David Silvas New Kickstarter: Articulated Dinosaur TOYS

[Nanuqsaurus]

IIRC, he stated in one of the updates that shipping won't be till July or August now.

Edit: just checked the latest update and this is what he said:
 
How can I possibly begin shipping product in May?

Well, unfortunately, the shipping dates will have to be delayed a few months, very sorry everyone. I sincerely apologize but I will not be able to hit my original estimated ship date of May 2017. I wanted to have more info before mentioning anything officially, but as the year continues to roll forward, I'm sure it's become obvious that this project is a bit behind. Between all the additional time I needed last year to sculpt the new pieces and now with all of parts and figures that the factory has to account for, it's no surprise that the production process is taking longer than expected.

On the plus side, the tooling factory is committed to doing the best job they can with these figures and I'd much prefer that they take the time they need to get everything right instead of trying to push everything through to meet a deadline. They've all been very communicative and helpful throughout and I have no doubt that these figures will turn out great- we'll just have to wait a little longer than expected. Once the production factory gets the tooling and finalizes the paint and packaging, I will be able to get an accurate timeline of what to expect. Shipping this Summer could still be a possibility however, but it's too early to know for sure. I will keep you all posted on the production schedule as more information becomes available."




Chris

Thanks! I'm glad he takes his time to finish his work instead of rushing it.

[Faelrin]

I'm surprised the latest update hasn't been mentioned yet. There's another video showing the articulation of the test figures, and there's even pictures of some paint samples and packaging tests. There's other stuff as well.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/creativebeast/beasts-of-the-mesozoic-raptor-series-action-figure/posts/1869183

[dinocat]

This is an ambitious project but I'm still disappointed in the delay. Not the first time this has happened. I'm not expecting anything before 2018. 

[Zhuchengotyrant]

The one I'm really excited for is the Monoykus. Finally, it's about time they got a figure. One of the few dinosaur families to not have a figure!

[RobinGoodfellow]

..well, I'm happy that David Silva is starting with his new project about ceratopsians.
But, honestly, I'd be happier if he could respect his Kickstarter deadline about shipping in May.
I think he should be more focused on delivering the items kickstarters had paid for..
I bought 8 raptors + 1 desert pack.
And I'm not so happy that he don't know exactly when the items will be ready for his clients.
I know that he will be in China soon and I hope he could announce to his clients about a clear releasing date of his products.

[suspsy]

Yes, I think it would have been better to release the raptor series first, then concentrate on the ceratopsians. I hope this doesn't collapse into ruin.

[Flaffy]

I'm personally not surprised with delays, it's kind of an expected thing with Kickstarter projects.

[Georassic]

I was budgeting to pre-pay for a couple of the environmental accessory packs in next several weeks, for July delivery. Looks like I'll sit pat for a while...

[Sim]

I get the impression David has been giving the attention needed to getting the figures from the raptor series shipped.  Ever since he sent the prototypes to China though, I think the shipping has been depending on the factories getting the products right and David's been working with them on that, which is why he's in China now.  It seems the other things David has been working on, like the ceratopsian stuff, are things he's been doing while the factories had to do things that didn't need anything from him.

I personally think it's important the figures aren't rushed while being made by the factories, so they come out as good as they can be now.  I think it's also worth considering this is David's first project of this kind, which could mean he has less of an idea of how long things will take.


In this new update, David said:

In the last update I had mentioned that production is going slower than anticipated and this will prevent us from shipping in May as initially planned. The current estimate is now for late Summer- early Fall.

I'm definitely not an expert on this, but that shipping date seems realistic to me since we've now seen the factory has already started making painted samples.



Regarding the ceratopsians, I read in the main comments section on Kickstarter that David is considering having the second ceratopsian Kickstarter in 2019, meaning one ceratopsian Kickstarter would be in 2018 and another would be in 2019.  I think that ultimately if there's going to be two Kickstarters for ceratopsians there is essentially two series of them.  Since he's planning to make such a large number of figures for each ceratopsian Kickstarter, I personally think I would've preferred it if he had another dinosaur series between the two ceratopsian ones.  I guess this might also be affected by me not being very interested in ceratopsians.  It feels like so many ceratopsians one after the other is a bit boring.  If he makes some small figures of non-ceratopsian dinosaurs too though, which he seems to be planning, that should keep it interesting for me.

[Dobber]

I get the impression David has been giving the attention needed to getting the figures from the raptor series shipped.  Ever since he sent the prototypes to China though, I think the shipping has been depending on the factories getting the products right and David's been working with them on that, which is why he's in China now.  It seems the other things David has been working on, like the ceratopsian stuff, are things he's been doing while the factories had to do things that didn't need anything from him.

I personally think it's important the figures aren't rushed while being made by the factories, so they come out as good as they can be now.  I think it's also worth considering this is David's first project of this kind, which could mean he has less of an idea of how long things will take.


In this new update, David said:

In the last update I had mentioned that production is going slower than anticipated and this will prevent us from shipping in May as initially planned. The current estimate is now for late Summer- early Fall.

I'm definitely not an expert on this, but that shipping date seems realistic to me since we've now seen the factory has already started making painted samples.



Regarding the ceratopsians, I read in the main comments section on Kickstarter that David is considering having the second ceratopsian Kickstarter in 2019, meaning one ceratopsian Kickstarter would be in 2018 and another would be in 2019.  I think that ultimately if there's going to be two Kickstarters for ceratopsians there is essentially two series of them.  Since he's planning to make such a large number of figures for each ceratopsian Kickstarter, I personally think I would've preferred it if he had another dinosaur series between the two ceratopsian ones.  I guess this might also be affected by me not being very interested in ceratopsians.  It feels like so many ceratopsians one after the other is a bit boring.  If he makes some small figures of non-ceratopsian dinosaurs too though, which he seems to be planning, that should keep it interesting for me.

I agree with all of this. His working on the Ceratopsians isn't impeading on the Raptor series at all, he is just making use of his free time. Sounds like good time management and makes sense to me. I also agree with Sim about the size of the Ceratopsian lines, as I too am not an big fan of Ceratopsians. I agree it would have been nice to take a breather and tackle a new line in between. We now have to wait that much longer for Tyrannosaurs, large Raptor, or what-ever. Good for those of you that like the Ceratopsians, though.

Chris

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Exactly, at this stage on the raptors there is little David can do.  Just about everything depends on the factories now.  There were delays to improve things which i cool by me, he's not rushing a product out like a big company which also experience delays.  The difference is we know what is going on each step of the way, we aren't sitting in the dark waiting for something that fear may never show. 

Ill get a few ceratopsians certainly not all though at least not in the initial backing. There were so many exclusives and extras too...it just became overwhelming.

[Halichoeres]

Whereas I understand the frustration with waiting, I agree that most of the delays are 1) mostly out of Silva's hands, or 2) justified in terms of quality control. If they shipped next month and had weak joints, or didn't fit with their bases, or had shoddy paintwork, I would find that far more frustrating than holding out for a couple more months. Some of the delays are to do with his adjusting the original sculpts in response to feedback, which is also admirable (though I know some errors persist, of which I personally am pretty forgiving). Anyway, if these come out within four or five months of the original target, I will actually consider that pretty damned impressive by Kickstarter standards.

[Georassic]

Whereas I understand the frustration with waiting, I agree that most of the delays are 1) mostly out of Silva's hands, or 2) justified in terms of quality control. If they shipped next month and had weak joints, or didn't fit with their bases, or had shoddy paintwork, I would find that far more frustrating than holding out for a couple more months. Some of the delays are to do with his adjusting the original sculpts in response to feedback, which is also admirable (though I know some errors persist, of which I personally am pretty forgiving). Anyway, if these come out within four or five months of the original target, I will actually consider that pretty damned impressive by Kickstarter standards.

Agreed. I'm happy to wait a few extra months. Plenty on my wish list that I can buy now, and come back for these later.

[Minmiminime]

I'm more than happy to remain patient It builds the anticipation! I just hope I can resist adding a couple more...both Dromeosaurus variants, and also the Adasaurus are now looking tempting

[ZoPteryx]

Better to wait for a product that meets or exceeds our expectations than get something sloppy and disappointing. 

I will admit though, I was a little saddened to hear that the chest/stomach pieces are actually glued in place, I had always just assumed they snapped on.  That's going to limit my build-a-raptor options a bit. 

[Silvanusaurus]

To me it feels like these figures have fallen off my radar in the time since I placed my order, so i dont mind waiting further so it should be exciting when they finally turn up 'out of the blue', as i havent been thinking about them much beforehand.

[Sim]

Better to wait for a product that meets or exceeds our expectations than get something sloppy and disappointing. 

I will admit though, I was a little saddened to hear that the chest/stomach pieces are actually glued in place, I had always just assumed they snapped on.  That's going to limit my build-a-raptor options a bit. 

I actually would've hated it if those parts were removable.  The way I feel about it is that parts that weren't removable on the animal in life shouldn't be removable on a figure of it, except in cases where it would be significantly beneficial, and the removable parts have to be replaced by other parts and stay in place e.g. the straight/bent toes on the main raptor figures.  I feel that making the chest/pelvis parts removable would make the figure not feel like a coherent, solid representation of the animal.  Since on a number of the figures these parts are required due to differences in their skeleton to Velociraptor, this would also not be consistent with the parts being removable.

If the parts snapped on, as David said in the video, the main body would've needed to have holes.  I imagine the holes would've been visible on the figures that didn't use the parts, which would be unacceptable to me.  At this point it would be much better to not make them separate parts and instead just make a couple of different upper/lower main body parts as required.  I think this would've probably been the best thing to do in any case.  The next best thing for me is to have the parts permanently attached.

I wouldn't want the Build-A-Raptor sets to decrease how good the main raptor figures are (the ones sold completed and painted) by making the main raptor figures have removable parts or inaccurate proportions to increase interchangeability.

[ImADinosaurRARR]

DAVE HAS RETURNED!!!!!!

And oh boy do these pictures get me excited.

[Faelrin]

The paint samples look good or at least okay for me, at least from what the angle and resolution of the image can show (I keep eyeballing the kestrel Dromaeosaurus in particular, due to that being one of my favorites that I ordered). I bet there's more to see in that regard. I really like that raptor in that preening pose too. It's going to be so fun to try that pose out among many others. Just a little bit more waiting. I can do this.

Another update on the FB page was posted with a sneak peek of the (WIP?) packaging. Looks nice and compact, which should save space. I can't wait to see a version with the artwork implemented.

[Nanuqsaurus]

Love that feather grooming pose! It looks so natural.