"How plastic dinosaurs are made" Smithsonian article + video

[dpepinmarquette]

I found this article from Smithsonian showing how plastic dinosaur toys are made. It has footage from the Schleich factory showing the process from start to finish.  I couldn't find it posted anywhere else here so if it already has been Sorry about that.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-plastic-toy-dinosaurs-are-made-180955753/?no-ist

[CityRaptor]

Well, the video has been posted several times by now. But I think it is the first time there is an article.

[Libraraptor]

They seem to have an army of well paid sculptors and artists at Schleich, and yet they mostly don´t manage to do accurate figures.

[CityRaptor]

Well, what do you expect when they use Jurassic Park and google image search pics as a references?

Speaking of Schleich not being entirely original:

[BlueKrono]

Great video! Gives me ideas of how to make my own. After all, that's how a lot of paleoartists and even taxidermists get their start - they look at someone else's product and think to themselves, "I could do better than that!"

[pylraster]

Saw that video months ago, and it's really informative. For Schleich, I think the sculptors' talent is there, just sucks that they have to follow a very bad design. No wonder that T.rex's tail was short - the artist tried to fit the drawing on a normal bond paper.

[DC]

Unless there has been a change this is the same factory Safari ltd uses. A big technology change has been the injection molds many older molds are not useable with the modern injection mold machines.  Somewhere out on YouTube there is a Safari video I think from the same factory on how figures are hand painted.

Nice post thanks Randy

[Neosodon]

I wish I could find one for collecta. I don't think collecta's models are hand painted. I'm curious how they paint them.