Eofauna general discussion

[Wallnut]

İf they make a obscure spinosaurid like oxalaia it would be nice.

[suspsy]

If they do a spinosaur, it should be one that's known from ample fossil material. Baryonyx has enough great toys already, so I'd prefer Suchomimus or Irritator or maybe Ichythyovenator. Oxalaia is literally just the very tip of a snout. It might even be a species of Spinosaurus.

[Bread]

If they do a spinosaur, it should be one that's known from ample fossil material. Baryonyx has enough great toys already, so I'd prefer Suchomimus or Irritator or maybe Ichythyovenator. Oxalaia is literally just the very tip of a snout. It might even be a species of Spinosaurus.

Like you, I'd prefer Suchomimus or Irritator. However, a Mark Witton Spinosaurus would be nice.

[GojiraGuy1954]

İf they make a obscure spinosaurid like oxalaia it would be nice.

that one isn't real

[Bread]

İf they make a obscure spinosaurid like oxalaia it would be nice.

that one isn't real

There are fragments of the snout and upper jaw, but with only these small pieces found I wouldn't want one to be made yet.

[Bread]

I think Lancer err I mean GoriraGuy is referring to it being reassigned to Spinosaurus for the time being by Robert Smyth et al. in 2020, in fact as Spinosaurus aegyptiacus even as this bit of premaxilla lacks any markers that would make it a different taxon.

Oh okay, my bad. I guess I am somewhat lacking information on the genus.

[Sim]

I would love it if Eofauna made a Suchomimus!  I agree with @Gothmog the Baryonyx about not wanting them to make a Dunkleosteus.  Dunkleosteus is so boring and overdone.  I also wouldn't want Eofauna to make Elasmosaurus as it's too fragmentary.  I love long-necked plesiosauroids though so I'd like Eofauna to make Thalassomedon.

[Kaustav Bhattacharyya]

Hoping for a theropod (Tyrannosaurid especially)and a columbian mammoth/mastodon figure this year. In case of Eofauna figures I want that the outstanding theropod figures of Eofauna must be of liped version.

[Wallnut]

I would love it if Eofauna made a Suchomimus!  I agree with @Gothmog the Baryonyx about not wanting them to make a Dunkleosteus.  Dunkleosteus is so boring and overdone.  I also wouldn't want Eofauna to make Elasmosaurus as it's too fragmentary.  I love long-necked plesiosauroids though so I'd like Eofauna to make Thalassomedon.

agreed.

[Halichoeres]

Where I live Safari giga is about 21€ and Eofauna 26€.

Yeah, the EoFauna is a lot more expensive over here. I guess after import, nobody is selling enough of them to be able to get by with a low per-unit margin. I think I actually got mine from Everything Dinosaur with a shipment of CollectA figures, which ended up being cheaper than buying it from a US retailer.

I'd say it not just that the Eofauna is more expensive in the US, its that Safari figures are all a lot cheaper in the US than anywhere else.

That's a good point, it's a two-way street.

I agree with @Gothmog the Baryonyx about not wanting them to make a Dunkleosteus.  Dunkleosteus is so boring and overdone.

I'm not sure it's overdone so much as all other fish (except the accursed Otodus) are underdone. If EoFauna were to do a fish, I'd prefer something new, but if they made a Dunk it's pretty likely it would improve on all existing versions by a greater margin than all the other 'definitive' versions of animals that people are wishing for in this thread.

[Sim]

Dunkleosteus can't be overdone because there is not a single passable Dunkleosteus figure.

What stops Dunkleosteus figures from being passable compared to Tyrannosaurus, Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus figures?  A flawless version not existing doesn't mean it's not overdone.  I consider the three theropods mentioned overdone, and I consider Dunkleosteus overdone.

[Halichoeres]

Before 2015 there were dozens of Velociraptor figures, but few that resembled the actual animal. Would you have said at that time that Velociraptor was overdone?

[Faelrin]

While there are plethora of options for Dunkleosteus out there, I'm not against seeing Dunkleosteus done by them (if not an updated one from Safari Ltd) since currently the best option out there is perhaps the Favorite Soft Model (maybe the Vinyl as well). It comes the closest in regards to the potential post skull anatomy, but could be better in some places such as in regards to the head (lips, the armor covered in skin, etc).  And if it has to have articulation I would prefer they do it proper like with the upper jaw as well, and not just the lower jaw.

However if they were to do anything from the Paleozoic my first choice is clearly Tiktaalik. I wanted them to do that since they announced the Steppe Mammoth. My next choice would be either Aegirocassis or Titanichthys. Or maybe even Cambroraster.

I also agree about Suchomimus, Irritator, and/or Ichthyovenator, and Livyatan, if not other prehistoric whales (or their ancestors/early relatives such as Ambulocetus). With how beautiful their proboscideans (and dinosaurs) were I think they could do neglected prehistoric cetaceans some real justice. And as like Tiktaalik I still would like to see them do a Paraceratherium (in the same scale as their Palaeoloxodon and Deinotherium, since while the I-Toy one is gorgeous, it is also a behemoth, that is way too big to be 1/35 or even 1/30 scale).

I have to agree it is also a real shame they've only done a few per year (despite the fact I'm also tragically behind on all of them). I don't remember why that was?

[Sim]

No, I wouldn't say Velociraptor was overdone because of the lack of good figures of it.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but Dunkleosteus has good figures available even if they're not perfect?  What's wrong with the Favorite version for example?  If it's the armour not being covered in skin, I seem to remember Scott Hartman saying the armour would have been exposd based on the texture of the bone.  I could be remembering incorrectly though.

[Halichoeres]

I think Safari and Favorite have both made good Dunkleosteus figures, but they both have flaws that, to me as a fish biologist, are pretty glaring. I couldn't find Hartmann's comments on Dunkleosteus, but it's true that some fish dermal armor is covered with things like enamel/enameloid rather than skin per se (gars, bichirs) or with very thin layers of skin (loricariid catfishes, gurnards). I think that is perfectly plausible for the big thoracic armor plates and the suborbital. But Favorite's version leaves all the ones of the face uncovered, including the entire oral margin. Some of those had to move with respect to each other, and would have been connected by muscles and ligaments. Needless to say, those are tissues not usually left exposed. There's no reason to expect Dunkleosteus to have been lipless as the Favorite and ThinkArt versions show. Even the nastiest teeth in fishdom typically hide away for safekeeping (see the payara, for example), and while placoderms didn't have teeth of course, peripheral soft tissue is the norm for fish mouths. The dorsal and pectoral fins on the Favorite are also implausibly short. The tail is well designed; hydrodynamically, the Favorite is by far the best-thought out on the market (or in a tie with Kaiyodo's). Safari, CollectA, and Mojo all made lipped versions, but Safari's has overly conservative fins and an unlikely tail, CollectA's is highly detailed but a thorough mess, and Mojo's has the tail problem again along with other fin errors.

I don't know if all that adds up to a situation similar to Velociraptor in 2015. A lot of it is down to one's relative knowledge of and interest in a particular group. I think it's plainly true that theropod stans on average know less about fish than fish stans know about theropods, because you can't turn around on this forum without seeing somebody pillory a theropod figure for minute imperfections in skull dimensions, the wrong number of teeth, not enough fingers buried in soft tissue in a wing, the wrong tail fan shape, etc. I have no way of quantifying if those errors are more or less egregious than the ones that afflict existing Dunkleosteus figures. I obviously haven't let any of this stop me from buying Dunk figures, but as you know I'm quite willing to buy imperfect figures. I don't like to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. You'll refuse figures for errors or even just presentation choices that I see as extremely minor, which is fine of course; we're all allowed to have different thresholds. I'm just saying it's possible that Dunkleosteus isn't overdone exactly, so much as it just doesn't interest you very much.

Anyway, I'm sure this is all moot, as EoFauna hasn't shown any indication that they're planning to do anything aquatic or Paleozoic. They're into elephants and dinosaurs sensu stricto, and I think we'll rarely see anything else from them.

[stargatedalek]

I wouldn't say Velociraptor or Dunkleosteus are overdone. Excluding "Jurassic" renditions, there are fewer Velociraptor currently in production by major brands than Dunkleosteus, and only one, the Wild Safari, holds up to current technical scrutiny. By contrast there is no Dunkleosteus that holds up entirely, even subjectively, but there are a decent number more options available.

For how popular they are both are deceptively uncommon.

[Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews)]

I'm not sure why we're talking about fish when Eofauna hasn't given any indication they're going to do anything other than large dinosaurs and mammals anytime soon, but if they do make a placoderm, I would like to see them go big and make a Titanichthys instead. Whatever inaccuracies it might have, the Safari Dunkleosteus is good enough for me... I'd rather flesh out my Devonian collection with more species before I flood my collection with multiple figures of the same species in pursuit of the ever-elusive "scientifically perfect" figure.

[Sim]

Sorry for the off-topic post, but I found Scott Hartman's comments, they can be seen here: https://www.deviantart.com/comments/1/579486452/4048155959

[Stegotyranno420]

@Stuckasaurus (Dino Dad Reviews) sorry about that, we had to change topic because we were told too after some talk about other companies,  so then I just brought up what if Eofauna started spreading out into other groups. And then this long conversation about dunkleosteus happened. once agon, sorry about that.
But I would also like to see a different fish rather than dunkleosteus, mainly titanitchys, leeditchys, and rhizodus

[Halichoeres]

Sorry for the off-topic post, but I found Scott Hartman's comments, they can be seen here: https://www.deviantart.com/comments/1/579486452/4048155959

Thanks!