Loon's Collection: PNSO Suchomimus (Jan 16, 2023)

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

A lovely selection,I didn't know anyone made any Augustynolophus, that nust be nice.

I think you could say the Apatosaurus is 1:30 for an extremely large Apatosaurus louisae, but yes too big. Aside from Eofauna I never trust the scale anyone says.
Aside from the Kaprosuchus and Centrosaurus (the latter of which I will buy in a few weeks), I have the rest and generally find them all pleasing, the Nigersaurus in particular which remains the best plastic  Nigersaurus money can buy right now.

[Loon]

Yeah, I was surprised that anyone made an Augustynolophus. When the fossils were brought to the Los Angeles NHM, I thought they really missed a step by not selling some toy, even a plush.

Definitely agree with you on the Nigersaurus, I think, despite a few faults, it's such an impressive figure. I wouldn't mind an updated take, but for right now, I'm more than happy with this one.

[Loon]

A few weeks ago, I talked about the GR Toys/Haolonggood Quetzalcoatlus figure. I really like that figure, but the included unpainted version got me thinking. I've wanted a figure of the Skybax from James Gurney's Dinotopia series for quite some time. The horse girl in me loves stories about people befriending and riding large animals (or the occasional giant robot). So, I reached out to @paintingdinos, whom I've commissioned several lovely customs from in the past. She really worked some magic here, and I can't thank her enough. Hopefully, I can do her work justice with my pictures, since the results are well...

Like the standard Quetzalcoatlus, I too found myself mouth agape when this thing arrived. It's just too beautiful for words.


The Skybax vary in design depending on which art you look at. This figure's paint scheme was mostly inspired by Gurney's Skybax Rider painting. You can notice this primarily in the wings, where the patterns are more purple with some green flakes, as opposed to the simple reddish patterns of other art.


Here is our Skybax alongside her retail counterpart. While I didn't dislike the standard paint job, @paintingdinos' work just takes this figure to new heights.



Some more angles for you to feast your eyes upon. This figure speaks for itself in so many ways. So, I'll shut up for a bit.






Something I truly didn't appreciate until I had this custom in hand was the certain painterly quality it has. Let me try to explain this and not confuse you with my inability to articulate. I mean, it has this look of being a painting made three dimensional, if that makes sense. The wings and head are notable examples, looking like they came out of Gurney's paintings. This isn't something I've ever felt about any other figure before; it's just so beautiful.




Alright, here are some fun pictures I took of this beauty.





Danger in the Rainy Basin


"Breathe deep, seek peace."



My amateur photo editing skills on full display.

And finally, the money shot, my homage to The World Beneath.

Of course Nedry's here.

[Leyster]

Oh my, what an amazing custom!

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

That is magnificent, and i think it's the first custom painted one I've seen so quite a standard to set.

[Cretaceous Crab]

That's a great custom. Love the Nedry  photo bomb in that last shot!

[ceratopsian]

Beautiful custom work. Really striking.

[Turacoverdin]

Stunning work by paintingdinos and congratulations for commissioning it. I'm in admiration of some of the smooth colour transitions she's managed to pull off across the figure, the beak is the stand-out of course but it's also worth highlighting the gradation between red/orange around the tail & hind limbs, as well as the orange tones around the articulated jaw. And the detail in & around the eye is incredible. As ceratopsian said, beautiful work.

[paintingdinos]

@Loon That gif is giving me the energy I need to make it through this upcoming work week 

You're always too kind and I'm glad I was able to help bring this one to life. Its a very striking design and a nice model to boot.

[Kapitaenosavrvs]

Outstanding work and congratulations to you and of course @paintingdinos for the wonderful work on the Quetz.

[Halichoeres]

That's a wonderful paint-up. The wings are absolutely resplendent. Well done @paintingdinos

I didn't know LittleCritterz made exclusives like the Augustynolophus! That's an adorable little figure. I've always thought that a good gimmick would be for a company to make figures of the state fossil/dinosaur for various US states: a Eurypterus for New York, a Tullimonstrum for Illinois, a Dunkleosteus for Ohio. But I think they should skip the states that have megalodon as their state fossil.

[KeU]

I was just commenting on the Lord of the Print Quetzalcoatlus (mounted version) where it reminded me of Dinotopia.
And here it is! Pretty much the Skybax from the series.
What a unique piece you have there.
The additional details on the wings are a nice touch as well.

[Loon]

I want to say thanks to everyone for the kind words, but all thanks belongs to paintingdinos, she just knocked this one out of the park. I'm really just too lucky to get to own some of her work.

@Loon That gif is giving me the energy I need to make it through this upcoming work week 

You're always too kind and I'm glad I was able to help bring this one to life. Its a very striking design and a nice model to boot.

Happy you like that gif. I figured that Quetzalcoatlus' loose jaw would have some use. I just want to say thank you again; your pieces are a highlight of my collection. Honestly, I'm a little hesitant to put this one on the shelf yet, I still can't stop looking at it.

[Lanthanotus]

Quite a striking work on that Quetzal. Enjoy this addition, Loon

[Shonisaurus]

My congratulations on your new acquisition, that quetzalcoatlus is incredibly good and the repainting of the other quetzalcoatlus from paintingdinos has been phenomenal. I like that quetzalcoatlus from GR Toys as it is an elegant figure without too many ornaments. I'm glad for you.

[Loon]

Well, spring break has just kicked off and I wanted to take the time to update my displays. The focus of the past day or so has been a few shelves I've deemed "problematic." Usually because they are either too full, or don't utilize the space efficiently. So, after messing with them until I got them to look somewhat nicer, I wanted to run them by you guys and see what you all think.

To start off, here's the first Jurassic shelf. This one suffers from two very big problems, the ultimate consumers of shelf space, sauropods. Trying to reconfigure these figures made me lose any sympathy for those who pine for the days of giant Carnegie-sized sauropods.


It was these two shelves that really got things going. Particularly, the second one, as it was ruled by a tyranny of extremely long (everybody say it with me) sauropods. That, and my current love affair with the Elrhaz Formation of Niger has made things sort of cramped. Looking at my database for any justification to move things around, I saw that the early Cretaceous North American species on the first shelf were actually 10-15 million years younger than some of the species on the shelf that was supposed to be chronologically later.


While neither is exactly perfect (that damn Bajadasaurus is just a nightmare to display), I think I have them in a nice enough spot. I'm also happy to have cleared enough plausible space on the second shelf for a certain upcoming large sauropod from South America.
The (mostly) Dinosaur Park Formation shelf has received a few additions since I last shared it, and has this been shuffled around a bit. I also move the Kaiyodo Parasaurolophus to another shelf, as that species is not from Canada.


The last two I'm showing have been updated, but are still something of a sore point. I'm probably being nitpicky, but I feel like, as they are now, they are both too crowded and too spacious in places. Let me know what you think.

[ceratopsian]

I think you have a very good feel for space and balance, so you are good at seeing the not quite perfect! For me the shelf with the PNSO Shantungosaurus on the back step and the PNSO Pinacosaurus on the front looks the least balanced.  The back step looks a bit too crowded, the front a little too spare.  Maybe the sheer size of the CollectA Protoceratops helps the unbalancing effect on the front step.

However - and it's quite a big however - remember that we don't see in a photo the proportions that you see when looking at the shelf with your own eyes because of the inevitable photographic distortion.  For us looking at a photo, the front of your shelves are stretched, the rear compressed.  We get a false perspective.

[Shonisaurus]

You have very good taste and elegance when it comes to ordering your shelves. I see that you have the PNSO tsintaosaurus, mine is in the customs clearance of my national mail ready for delivery. My congratulations, for your order, cleanliness and classification of species, in this case (only dinosaurs) according to the geological time, in each of the shelves you show.

You have very good knowledge when it comes to paleontology. Your collection is very nice.

[Paleona]

Your collection is just lovely, Loon :') I think your rearranged shelves look great! Each figure has breathing space, so they can all be appreciated. In your second (most recent) photo, who is that on the top riser, all the way on the right? It looks like a Sinosauropteryx resting (or maybe it's just similarly colored)- so cute!! ;_;

Also, your Skybax custom is beautiful!! I'm still bummed we never got an official Dinotopia toy line, it would have been amazing.

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Your displays are still beautiful, and I am still drawn to them. You have just reminded me about the fact the Yi qi should have a tail (since mine is missing that). Nice to see how the upcoming Tsintaosaurus looks in a display too. I think the Early Cretaceous stuff in general is still my favourite, first the Europe, then Asia. I love the Wessex formation and the 2 or 3 surrounding formations.