).

Incidentally, Phase 3 has been sketched out now:


52 figures altogether (though it wouldn't surprise me if more emerge as stretch goals). Thankfully they'll be spaced out enough that maybe the wallet can recover, and since the first campaign won't be until spring 2018, we'll already know what to expect from Safari, CollectA, and Papo. For me at least, that will help decide which ones to get.

[Sim]

Maybe it's because I'm a theropod person and thus more nitpicky about that group than any other, but it does seem like every major toy company (excluding Schleich I suppose) can do a really nice looking ceratopsian, yet the theropods from these companies are never consistently at the same level of the ceratopsians. CollectA is probably the best example of this. Their ceratopsians are (in my opinion) their best figures, while their theropods suffer from weird proportions, awkward feather patterns,  bad paint jobs, or all of the above. As a theropod fan, I find myself intrigued by their figures, but barring a few, I usually give them a pass.

I tend to agree with this.  In particular, I think Safari and CollectA's theropods are not consistently on the same level as their ceratopsians.  I completely agree on CollectA's theropods having the problems you mentioned, and would add extremely shrink-wrapped heads and standing on their tiptoes to that list.

Guess it's a good thing Silva is alternating between herbivores and carnivores! Personally I'm on team ceratopsian all the way. I'm comfortable claiming, even without having done the computation, that the morphological disparity exhibited by ceratopsians exceeds that of dromaeosaurids, despite a fossil record of approximately the same duration. If this line actually meets its extremely ambitious goals, I'll probably try to buy about 30 of these (not that I'll actually be able to afford it).

I think it's important to keep in mind that ceratopsians are at the suborder level, so the same classification level as theropods.  Despite this, I'm not sure there's more morphological disparity among ceratopsians than there is among dromaeosaurids.  To me there seems to be more or less the same amount of disparity among these two groups, despite Ceratopsia being a much wider and more inclusive group.  Dromaeosaurids are at the family level classification, so at the same classification level as ceratopsids.  It seems to me there is more morphological disparity among dromaeosaurids than there is among ceratopsids.  I guess this would reflect that dromaeosaurids evolved to fill a variety of ecological niches, while ceratopsids seem to have mostly shared the same niche.

Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying the BotM ceratopsian series!

[CityRaptor]

Suborders generally seem to have similar bodyplans for the most port, which just shows how highly succesful those bodyplans are.

Indeed it occured to me that if the world was ruled by sapient Dinosaurs, they probably would not look much different from some of the animals they keep as pets.

[ZoPteryx]

I know I'm not in the majority but I wish they were a smaller, I probably will get the smallest ones. By the way there's another image, of the phase two, on Facebook now, small to mid sized species.

I'm with you, I like my ceratopsians, especially the large species, about 1:40, and if I can't have that, I'd rather have about 1:24, but I'll take them at 1:18 to get this kind of variety.

Same here.  Was really hoping they'd be around 1:40-35.  I'll probably just end up getting one or two of the big ones as nice shelf toppers and focus mostly on the 1/6 scale taxa and any accessories.

Accuracy wise they're looking good so far in these early stages.  Although perhaps someone who can comment on the Kickstarter or Facebook should mention that Regaliceratops probably wasn't as snub-snouted as that GSP skeletal shows and it's unknown if the Anchiceratops's body belongs to that taxon.  Also, if these are meant to be to scale, isn't the Machairoceratops a bit large?  He might very well already know these things, but I just figure we should get this sort of stuff out of the way sooner rather than later. 

And two final questions, are the Montanaceratops and Cerasinops going to be 1/6 scale as well (and any others)?  And I'm curious how David's going to go about coloring these beasts, I'm hoping he'll look to a combinations of bovids and squamates, personally.

[ceratopsian]

At 1:18, I'll be buying far fewer ceratopsians than if they had been in a smaller scale.  Partly cost (think also import duties and high postage rates from the USA), but also a matter of space and scale with the rest of my collection.

[tanystropheus]

Guess it's a good thing Silva is alternating between herbivores and carnivores! Personally I'm on team ceratopsian all the way. I'm comfortable claiming, even without having done the computation, that the morphological disparity exhibited by ceratopsians exceeds that of dromaeosaurids, despite a fossil record of approximately the same duration. If this line actually meets its extremely ambitious goals, I'll probably try to buy about 30 of these (not that I'll actually be able to afford it).

Incidentally, Phase 3 has been sketched out now:


52 figures altogether (though it wouldn't surprise me if more emerge as stretch goals). Thankfully they'll be spaced out enough that maybe the wallet can recover, and since the first campaign won't be until spring 2018, we'll already know what to expect from Safari, CollectA, and Papo. For me at least, that will help decide which ones to get.

52 figures!

Is that 52 x $40 = $2080 for ceratopsian set? I have to save up $2000 by 2018?

Well, it seems that the Creative Beast style articulation will look more natural on ceratopsian body plan than that of dromeosaurs. I imagine the models would resemble Hasbro's Pachyrhinosaurus but a ton more finessed.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I'll be picking and choosing again lol  that's way above my pay grade.

[Halichoeres]

Maybe it's because I'm a theropod person and thus more nitpicky about that group than any other, but it does seem like every major toy company (excluding Schleich I suppose) can do a really nice looking ceratopsian, yet the theropods from these companies are never consistently at the same level of the ceratopsians. CollectA is probably the best example of this. Their ceratopsians are (in my opinion) their best figures, while their theropods suffer from weird proportions, awkward feather patterns,  bad paint jobs, or all of the above. As a theropod fan, I find myself intrigued by their figures, but barring a few, I usually give them a pass.

I tend to agree with this.  In particular, I think Safari and CollectA's theropods are not consistently on the same level as their ceratopsians.  I completely agree on CollectA's theropods having the problems you mentioned, and would add extremely shrink-wrapped heads and standing on their tiptoes to that list.

Guess it's a good thing Silva is alternating between herbivores and carnivores! Personally I'm on team ceratopsian all the way. I'm comfortable claiming, even without having done the computation, that the morphological disparity exhibited by ceratopsians exceeds that of dromaeosaurids, despite a fossil record of approximately the same duration. If this line actually meets its extremely ambitious goals, I'll probably try to buy about 30 of these (not that I'll actually be able to afford it).

I think it's important to keep in mind that ceratopsians are at the suborder level, so the same classification level as theropods.  Despite this, I'm not sure there's more morphological disparity among ceratopsians than there is among dromaeosaurids.  To me there seems to be more or less the same amount of disparity among these two groups, despite Ceratopsia being a much wider and more inclusive group.  Dromaeosaurids are at the family level classification, so at the same classification level as ceratopsids.  It seems to me there is more morphological disparity among dromaeosaurids than there is among ceratopsids.  I guess this would reflect that dromaeosaurids evolved to fill a variety of ecological niches, while ceratopsids seem to have mostly shared the same niche.

Anyway, I'm glad you're enjoying the BotM ceratopsian series!

I'm going to concede two points and push back on another.

You're right that ceratopsian toys from the major companies average higher quality than comparable dromaeosaurid toys, and there are probably also more of them relative to the number of taxa that toy makers could choose from.

And dromaeosaurids DO show quite a lot of disparity, and it's particularly impressive that they seem to have dabbled in shifting their engine. That is, they moved their locomotion from exclusively hindquarters to at least partially forelimb-driven, unless animals like Microraptor were mere gliders. That's pretty cool, and obviously I'm very happy that the last couple of years we've finally gotten some really nice figures of dromaeosaurids.

Here's where I'll push back: whereas clades have some biological reality, the ranks that we assign them probably don't. To take an extreme example, the tuatara belongs to the family Sphenodontidae, which appears in the early Jurassic. The Hominidae also get their own family, but they only date back to the Miocene. Comparing the disparity of both groups through their entire respective fossil records wouldn't really be apples to apples.

Similarly, comparing theropods to ceratopsians is more like apples to kumquats, because the fact that they're called suborders is a historical artifact of the divisions that early paleontologists thought were important. I think ceratopsians and dromaeosaurids is a much fairer comparison because they are clades of roughly equal age and duration. To get a clade of roughly equal age with the "suborder" Theropoda that includes ceratopsians, you have to go all the way to the base of Ornithischia. By contrast, dromaeosaurids show up as isolated teeth in the middle Jurassic, and ceratopsians appear toward the end of the Jurassic. That's a more relevant comparison, to my mind, because they had roughly the same tenure on the planet (whereas the entire Theropoda had a 60 million year head start on ceratopsians).

I still think that if one were to do a semi-landmark based morphometric analysis of disparity in both dromaeosaurids and ceratopsians, the extensive remodeling of the skull bones, and at least one transition to quadrupedality, would put Ceratopsia over the top. Not to mention the size disparity! The smallest ceratopsians are comparable to small dromaeosaurs, a couple of kilograms. No dromaeosaur reached the 10 or so tons of the biggest ceratopsians, however.

None of which, of course, is to cast aspersions on theropods. Obviously if I had my druthers Mr. Silva wouldn't have made a Beasts of the Mesozoic line at all; it'd be Beasts of the Paleozoic instead!

[Sim]

Here's where I'll push back: whereas clades have some biological reality, the ranks that we assign them probably don't. To take an extreme example, the tuatara belongs to the family Sphenodontidae, which appears in the early Jurassic. The Hominidae also get their own family, but they only date back to the Miocene. Comparing the disparity of both groups through their entire respective fossil records wouldn't really be apples to apples.

Similarly, comparing theropods to ceratopsians is more like apples to kumquats, because the fact that they're called suborders is a historical artifact of the divisions that early paleontologists thought were important. I think ceratopsians and dromaeosaurids is a much fairer comparison because they are clades of roughly equal age and duration. To get a clade of roughly equal age with the "suborder" Theropoda that includes ceratopsians, you have to go all the way to the base of Ornithischia. By contrast, dromaeosaurids show up as isolated teeth in the middle Jurassic, and ceratopsians appear toward the end of the Jurassic. That's a more relevant comparison, to my mind, because they had roughly the same tenure on the planet (whereas the entire Theropoda had a 60 million year head start on ceratopsians).

You make some interesting points.  I agree clades have some biological reality, but the ranks people assign to them are artificial.  I don't think the ranks given to dinosaur suborders/families/etc. are necessarily that irrelevant though.  Although it is interesting that Theropoda seems to be by far the most diverse dinosaur suborder, even if only counting Mesozoic species.  I also don't think fair comparisons between clades requires them to have a similar age and duration.  Those are factors to be considered, but I think there are other factors to consider as well.  However, I don't want to get into a long discussion about this, and due to the incomplete nature of the fossil record and our understanding of the relationships of these animals I don't think an accurate conclusion on this topic can be reached, so I'll stop here.

I still think that if one were to do a semi-landmark based morphometric analysis of disparity in both dromaeosaurids and ceratopsians, the extensive remodeling of the skull bones, and at least one transition to quadrupedality, would put Ceratopsia over the top. Not to mention the size disparity! The smallest ceratopsians are comparable to small dromaeosaurs, a couple of kilograms. No dromaeosaur reached the 10 or so tons of the biggest ceratopsians, however.

None of which, of course, is to cast aspersions on theropods. Obviously if I had my druthers Mr. Silva wouldn't have made a Beasts of the Mesozoic line at all; it'd be Beasts of the Paleozoic instead!

I'm still not sure such an analysis would find ceratopsians to have more, or at least a lot more, disparity than dromaeosaurids.  There is a surprisingly high variety in anatomy among dromaeosaurids, despite sharing a body plan, in the head and also the rest of the body.  Some dromaeosaurids appear to have been flightless, while others appear to have been volant.  The existence of four-winged powered flight in microraptorines is very strongly supported, and there is evidence that suggests some unenlagiines were capable of two-winged powered flight.

[stargatedalek]

It's also worth noting that carnivores are better suited to developing into new niches than herbivores, and again for small animals versus large ones. So dromaeosaurs are at a statistical advantage when it comes to filling new niches quickly.