Why are modern brands figures largely out of scale?

[Faelrin]

So like the title says, something I've been wondering recently is why is it that modern brands like Safari Ltd, CollectA, Papo, Schleich, and others have scale all over the place these days (although there are exceptions, like some of Safari Ltd's most recent figures being in 1/35 scale)? The only exception I can think of is perhaps PNSO (not their mini's though, but those are rather all trying to stay on the small side, versus consistent scale of course, much like Kaiyodo's figures I guess), BotM (well two different scales currently, 1/6, and 1/18th respectively), Rebor, and Mattel (mostly). Or perhaps why was it that older brands like Battat, Invicta,  the Carnegie Collection, and even Kenner all had a sense of scale with their figures? Weren't they praised for that? So what I'm wondering is what happened to that? Why has the market essentially evolved away from that?

I should however mention that scale is of course not as important to me versus getting my hands on a figure for a species I really want (and is hopefully as up to date to the current fossil evidence as possible), but it is always interesting to see it done anyways, and over the years I've certainly come to appreciate it.

Edit: Something I'm also curious about is the shift from 1/40 to 1/35 (not that I have issues, but just wondering really) in many cases?

[stargatedalek]

It's probably due to a shift in what dinosaurs are represented. It used to be Deinonychus was a tiny figure that had to be overestimated and/or attached to a base to even be feasibly manufactured. Now people are asking for life sized Scansoriopterygids that would still be smaller than the larger figures of older lines.

Focus has also shifted more internationally. Aside from Spinosaurus and maybe Protoceratops, including a dinosaur found outside of North America or Europe was unthinkably strange until the 1990's at least. And a dinosaur not named using a European language format? How abhorrent that would have been for many parents of the times! ()

I still see people spouting nonsense about "The Scientists" trying to "trick children into believing in feathered dinosaurs/evolution". Back in the days of mothers boycotting Dungeons and Dragons for it's content, I can see an educational toy line getting into similar backlash if they dared to include anything like speculative feathered dinosaurs, or even dinosaurs with distinctively foreign language names.

Making everything in 1:40th is plenty doable when you are limiting yourself to the Morrison and Hell Creek, less so as things get more broad. There is also less incentive to do that, as the animals would never have coexisted anyway, so arguably the educational value of putting them together is already lost.

[Patrx]

I'm not sure what the reasons might be exactly, but when we're looking at the whole of the dinosaur group, the animals themselves are of course wildly different sizes. 1:40 sauropod makes for a good-sized toy, but a 1:40 scansoriopterygid would be pretty pointless.  Similarly, A 1:2 compsognathid might be a reasonable toy, while a 1:2 tyrannosaurid would be too expensive. Maybe those earlier lines like Battat were more invested in the older ideas of dinosaurs as generally big animals? Like Star alluded to, a lot of the "classic" favorite dinosaurs are pretty big taxa.

Whatever the reasons are, I'm quite happy for the shift overall. A lot of my favorite dinosaurs are smaller, and I don't usually like extremely small figures as much.

[Faelrin]

Those are certainly very good points to consider. I'm certainly pleased with the existence of many of PNSO's species for example, that would have been much too small in a 1/40 or 1/35 line.

And it also makes sense why it was easier to be in scale if they were sticking with only the classic (and typically larger) genera.

There is certainly much more diversity in species now then there was in the past (with some exceptions), which is also a nice shift, and I certainly wouldn't want that to stop for the purposes of consistent scale as nice as it can be.

[SidB]

Also, I suspect that there's the in-hand factor. Larger figures of the same animal have a better feel to them. More heft, more like the real thing. It's quite noticeable, even with the distinction between a 1/40th and 1/35th scale representation of a large Tyrannosaur, for example; when that's stepped up to the consideration of, say, Carnegie's old 1/40 scale Protoceratops with CollectA's new large scale model, well there's no comparison at all.

I don't think that consistent scales (from any one company in particular) are even really necessary for assembling good dioramas any more, since there are so many more options available. For example, if I have 1/35 scale Safari figures in one display, but Safari, also has 1/15 -20 scale units, these can be matched with similarly scaled ones from another brand which is visually compatible. There are so many more options nowadays.

[Takama]

I honestly cannot answer why most companys are out of scale.   but what i would like to know is Why is so few companys keep things in-consistant?

Yeah   Safari has a number of 1:35 Scale models, but they also have a GIGANTIC Amargasaurus, thats suposed to replicate one of the smallest Suaropods out there.

Also.    Most companys who claim they stick with a scale, are normaly off.   To Qhoute @Eofauna

The thing is that –– with all respect to other brands –– other companies do not manage properly the scale proportions, in very few occasions their figures meet the promised scale, but this is not their fault, because they are not scientists. However, we actually based on real fossil measurements from published papers or taken by ourselves. For your info, most of the dinos at 1:40/1:35 scale, are actually around 1:35/1:30 or even lower, respectively.

[Ikessauro]

1:40 sauropod makes for a good-sized toy, but a 1:40 scansoriopterygid would be pretty pointless.  Similarly, A 1:2 compsognathid might be a reasonable toy, while a 1:2 tyrannosaurid would be too expensive. Maybe those earlier lines like Battat were more invested in the older ideas of dinosaurs as generally big animals? Like Star alluded to, a lot of the "classic" favorite dinosaurs are pretty big taxa.

That's what I think too. Nowadays the diversity of prehistoric fauna known to the public is higher than say in the eighties or nineties. Internet made things more accessible. Most kids have the option to learn about hundreds of taxa at the tip of their fingers any time of the day by googling. Most people already know dinosaurs were big, but also tiny in some cases. To be able to represent the large variety of sizes and species in collections a manufacturer has to consider production costs, sales potential of the toy and at the same time try to please the consumer with interesting species choices, also competing with a lot more companies doing the same. So to stand out some companies produce lesser known species, but are forced to make them in a size which will sell the most. And sometimes the species chosen are small animals that can't be well done in 1:40 scale, or the other way around, just as Patrx said.

[DinoToyCollector]

I agree with the point "dinosaurs have to be big" For most people and children dinosaurs are still these big, mysterious lizards. Although there are a lot of people around the globe interested in dinosaurs I haven't met more then one in person yet. When I'm talking about my hobby people saying "Oh, yes! I know the T-rex and Triceratops!" Dinosaurs are still a niche thing mainly getting attention by children from 5-6 years old. The big ones sell. That's why there are so many Tyrannosaurus figures out there. Doing a T-rex in 1:50 - 1:30 scale is a good size to attract people and save space. For children the toy or model seems even bigger than it seems for grown-ups.

Maybe I can tell you the reasons why we picked 1:35 scale for the Wild Past. And yes, we want to stay within this scale. This scale simply gives us the opportunity to cover a big range of different species! We started with a Protoceratops which is a rather small animal but we also could easily do some sauropods or big theropods to suit them. There are some points affecting the prize of a model and "size of the model" is one of them. Companies need to calculate the costs and determine the consumer price (which affects the attraction of the product). This may be one reason figures are mostly the same size ignoring scale. There might be a secret formular behind this I still have to find 

[Shonisaurus]

I sincerely like the brands of toy dinosaurs that make dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals without scale. That said I am aware that there are many members of the DTF that do not coincide with my thoughts and especially some prehistoric animals without scale causes that dioramas of realistic prehistoric life cannot be made.

But in my case the beautiful is large and well sculpted, always within a few terms, the Collecta tyrannosaurus and triceratops made at that 1:15 scale sincerely do not appeal to me for economic and space reasons and the same can be said of the PNSO ceratosaurus perhaps the best ceratosaurus but with a size that occupies two shelves.

[Dinoguy2]

I suspect part of it has to due with modern retail concerns. In the past, we had "scientific" dinosaur toys mainly being sold in museum shops and specialty/hobby stores, being marketed as much to adults as to kids. The price point was often higher than it is now too, accounting for inflation.

However, it seems that the place for very small models has gone away. In the past, we might get say, a 1:40 Dimetrodon (like in Invicta or Carnegie) as a standalone figure for a couple of dollars. For a kid like I was in the 80s, these models served as sort of an "in" to the line - I bought all the cheap ones, and eventually bugged my parents for the big expensive ones while slowly collecting the medium ones. Today, the only thing anybody makes anymore are medium figures - nothing super small, nothing super big.

I would guess this has to do with the overall margins on a single line. Tiny figures like the early Carnegie Dimetrodon (which actually had really nice and complex paint applications) must have been loss leaders. I can't imagine how a tiny figure with decent detail and lots of paint apps sold for $3 and still made Safari a profit. They eventually simplified the paint, but we never got any minute figures in the Carnegie line again after 1989, and it was completely discontinued after 1996. Instead, they started offering their small figures in multipacks (first Authentics, later Toobs). This probably makes better economic sense than shipping and selling them individually.

The excuse is that bigger figures can offer more detail, which is true. But it's clear looking at Carnegie and other lines that by the mid-2000s, all figures were being produced out of scale but at a consistent basic size range, one that Safari and others still uses. CollectA seems to be the only company that still occasionally produces tiny (though still slightly out of scale) figures like Struthiomimus and Pachycephalosaurus, and those are few and far between.

tl;dr - Figure size is now standardized at "medium" probably because of economic concerns and concerns about what retailers want to stock, with a more consistent level of detail level and "hand feel" nice side effects.

1:40 sauropod makes for a good-sized toy, but a 1:40 scansoriopterygid would be pretty pointless.  Similarly, A 1:2 compsognathid might be a reasonable toy, while a 1:2 tyrannosaurid would be too expensive. Maybe those earlier lines like Battat were more invested in the older ideas of dinosaurs as generally big animals? Like Star alluded to, a lot of the "classic" favorite dinosaurs are pretty big taxa.

That's what I think too. Nowadays the diversity of prehistoric fauna known to the public is higher than say in the eighties or nineties. Internet made things more accessible. Most kids have the option to learn about hundreds of taxa at the tip of their fingers any time of the day by googling. Most people already know dinosaurs were big, but also tiny in some cases. To be able to represent the large variety of sizes and species in collections a manufacturer has to consider production costs, sales potential of the toy and at the same time try to please the consumer with interesting species choices, also competing with a lot more companies doing the same. So to stand out some companies produce lesser known species, but are forced to make them in a size which will sell the most. And sometimes the species chosen are small animals that can't be well done in 1:40 scale, or the other way around, just as Patrx said.

This is true, but I think there's more to it than that. for example, for a while Carnegie introduced a second "main scale" - 1:10 - to cover small animals. But even that got abandoned within a few years in favor of making every animal in a similar size range. For example, we got 1:10 Psittacosaurus, Tanystropheus, and Dimetrodon. Good start! Then we got  1:10 Velociraptor and Oviraptor. Great! Then 1:10 Beipiaosaurus and Dilong, and 1:5 Caudipteryx and Microraptor. Uh... Ok, sure, Caudipteryx and Microraptor would be fairly small at 1:10, but not THAT small. And at 1:5 they are both enormous! We got one more 1:10 Carnegie (Icthyosaurus), then a bunch of 1:25 and 1:30 figures for some reason? Slightly smaller and they could have fit the main 1:40 line. But they had to hit that medium size.

I think there must have been, and still is, pressure from the retail side to make all figures around 5-10 inches.

[SidB]

D @Dinoguy2 , do you think that this retail pressure to standardize at 5-10" is universally true for all retailers, or only the BIG BOX folk? Does one size fit all in this respect?

[Faelrin]

D @Dinoguy2 That is very interesting and sure makes a lot of sense that retailers could be bringing pressure on what they want to stock, aside from consumers too.

[Dinoguy2]

D @Dinoguy2 , do you think that this retail pressure to standardize at 5-10" is universally true for all retailers, or only the BIG BOX folk? Does one size fit all in this respect?

I'm not sure where the pressure might be coming from, but I kinda doubt it's big box since most of these lines aren't carried at those. I would imagine that the main customers are specialty retailers and gift shops which probably have contracts with specific companies. Maybe somebody more familiar with the industry could confirm or deny my hunch.

I have vague memories of the small Carnegies, just to keep using that example, being sold out of little bins in a separate section of stores from the larger ones. Just planning shelf and display space for a huge variety of sizes of loose figures might pose too much of a challenge for retailers than it's worth. Most regular toy lines nowadays are sold in 2-3 standard sizes of packaging that retailers create dedicated space for.

Even as a customer, the current setup is confusing and frustrating. Prices are hardly ever listed on figure tags and figures get mixed up. In the absence of a dot color code system, it's basically impossible to figure out what any given Safari figure on the shelf at Michael's costs. That a massive problem.

[SidB]

It's interesting that a perusal of some of the old DTB reviews of the  really big sauropods shows that the size and weightiness was noticeable for two reasons: 1) it's impressive and majestic; 2) it's a definite play hazard in the sandbox and on the daycare floor, not to mention at home. With today's much greater awareness of child safety (consider your very own Youtube piece on lead paints in older products), to me this may be a mitigating factor in compelling a reduction in size/weight.

[Dinoguy2]

It's interesting that a perusal of some of the old DTB reviews of the  really big sauropods shows that the size and weightiness was noticeable for two reasons: 1) it's impressive and majestic; 2) it's a definite play hazard in the sandbox and on the daycare floor, not to mention at home. With today's much greater awareness of child safety (consider your very own Youtube piece on lead paints in older products), to me this may be a mitigating factor in compelling a reduction in size/weight.

Very good point. The big Carnegie sauropods should almost be classified as deadly weapons! Those things are hard and really heavy, with convinient handles...

[SidB]

It's interesting that a perusal of some of the old DTB reviews of the  really big sauropods shows that the size and weightiness was noticeable for two reasons: 1) it's impressive and majestic; 2) it's a definite play hazard in the sandbox and on the daycare floor, not to mention at home. With today's much greater awareness of child safety (consider your very own Youtube piece on lead paints in older products), to me this may be a mitigating factor in compelling a reduction in size/weight.

Very good point. The big Carnegie sauropods should almost be classified as deadly weapons! Those things are hard and really heavy, with convinient handles...

Yes. given enough time and usage, if something can happen, it likely will happen. We wouldn't want to start a "Knockout" thread, would we?