David Silvas New Kickstarter: Articulated Dinosaur TOYS

[Dobber]

I didn't think that Zhen had such a roust head, but I am by no means an expert.

Chris

[Nanuqsaurus]

I didn't think that Zhen had such a roust head, but I am by no means an expert.

Chris

I'm no expert either, but in the toy concept art, only the tip of the snout is orange and there are much more feathers on the crest, neck and throat. It makes the head look more in proportion with the rest of the body, while it is still quite robust.



Wish it were more like this on the figure itself, but I still think David is doing a wonderful job with these raptors! Maybe the other raptors are so good, that this one looks somewhat more flawed. If there were no other similar figures to compare this Zhenyuanlong to, I'd probably say that this was one of the best dinosaur toys ever. 

[Dinoguy2]

I didn't think that Zhen had such a roust head, but I am by no means an expert.

Chris

Looks correctly robust to me.

[Flaffy]

New Kickstarter update is out. Showing more angles of Zhen and some head shots of dromaeosaurus. Starting to like the zhen... dunno why, despite the inaccuracies... 

[Sim]

The problem with the Zhen wings is the proportions. Look at the fossil: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenyuanlong#/media/File%3AZhenyuanlong.jpg

Notice that the shortest wing feathers trace back to the elbow area. The SHORTEST wing feathers are a little more than half the length of the entire arm. Notice the secondaries on the ulna get steadily longer towards the hand. Now look at the secondary feathers closest to the wrist. They're just as long as most of the primaries, making the whole wing rounded, not long and pointed, in shape.

Finally, notice the length of the longest primaries. They're longer than the entire torso!

The wings on the figure have tiny secondaries that actually get smaller towards the hand, and the entire wing is way too small compared to the body. Zhenyuanlong should have wing proportions more like Archaeopteryx.

(And yes, I notice it to: the wings are wrong on both the package art and the concept art, not just the figure. Continuing the long paleoart tradition of drawing based on preconceptions rather than Googling the fossil).

I made the size of the Zhenyuanlong sculpt and the Zhenyuanlong fossil the same.  Honestly, out of the things you mentioned I'm only seeing one thing that could definitely be inaccurate and that's some of the primary feathers.  If I'm understanding what the fossil is showing correctly, all that seems to be needed is to make the Zhenyuanlong's third, fourth and fifth primary feathers longer?  Like in Emily Willoughby's Zhenyuanlong restoration?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenyuanlong#/media/File:Zhenyuanlong_life_restoration.jpg

The length of the secondaries looks like it could be right to me...  The figure's secondaries get smaller towards the hand, but that's after steadily becoming longer along most of the ulna.  Does the fossil show that the secondaries don't become smaller near the hand?  To me it looked like that part of the secondaries overlies the primaries on the fossil and can't be distinguished?  In Emily Willoughby's restoration that I linked to, the secondaries seem to get smaller towards the hand as well.

If making some of the primary feathers longer like I mentioned above would improve the Zhenyuanlong's accuracy I'm willing to suggest it to David.  I don't think it would hinder its action figure capabilities.  I think there's a good chance he'd make the adjustment if it would make the Zhenyuanlong more accurate, and give both it and Balaur more realistic-looking wings.

[Flaffy]

I say go for it. If it makes the zhen more accurate then yeah, why not?

[Shadowknight1]

New Kickstarter update is out. Showing more angles of Zhen and some head shots of dromaeosaurus. Starting to like the zhen... dunno why, despite the inaccuracies... 

I think it's neat attention to detail that David made the underside of Zhen's tail feathers striped like the magpie it's based on.  Gotta say, I'm almost tempted to say the heck with it and say Adasaurus is my third.  It looks soooo good.  But I also want to see the finished kestral Dromeosaurus and thrush Pyroraptor before I say for sure.

[Dobber]

Acheroraptor first look.



I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one, and am now pleasantly surprised. I like it!

Chris

[Dinoguy2]

The problem with the Zhen wings is the proportions. Look at the fossil: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenyuanlong#/media/File%3AZhenyuanlong.jpg

Notice that the shortest wing feathers trace back to the elbow area. The SHORTEST wing feathers are a little more than half the length of the entire arm. Notice the secondaries on the ulna get steadily longer towards the hand. Now look at the secondary feathers closest to the wrist. They're just as long as most of the primaries, making the whole wing rounded, not long and pointed, in shape.

Finally, notice the length of the longest primaries. They're longer than the entire torso!

The wings on the figure have tiny secondaries that actually get smaller towards the hand, and the entire wing is way too small compared to the body. Zhenyuanlong should have wing proportions more like Archaeopteryx.

(And yes, I notice it to: the wings are wrong on both the package art and the concept art, not just the figure. Continuing the long paleoart tradition of drawing based on preconceptions rather than Googling the fossil).

I made the size of the Zhenyuanlong sculpt and the Zhenyuanlong fossil the same.  Honestly, out of the things you mentioned I'm only seeing one thing that could definitely be inaccurate and that's some of the primary feathers.  If I'm understanding what the fossil is showing correctly, all that seems to be needed is to make the Zhenyuanlong's third, fourth and fifth primary feathers longer?  Like in Emily Willoughby's Zhenyuanlong restoration?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhenyuanlong#/media/File:Zhenyuanlong_life_restoration.jpg

The length of the secondaries looks like it could be right to me...  The figure's secondaries get smaller towards the hand, but that's after steadily becoming longer along most of the ulna.  Does the fossil show that the secondaries don't become smaller near the hand?  To me it looked like that part of the secondaries overlies the primaries on the fossil and can't be distinguished?  In Emily Willoughby's restoration that I linked to, the secondaries seem to get smaller towards the hand as well.

If making some of the primary feathers longer like I mentioned above would improve the Zhenyuanlong's accuracy I'm willing to suggest it to David.  I don't think it would hinder its action figure capabilities.  I think there's a good chance he'd make the adjustment if it would make the Zhenyuanlong more accurate, and give both it and Balaur more realistic-looking wings.

None of the feathers in the fossil are significantly overlying each other because the arm and hand are in a straight line, not folded. That means you can trace a gently arced line from the bone out to the wing edge to see the length. Or at least you could--at least the right wing, the edge is broken and feather tips not preserved. On the left arm you can see the primary tips also not preserved, but the secondary tips seem mostly to be and they get steadily longer towards the hand, then the primaries get longer still.

The main problem though is not the increasing or decreasing size of the feathers which is hard to make out, but the absolute size. On the figure, the longest secondaries are maybe the length of the ulna. On the fossil the longest secondaries are more than double the ulna length. Take a look at the secondary closest to the elbow in the figure. It's about a quarter the length of the ulna. Take a look a look at the fossil. The elbow feather is at least the length of the ulna and it's the shortest of all the wing feathers. The feathers are simply way too small compared to the arm and the rest of the body.

This version has the feathers outlined so it might help in comparison. The shape and size of the wings bear zero resemblance to the figure.

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

Acheroraptor first look.



I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one, and am now pleasantly surprised. I like it!

Chris

Interesting. Maybe it's just me but so many of these look like a Velociraptor overall..sad to say I don't see so many differences other than color.

[Dinoguy2]

Acheroraptor first look.



I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one, and am now pleasantly surprised. I like it!

Chris

Interesting. Maybe it's just me but so many of these look like a Velociraptor overall..sad to say I don't see so many differences other than color.

To be fair, dromies are fairly similar overall with mostly just differences in minor skeletal anatomy (not visible in life unless it's something like the snout or toes. A lot of the figures are based on tiny scraps of bone, too. So we can't be confident Acheroraptor looked like this any more than we were certain what Spinosaurus or Deinocheirus or Elaphrosaurus looked like. Or even Balaur... Lot of people would have made that one look like Velociraptor, but now you could probably get away with making it look like an oversized Jeholornis

Love the colors on this one!

EDIT:
Ok, I just spent way to much time playing around in Photoshop, but I was genuinely curious to see if I was looking at this right, and Sim gave me the idea to overlay the fossil.

So I took the lateral photo from the newest update and hacked apart the articulation, then put it back together in the same pose as the fossil. Result below:


I was surprised, because the wings are about the same length, it's their breadth/area that's actually what's wrong. More surprising is the fact that the head is enormous, like bobblehead big compared to the fossil. I scaled the figure to metatarsal length and pretty much all the proportions line up except the tibia is a bit too short and the head is several times too big. The arm bones, torso, and tail all line up exactly with the fossil. The big head seems to be a much bigger issue than the small wings, honestly. I tied re-scaling all the parts to the fossil proportions and got this:


After that I went back and warped the proportions of the original photo to show what an accurate Zhenyuanlong figure wold look like. Here it is compared to the original:

[Brontozaurus]

Acheroraptor is a pleasant surprise! I didn't think the colours looked that good on the art but they look better on the figure. But I'm already pushing my limits in how many figures I'll try for (probably adding Adasaurus on now too), so I might wait until later to pick it up.

[Dobber]

Acheroraptor first look.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this one, and am now pleasantly surprised. I like it!

Chris

Interesting. Maybe it's just me but so many of these look like a Velociraptor overall..sad to say I don't see so many differences other than color.

To be fair, dromies are fairly similar overall with mostly just differences in minor skeletal anatomy (not visible in life unless it's something like the snout or toes. A lot of the figures are based on tiny scraps of bone, too. So we can't be confident Acheroraptor looked like this any more than we were certain what Spinosaurus or Deinocheirus or Elaphrosaurus looked like. Or even Balaur... Lot of people would have made that one look like Velociraptor, but now you could probably get away with making it look like an oversized Jeholornis

Love the colors on this one!

EDIT:
Ok, I just spent way to much time playing around in Photoshop, but I was genuinely curious to see if I was looking at this right, and Sim gave me the idea to overlay the fossil.

So I took the lateral photo from the newest update and hacked apart the articulation, then put it back together in the same pose as the fossil. Result below:

I was surprised, because the wings are about the same length, it's their breadth/area that's actually what's wrong. More surprising is the fact that the head is enormous, like bobblehead big compared to the fossil. I scaled the figure to metatarsal length and pretty much all the proportions line up except the tibia is a bit too short and the head is several times too big. The arm bones, torso, and tail all line up exactly with the fossil. The big head seems to be a much bigger issue than the small wings, honestly. I tied re-scaling all the parts to the fossil proportions and got this:

After that I went back and warped the proportions of the original photo to show what an accurate Zhenyuanlong figure wold look like. Here it is compared to the original:

Thanks for the photoshop, that's what I was trying to point out earlier...the head just looks completely off, too big and robust. The smaller head you used looks much better but the shape is off too. I may actually skip Zhen now, a shame as it was the main one I wanted originally. as someone else said, David is doing incredible work, just this one isn't doing it for me.

Edit: of all the current head sculpts, the Dromaeosaurus head looks closer to Zhen with it's shorter snout. Not only is this one too big but he snout is too robust.

Chris

Edit: Please avoid quoting multiple photos in one post. Thanks!
-moderator 

[Kovu]

Sorry dumb question, but how/where to buy these is confusing me a bit. Once they're being mass produced, will they all be available, or are certain ones limited edition? Or are they only available through the kickstarter? I know he said he's selling the leftovers on his website, so will it be a one-run sort of deal? Sorry if I'm being dense, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask. 

[Flaffy]

No wonder i had the feeling that zhen had an oversized head, like atrociraptor if i remember correctly.  Thanks for the photoshops, the "new" version of zhen actually looks a lot better tan the original!, i don't think the bigger wings will affect articulation that much. I prefer accuracy over articulation, I strongly suggest that we show David this, the zhenyuanlong can be and will be a great figure, if David is willing to make such big changes to the figure.

[Flaffy]

Does Balaur have an oversized head? Or do any of the other raptors suffer the same big head syndrome too?

[Dinoguy2]

Does Balaur have an oversized head? Or do any of the other raptors suffer the same big head syndrome too?

I'm gonna go through and check them one by one, I'll either update this post or start a new post with my results

[Nanuqsaurus]

Nice work with the Photoshop comparison Dinoguy! Really shows that the head is just too big, it looks way more natural with the smaller head.
The Acheroraptor is beautiful, those colors work better than I expected.

[Dinoguy2]

Photoshop accuracy check of all the revealed figures up now!
http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=4882.0

[Dobber]

Thanks for the comparisons 

Back when we first saw Atrociraptor I stated that the head looked too big compared with the slender body. I can understand and make some concessions since these are articulated toys, but the supersize heads...particularly on Zhenyaunlong.....I just can't get past. Not only is it far too big, it just looks like it is shaped wrong too. The more I look at it the more I really don't like it. It is fast approaching pass for me. I did post in the last update that I wasn't feeling Zhen and explained why, briefly, but didn't post pictures. I also don't want to start going back and critiquing all the figures, they are what they are, but as Zhen is the latest, maybe something can be done there. 

Chris