Juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex (Schleich)

Just half a year back German company Schleich, infamous amongst collectors for their often awful dinosaur depictions, surprisingly released a bunch of figures that made some collector’s hearts beat faster. Amongst them was a somewhat inaccurate, but nevertheless impressive Tyrannosaurus, rated by some as the best T. rex Schleich has made to date – well, the bar wasn’t set too high to be sure. Nevertheless Schleich just released another T. rex figure which is advertised as a rascal juvenile in their catalogue.

This one measures 23 cm in direct line and stands 9.5 cm high. It is right in line with its bigger counterpart (or parent if you like) in terms of the general apperance of the sculpt, sharing more or less the same inaccuracies. While juveniles had longer, more usefull arms than adults, in size comparison with the bigger figure the arms are probably still too long here. The feet are too big but as with the bigger counterpart they are nowhere near as exaggerated as in some other Schleich theropods. The head is shrinkwrapped, but the size seems about right aswell as the length of the tail. The legs however seem to be too short for a juvenile this size, despite the comparably small head the overall proportions look more like that of an adult than a juvenile.

All this said both of them make a nice pair, as they share some features while they differ in others. Both figures are of the same colors, but those on the juvenile are a bit brighter, both the mustard yellow and the blueish green. The young one also shows a black striped pattern from the neck to the first third of the tail. The sculpt of the skull differs in that the juvenile’s is lower and longer in proportion, the jaw isn’t as wide and the top of the head not as high and imposing. A lot more teeth are in the lower jaw of the youngling than in the adult (I am unsure if this could be correct for the varying diet of young vs. adults) and strangely the number of rows of scutes along the back is greater in the young than in its bigger relative. The articulated jaw does not open very wide and the innner mouth is nowehere near as nice as in the adult, mainly because the hinge mechanism is done differnt and takes up most of the sapce in the hind of the mouth. In addition, the paint on the teeth is rather rough, not sure if this is the case in all the figures, the teeth surface on the adult on the other hand is smooth as it should be.

So far so good…. as with all Schleich figures, the juvenile T. rex is very durable but I think its play value could have been better with the head turned horizontal or down, but angled upwards as it is it definetly allows for a better posing together with Big Daddy (or Mommy more likely). Not everyone will like this new figure, I personally like them as a pair but find the adult better when it comes to individual ratings. Buy both if you like to play “family” with your kid.