Safari: New for 2017

[DinoLord]

I think the quality's quite good. Sure it doesn't have 100% of the original's crispness but can we ever really expect that? I think for $25 you'd be very hard-pressed to find a better figure. And the paint application seems a lot better than some of the past WS figures (no more milk mustache!).

[Doug Watson]

Im sorry Doug i dont mean to start a fight with you.   But i did as you requsted and deleted the post.   (to the best i can, There is no delete button allowed for non admins)

What fight?? I thought we were being civil. I was just concerned that someone would read the original post without seeing my response and think I was taking shots at CollectA. You may have noticed I try not to comment on the competition since I would rather my pieces stand (no pun intended) on their own merit and I don't like to criticize the work of others. I have also been misquoted in the press before so I am touchy about quotes attributed to me. Thank you for the delete, your original post remains with my response so I didn't censor you completely but there at least the reader will see my response.

[Concavenator]

Will it be long until Dan's Dinosaurs have the Tyrannosaurus in stock?I normally prefer ordering through his shop ,as when it comes to getting dinosaurs,I never use amazon.I heard they were expected for January,right?

[hao_bao]

The feathered Rex looks horrible. It will never grace my cabinet.

[Bucklander]

The feathered Rex looks horrible. It will never grace my cabinet.

Whilst I respect your right to hold and voice your own opinion, I cannot see why you dislike it so much. I think it's a work of art. What is it about the figure you do not like (and please bear in mind the inescapable limitations imposed by things like - mass production, keeping the price affordable - on this point, I must say it deeply saddens (even angers) me, that people can have such unrealistic expectations. Workers must be paid, and every one is entitled to a decent wage. If you want Martin Garret quality paint apps, you cannot expect them for the price of a production line piece - that is, unless you want slave labour, which I for one certainly do not!)?

[suspsy]

Doug Watson, did you base the FTR on any particular specimen like Sue or Stan or Scotty?

[MLMjp]

Doug Watson, did you base the FTR on any particular specimen like Sue or Stan or Scotty?

I think he might have based the general proportions on Stan, if you take a look at the pictures of Tyrannosauron, the head looks quite big, and the body rather short.

[Nanuqsaurus]

The feathered Rex looks horrible. It will never grace my cabinet.

Well, then you should probably just dislike Tyrannosaurus in general, because this is what it probably looked like.

[Verahin]

The feathered Rex looks horrible. It will never grace my cabinet.

Whilst I respect your right to hold and voice your own opinion, I cannot see why you dislike it so much. I think it's a work of art. What is it about the figure you do not like (and please bear in mind the inescapable limitations imposed by things like - mass production, keeping the price affordable - on this point, I must say it deeply saddens (even angers) me, that people can have such unrealistic expectations. Workers must be paid, and every one is entitled to a decent wage. If you want Martin Garret quality paint apps, you cannot expect them for the price of a production line piece - that is, unless you want slave labour, which I for one certainly do not!)?

Well, I disagree with the post you quoted, I don't find it horrible, simply a bad rendition of the original sculpt, but I also disagree with your statements regarding mass production and paint app. It's not a matter of workers that must be payed, I assume that Papo and Schleich don't enslave their employees and give them a decent wage, it is just a matter of poor quality standards by Safari. We have images of several prototypes on this forum, and then you can see any Safari mass produced piece, the difference is remarkable to say the least. If Papo, Rebor, Schleich and even Collecta with their larger models can keep the mass produced pieces to a good level why Safari can't? That's my only question.

[The Atroxious]

There are still flaws, like the scaly head and belly, or the lack of lips, but still forgettable in the context of a very nice figure. And a huge improvement over the Collecta model.

The scaly head and belly and lack of lips are not flaws so much as an artistic choice. We know Tyrannosaurus had scales on its body, and the lips debate to this day has not been resolved. The fact that we lack evidence about the integument patterns and facial flesh of Tyrannosaurus makes a wide variety of interpretations perfectly valid, including this one.

That said, I do think the scales on the belly look out of place, mostly because of how small the patch is and how it seems to form a rather inorganic, geometric shape on the figure's underside. I think it would have looked better with either a fully feathered underside, or more extensive scaling with a more irregular outline, but the way the scales were done is not wrong per se. The scaly face, on the other hand, doesn't bother me at all, and I personally prefer depictions of most dinosaurs being lipless, so for the most part the head looks good to me.

My one problem with the head is that at the edges, between the jugal and otoccipital bones, the skull is incredibly shrinkwrapped. I don't think any known animal has such tight skin in the upper proximal region of the skull, so that doesn't really make any sense to me.

[stargatedalek]

Well, I disagree with the post you quoted, I don't find it horrible, simply a bad rendition of the original sculpt, but I also disagree with your statements regarding mass production and paint app. It's not a matter of workers that must be payed, I assume that Papo and Schleich don't enslave their employees and give them a decent wage, it is just a matter of poor quality standards by Safari. We have images of several prototypes on this forum, and then you can see any Safari mass produced piece, the difference is remarkable to say the least. If Papo, Rebor, Schleich and even Collecta with their larger models can keep the mass produced pieces to a good level why Safari can't? That's my only question.

You've just said exactly why yourself, their models are larger, often significantly so. The art style used is another reason, Schleich, Papo, and REBOR all lean towards heavily exaggerated details which are less likely to become obscured by poor paint application or lost in molding, and CollectA does the exact opposite, often instead choosing smooth textures (especially on feathered animals) with comparatively minimal amounts of small details to be lost.

It's also unfair to compare a Wild Safari production piece to one by REBOR or Papo, this Tyrannosaurus costs less than half of what theirs do and it's about the same size as Papos.

Schleich and REBOR's models often ship with misplaced paint just as Safari's do, you just can't tell because neither of them are half as ambitious as Safari is in regards to paint. One notices it more on Schleich's modern animals than their dinosaurs because those actually use something besides crayola swatches for their colours, and this piece alone probably has half as many colours as REBOR has ever used on their sum total products.

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

[Concavenator]

The feathered Rex looks horrible. It will never grace my cabinet.

Well, then you should probably just dislike Tyrannosaurus in general, because this is what it probably looked like.

Nailed it.

[Shonisaurus]

The feathered Rex looks horrible. It will never grace my cabinet.

Everyone is free to buy an item or not. Neither Safari nor anyone forces a machine gun to buy their figures.

I for my part I have booked from mid-October and I will have it in my hands along with the rest of Safari 2017 news on my shelves in a privileged place over February and March along with the rest of Safari 2017 news.

For my part this tyrannosaurus rex feathered for me is the best that has been done and the most accurate, but obviously everyone has their criteria.

[Sim]

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

What are you referring to regarding Schleich figures melting?

[tanystropheus]

Well, I disagree with the post you quoted, I don't find it horrible, simply a bad rendition of the original sculpt, but I also disagree with your statements regarding mass production and paint app. It's not a matter of workers that must be payed, I assume that Papo and Schleich don't enslave their employees and give them a decent wage, it is just a matter of poor quality standards by Safari. We have images of several prototypes on this forum, and then you can see any Safari mass produced piece, the difference is remarkable to say the least. If Papo, Rebor, Schleich and even Collecta with their larger models can keep the mass produced pieces to a good level why Safari can't? That's my only question.

You've just said exactly why yourself, their models are larger, often significantly so. The art style used is another reason, Schleich, Papo, and REBOR all lean towards heavily exaggerated details which are less likely to become obscured by poor paint application or lost in molding, and CollectA does the exact opposite, often instead choosing smooth textures (especially on feathered animals) with comparatively minimal amounts of small details to be lost.

It's also unfair to compare a Wild Safari production piece to one by REBOR or Papo, this Tyrannosaurus costs less than half of what theirs do and it's about the same size as Papos.

Schleich and REBOR's models often ship with misplaced paint just as Safari's do, you just can't tell because neither of them are half as ambitious as Safari is in regards to paint. One notices it more on Schleich's modern animals than their dinosaurs because those actually use something besides crayola swatches for their colours, and this piece alone probably has half as many colours as REBOR has ever used on their sum total products.

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

I agree with most of what you are saying here, but the WS T-rex is actually selling for the same price as the Papo Rexes. I don't recall ever paying more than $25 for a Papo Rex...
Don't get me wrong, I think the WS Rex looks great. The white splash of paint is a bit of an annoyance, but I could probably repaint it beige or something.

[tanystropheus]

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

What are you referring to regarding Schleich figures melting?

Imagine the Schleich Ceratosaurus melting away on your shelf...it would like a steaming...

[CityRaptor]

Imagine the original Schleich Carnotaurus melting. It already looks like one to beign with.

How costy a Papo Rex is depends on the country. It's actually true for all Dinosaur figures.

[stargatedalek]

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

What are you referring to regarding Schleich figures melting?

Perhaps it's more a problem here (because longer shipping times? temperature variation? no idea), but it's not uncommon to see Schleich figures with disfigured nails where it melted and became indented. Especially the Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptors, which for whatever reason are made of that super chalky plastic.

I agree with most of what you are saying here, but the WS T-rex is actually selling for the same price as the Papo Rexes. I don't recall ever paying more than $25 for a Papo Rex...
Don't get me wrong, I think the WS Rex looks great. The white splash of paint is a bit of an annoyance, but I could probably repaint it beige or something.

My bad, I forgot to convert the Safari to CDN. I only ever see Papo rex's sold for $40-50 CDN, but after converting the Safari costs about $35 CDN. With retail mark-up they'll probably cost about the same.

[Sim]

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

What are you referring to regarding Schleich figures melting?

Perhaps it's more a problem here (because longer shipping times? temperature variation? no idea), but it's not uncommon to see Schleich figures with disfigured nails where it melted and became indented. Especially the Tyrannosaurus and Velociraptors, which for whatever reason are made of that super chalky plastic.

I see!  I didn't know of Schleich figures melting like that.  I find that waxy plastic Schleich has been using for some of their prehistoric figures feels unpleasant and inappropriate.  Kind of like how Schleich prehistoric figures tend to look unpleasant and inappropriate overall!

[Sim]

There's also more than one aspect to production quality. You can't say "Safari production pieces loose so much more detail that's horrible quality control!" and ignore CollectA and REBOR figures bending over, Schleich figures melting, or all of the aforementioned frequently having the same paint application problems as Safari.

What are you referring to regarding Schleich figures melting?

Imagine the Schleich Ceratosaurus melting away on your shelf...it would like a steaming...

I'd be interested in seeing an obnoxious Schleich figure melting away!  Providing it's done safely of course.  Any of the following by Schleich would be good to see melting away: Giganotosaurus, Carnotaurus, Velociraptor, Therizinosaurus, Albertosaurus, Ceratosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, Barapasaurus, Dilophosaurus.

I don't have any Schleich figures, but if I'm remembering right, you have some?  Perhaps you can melt one for us? 

Imagine the original Schleich Carnotaurus melting. It already looks like one to beign with.

This Schleich Velociraptor looks like it's melting: http://toyseum.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/velociraptor-schleich-small-version-2015.html