Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd

[Gwangi]

I have the Cryolophosaurus, Giganotosaurus, Carnotaurus etc. I like them all but while you may be able to argue that the feet match the bones of a skeletal drawing that does not change the fact that IN LIFE the foot would have had to have had ample padding in order to support the weight of whatever animal they represent, especially something as large as Giganotosaurus. When an animal like an emu has extensive padding like it does and weighs only about 130 lbs you must assume that living theropods, even "smaller" theropods like Cryolophosaurus would have had extensive padding as well. I'm not the first to point this out, or the last. The Carnegie models look like skin stretched over the toe bones. It does not appear anatomically realistic. But you won't see padding on a skeletal, it's just something that would be there based on common sense.

Just look at those dainty little feet!




Look at the foot pads compared to the bones on this rhea, an 80 lb bird.


Sorry, I just don't think most of the Carnegie models take this into account.  In defense of Carnegie and other models, I don't believe very many of them do. The Battat Cryo is one of the few that I can think of that does. Just look at it! Not a tripod either I might add.

[Simon]

Thank you Gwangi.  Now I won't need to Google and cut and paste my myriad old posts on this topic, and on these specific figures.

Your points are 100% dead-on and irrefutable. 

A 5-tonne 40-foot theropod does not look like an enlarged emaciated road runner.  The Carnegie Giganotosaurus is an abomination (except for the head, which is actually very nicely done).  The TRex beefed up the body but again, left spindly legs and feet.  (But once again, the head is beautifully sculpted).

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Wow, all I can say here is really I feel sorry for people making these toys for us..its like the Goldilocks zone...too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, tripod, base, feet too fat, feet too thin......and I am pretty sure I had understood direct attacks on people are considered against forum rules....ie some of the comments directed towards Forest. Not sure it should matter she isnt here herself...but thats just me I guess. I also know that people were given bans for saying far less acrimonious things in the Rebor threads.....not sure why it should be allowed here for an artist that just spent like thirty years making dinosaur figures for us, but again thats just me. I see alot of good in her work along with some things that are not perfect...end of the day, the figures were still better than many of the alternatives for accuracy, asthetics and overall collectibility. I guess once her new project gears up we will learn if all the rude comments were on target or if she is a talented artist.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Incidentally Gwangi I have two of the Battat cryos and I checked them both. When you view them from behind or from the other side, the foot that is flat on the ground clearly has a shim sculpted under it to make the figure stand..without the foot would resemble most other toy sculpts. There is a clear debarkation line between the piece and the foot itself. It is not foot pads as you are implying here, it is clearly a block used to steady the figure...and despite that one of mine still is a tripod.
  While Simon is content to state that those are the facts and are irrefutable that is not the case and is quite easily noticed.

[John]

Pulled up multiple images of the Concavenator skeletal , apparently known from only the one foot, and to my eyes the model looks to be quite in line with the evidence from the drawings. What skeletal are you comparing to her model that you find such a discreppancy ...I am just not seeing it.

I should have been clearer:what I meant was that the real Concavenator corcovatus had feet so small as to look odd as seen in it's skeleton.Here's the one I was going by:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Concavenator.jpg
The Carnegie Collection model of it does have spot on proportions,just as you say,including the feet.

[Dinoguy2]

Yes, some of the Carnegies have undersized foot pads, a feature most of the Battat do very well. Looking at my Deltadromeus in particular, the toes look more like fingers. But at least they're the right size and don't have big flat claws longer than the phalanges!

I agree some of the ankles also look thin. The MTs should be thin looking from ge side but broad in front in most theropods. Again, Battat gets it. I don't have any of the recent Carnegie "carnosaurs" to judge how well the various models get it. I just ordered the Carnotaurus which looks good in the regard based in photos at least the ones I've noticed. I'm not saying Carnegie are perfect, they're certainly not, I'm saying I prefer minor inaccuracies made by accident along with a tripod than less minor inaccuracies made on purpose for the sake of a Greg Paul pose

(even the original research showing theropods did not drag their tails suggested a more diagonal than horizontal pose for normal walking. Look at the British Museum T. rex  "Dynamosaurus" specimen mount, designed by the same scientist who disproved tail dragging.The flat horizontal back at all times was popularized by Bakker and Paul, in running postures not walking, and solidified by JP. This is part of the reason these figures have trouble standing, the real animals couldnt balance that horizontally when moving slowly or standing still. Also, too little tail bulk to balance out the skull).

My Battat Cryo doesn't stand up without leaning on its tail, btw...

[Gwangi]

Wow, all I can say here is really I feel sorry for people making these toys for us..its like the Goldilocks zone...too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, tripod, base, feet too fat, feet too thin......

I feel like I've spoken my piece and used good illustrations to back my points up here. Don't feel bad for me. I think you're too enamored with Forest and quick to jump to her defense to soak in the things I've said. I've pointed out that I collect Carnegie and I've also pointed out that this foot pad issue is common among dinosaur models. Criticizing models is what I do, I do it on the blog every time I write a review. There is nothing wrong with that for a community of collectors and it is entirely possible to criticize something like dainty feet on a Carnegie model while still admiring the positive attributes about it too. The only reason I brought it up at all is because someone said the feet on the Carnegie tripods were accurate, I don't agree. It's a nit pick for sure, I know that.

As for the Battat Cryo, when viewed from above you can clearly see that there are foot pads here, the toes all look appropriately fleshy and supportable. It doesn't look like a shim to me, for that they could have just sculpted something small behind and under the foot. And the Cryo is not the only Battat where I notice this feature anyway. The feet on the Dilophosaurus and Tyrannosaurus serve as further examples.

Again, I illustrate.




Compare the ankles, look at how the meat under the foot splays out under the pressure of the animal's weight. The Carnegie looks like it's in pain supporting all that weight on its foot bones. Am I really just insane for noticing this?

[modelnut]

Here is a Tyrannosaur footprint. It seems to me to have even more in the way of foot-pads than anything shown so far.

- Leelan

http://www.techienews.co.uk/9740455/ubc-student-spots-tyrannosaur-footprint-near-tumbler-ridge/

[suspsy]

Wow, all I can say here is really I feel sorry for people making these toys for us..its like the Goldilocks zone...too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, tripod, base, feet too fat, feet too thin......and I am pretty sure I had understood direct attacks on people are considered against forum rules....ie some of the comments directed towards Forest. Not sure it should matter she isnt here herself...but thats just me I guess. I also know that people were given bans for saying far less acrimonious things in the Rebor threads.....not sure why it should be allowed here for an artist that just spent like thirty years making dinosaur figures for us, but again thats just me. I see alot of good in her work along with some things that are not perfect...end of the day, the figures were still better than many of the alternatives for accuracy, asthetics and overall collectibility. I guess once her new project gears up we will learn if all the rude comments were on target or if she is a talented artist.

You yourself have made plenty of negative statements about CollectA toys over the past year alone, amargasaurus. You've called them out on fair things like the speculative quills and inaccurate feet on ceratopsians and for the overly wide hips on the theropods. And even for some things that have not been fair. How are your actions any different from Gwangi and Simon pointing out that Carnegie toys have inaccurate limbs and feet? Or what I and a whole lot of other people have been saying about the Rebor Yutyrannus and its pitiful lack of feathers? Or the disappointing Jurassic World toys?

I get that you're friends with Forest and are fiercely loyal to her, and that's an admirable trait, but I really don't see this discussion as a personal attack against her. She's an artist, we're her audience. I agree with nearly everything Simon and Gwangi have said, but I still like and buy Carnegie toys regardless. I wouldn't be much of a collector or a reviewer if I dismissed every single toy that I found flaws with.

[stargatedalek]

If you look at the back of the foot on our left in Gwangi's photo you can spot a very distinctive line on the underside of the foot. The Battat Cryolophosaurus definitely has toe pads, but that one at the back of the foot is a shim.

(even the original research showing theropods did not drag their tails suggested a more diagonal than horizontal pose for normal walking. Look at the British Museum T. rex  "Dynamosaurus" specimen mount, designed by the same scientist who disproved tail dragging.The flat horizontal back at all times was popularized by Bakker and Paul, in running postures not walking, and solidified by JP. This is part of the reason these figures have trouble standing, the real animals couldnt balance that horizontally when moving slowly or standing still. Also, too little tail bulk to balance out the skull).

This, so much this. Large theropods probably had great difficulty holding many of the near horizontal poses they are often shown in, ironically the less "comfortable looking" tripod may well be the most realistic pose we have.

You yourself have made plenty of negative statements about CollectA toys over the past year alone, amargasaurus. You've called them out on fair things like the speculative quills and inaccurate feet on ceratopsians and for the overly wide hips on the theropods. And even for some things that have not been fair. How are your actions any different from Gwangi and Simon pointing out that Carnegie toys have inaccurate limbs and feet? Or what I and a whole lot of other people have been saying about the Rebor Yutyrannus and its pitiful lack of feathers? Or the disappointing Jurassic World toys?

I do believe he was referring to Simon's aggressive choice of language, and not to the act of pointing out anatomical or product flaws.

[suspsy]

I do believe amargasaurus is referencing a number of things said by different people over the last few days, stargate. It's pretty clear from his posts. And I do think that Simon's initial post about hoping Forest never sculpts another theropod in her life was overly harsh, but I also feel he's done a good job of explaining why he feels so strongly.

[amargasaurus cazaui]

I do believe amargasaurus is referencing a number of things said by different people over the last few days, stargate. It's pretty clear from his posts. And I do think that Simon's initial post about hoping Forest never sculpts another theropod in her life was overly harsh, but I also feel he's done a good job of explaining why he feels so strongly.

Not sure explaining WHY allows anyone to repeatedly violate forum policy and directly attack anyone, and call their work an abomination etc. We had people banned off the Rebor threads for alot less than what has been said here. I dont mind honest criticism of anyones sculpts. I think this has crossed the line sadly

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Here is a Tyrannosaur footprint. It seems to me to have even more in the way of foot-pads than anything shown so far.

- Leelan

http://www.techienews.co.uk/9740455/ubc-student-spots-tyrannosaur-footprint-near-tumbler-ridge/

The one issue with a  footprint is of course it is not necessarily a direct measure of the size of shape of the foot. Given that it could well have been made in deep mud and spread quite a bit, and further distorted before hardening, it is a nice outline but not a clear and accurate depiction of the foot potentially, and of course depending on multiple factors...viscosity of the mud, rate of drying, weight of the animal, stance of the animal, speed of the animal, and wether anything else affected the print once it was placed.
  By example check some of the footprints known from the Paluxy river, Glen Rose site in texas. Because the theropod tracks were laid in soft mud the central digit remained, while the outer toe on each side did not , making it look like a distended human foot and giving rise to the rumor that there were human footprints along with dinosaurs at the site. To this day you can visit the Creation museum there, where there are copies of some of those tracks, and are stated as showind men lived with dinosaurs.
  There is just alot of science that goes into translating a track, its spread, its placement and how it finally winds up I guess.

[Dinoguy2]

If you look at the back of the foot on our left in Gwangi's photo you can spot a very distinctive line on the underside of the foot. The Battat Cryolophosaurus definitely has toe pads, but that one at the back of the foot is a shim.

(even the original research showing theropods did not drag their tails suggested a more diagonal than horizontal pose for normal walking. Look at the British Museum T. rex  "Dynamosaurus" specimen mount, designed by the same scientist who disproved tail dragging.The flat horizontal back at all times was popularized by Bakker and Paul, in running postures not walking, and solidified by JP. This is part of the reason these figures have trouble standing, the real animals couldnt balance that horizontally when moving slowly or standing still. Also, too little tail bulk to balance out the skull).

This, so much this. Large theropods probably had great difficulty holding many of the near horizontal poses they are often shown in, ironically the less "comfortable looking" tripod may well be the most realistic pose we have.

Just to expand on this, since it's on the topic of theropod back posture, I recently decided to do some digging in to the history of the shift from tail-dragging to non-tail dragging in dinosaurs. Even Osborn back in 1905 knew that dinosaurs didn't drag, but thought the tail tips would be close to the ground thanks to gravity. In papers of the time, the spine of t. rex was said to have been held diagonally when walking. Osborn mounted the AMNH T. rex as a tripod because it was supposed to be joined by a second mount that was crouching, defending a kill. The rearing one was trying to scare it away from the carcass. The second rex was never mounted, and a lot of people, including artists, assumed the rearing tripod was supposed to be walking in a normal posture! The first instance of Carnegie figure Syndrome

Flash forward to the 1970s. Barney Newman studied the range of motion in the spine, tail, and hind limbs of T. rex and concluded it couldn't have walked like the AMNH T. rex (nobody ever actually thought this, but Newman re-popularized this view after the mount caused the initial misunderstanding). Newman mounted the BMNH T. rex in his "new" walking posture, shown below.



Newman's reconstruction was part of what kicked off the Dinosaur Revolution. But it's certainly not close to the completely horizontal reconstructions you see today. I looked at a bunch of books from after this time to see when the horizontal posture came about and why. Even The Dinosaur Heresies doesn't show a SINGLE horizontal-backed theropod! It's not until Greg Paul that this appears. Paul's signature style is drawing side views of dinosaurs in as full-out a run as was physically possible. This means leaning the body forward to full horizontal. As we all know, every single artist of the late '80s and 1990s blatantly ripped off Paul's style, including the horizontal backs. Nowadays, if a theropod tail is so much as grazing the floor, dino fans are trained to call it out as inaccurate, when actually the only pose that's actually based on any kind of scientific study is Newman's diagonal backed version.

[Sim]

I've had a good look at my Battat Cryolophosaurus.  I don't think it has a shim under either of its feet.  The areas people have been saying is a shim is covered in the same kind of detail as everywhere else on the feet.  Almost none of this detail can be seen in Gwangi's photo, which isn't surprising because figures tend to have more detail than photos of them show.  Dan LoRusso's photos of the painted resin master and SuperSculpey master for the Battat Cryolophosaurus seen here show more detail on the feet although there's still more detail that isn't visible in these photos either.  In Dan's photos it can be seen the amount of flesh on the Battat Cryo's feet has remained the same from the original sculpture to the final toy.  amargasaurus, the line I think you're referring to is found on the other foot as well, and on other parts of the figure like the underside of the tail.  I'm pretty sure these are mold lines.

stargatedalek, I'm not sure which foot you're referring to, I don't see any "very distinctive" line on either of the Cryo's feet in Gwangi's photo, though.  There are some lines I can make out, but I wouldn't even consider them distinctive..  The Battat Cryo has many more lines and other details on the back of its feet that aren't visible in Gwangi's photo anyway.

[terrorchicken]

Now THAT is a damn good T. rex!

is that supposed to be blood on the snout?

I thought it was colouration rather than blood, but I guess there's nothing stopping you from using your imagination to pretend that it is.

Yeah youre right, I guess if it were blood the bottom jaw would have red too. I really cant not see it as blood though. 

[Sim]

The discussion about how diagonal or horizontal theropod walking/standing posture would be is informative.  I have some thoughts on this...

Well first of all, theropods are a very diverse group of animals.  What might be the normal posture for one species of theropod might not be for another species.  This is actually known to be true, as it can be seen by looking at extant birds.  Just compare a penguin and an ostrich for example.  Their bodies are very different, but then so are the bodies of Tyrannosaurus and Nothronychus.

Cassowary skeleton:


Cassowaries tend to keep their bodies quite horizontal.  Same with ostriches, emus, rheas...  Just pointing out some examples of quite 'horizontal' theropods.

Another theropod pose based on a scientific study in addition to Barney Newman's Tyrannosaurus, is Scott Hartman's Deinocheirus: http://www.skeletaldrawing.com/home/deinocheirus-therizinosaur-or-hadrosaur-mimic7102015  Here's some very interesting things he said in that post:

One thing I spent a lot of time on while producing this skeletal reconstruction was the articulation of the vertebral column. The results of course were weird - any attempt to restore Deinocheirus was doomed to weirdness of course, it's just an odd duck.  But I no longer agree with my own first impressions of the animal. First off, I'm not convinced that Deinocheirus actually walked with the pelvis tilted up like early reconstructions suggested - the pelvis lacks the adaptations seen in therizinosaurs that would suggest habitually being tilted upright. Also, when the tail vertebrae of the adult are carefully placed in a neutral articulation, they don't show any more of an upright curve than other "ordinary" theropods

So apparently, it looks like there's also been scientific study that's suggested (some) therizinosaurs have an upright posture (which would result in a diagonal back).  This, and the part about the adult Deinocheirus's tail (there's a note about the juvenile specimen at the end) not showing any more of an upright curve than other "ordinary" theropods appears to suggest a more horizontal posture as the normal walking/standing posture for non-bird theropods that aren't the therizinosaurs with those pelvis adaptations.

This might not be throwing anything off but just in case it is, I noticed Barney Newman's T. rex mount seems to have a pubis quite different from the T. rex pubes I've seen.  One comparison below:


That Tyrannosaurus skeletal above in that quite horizontal posture is by the same guy who did that Deinocheirus study and skeletal in the link above...

Regarding non-bird theropods finding it difficult to keep a near-horizontal posture when walking or standing still, this might be true for some (e.g. derived therizinosaurs), but is there any evidence suggesting this for others, or all?  It's now known dinosaur tails had more muscle than many people previously thought, especially in most non-bird theropods.  Since muscle tends to be relatively heavy, it seems possible to me many theropods could keep near-horizontal postures.

[Paleona]

...Going a bit off topic here, but has anyone repainted their 2014 T. rex?  The factory paint job is incredibly unappealing to me, and I wanted to see if a nicer color scheme would make the sculpt shine a bit more. 

[amargasaurus cazaui]

Had Martin Garrat repaint one for me, right after they were released, both repainted and based so it would come up off the tail a bit as well.

[Paleona]

Nice.  I guess I should have said, does anyone have any photos of a repainted 2014 rex? haha 
Would love to see a pic of yours.