Pliosaur toy by Tone Hitchcock for the Bristol Museum

[modelnut]

Doris came in the mail today! She is is 25.5 cm long 10 inches. 35th scale or near enough.



- Leelan

[Kaprosaurus]

I had high hopes for this figure,but now i'm a little bit disappointed,i think it's the seams and how cartoony the eyes kinda look,just giving my personal opinion (Wow,this is my first post in a long time! School is kinda bothering me right now,if you want to know)

[Flaffy]

I was browsing the DTB and found this comment from Tone Hitchcock himself in 2019:

"To answer the points made: we deliberately changed the pose so that it was in a more neutral position so it was easier to play with in a bath (Doris' original pose would have made it less easy to steer in anything other than a turn, and my boys pointed out that's pretty. annoying in a toy).

The teeth annoyed me. On the original master I made for it, I sculpted accurate chompers, but they were too small to scan properly, so the toy company went for these cartoonier ones.

The neck & flipper proportions are accurate, although the flippers came out thicker than they should due to the toy making process. The chunk out of the rear flipper is artistic licence, although we do have bones from a rear flipper that are fused and infected, showing massive trauma, so it's a reasonable guess.

All in all, although there were compromises made to keep it as a children's toy (the seams & the simplified paint job...), with a price that reflected that, it came out OK.

We were hoping to produce a Collector's version, at a larger, more detailed size, from a direct scan of the original, at some point. I guess if enough people expressed an interest, it might still happen."


Has there been any news as to whether a collector's edition of Doris managed to get approved or not?

[Blade-of-the-Moon]

I never saw one.  You could always ask Tone of course he's pretty responsive to fans of his work.

[Flaffy]

I never saw one.  You could always ask Tone of course he's pretty responsive to fans of his work.

@Blade-of-the-Moon  Thanks! Do you have a link to his socials? He doesn't seem to have a dedicated account for his paleoart, so it's been challenging to pin point the correct "Tone Hitchcock" on both Facebook and Twitter.

Also found this neat image of various versions Doris. I assume Tone refers to the big detailed one at the back when talking about a potential "collectors edition" Doris. While I believe the smaller one at the front is what the original vinyl toy was supposed to look like before corners had to be cut to accommodate a pocket-money-friendly price. Source unknown.