The Pachyrhinosaurus by Papo is easily one of the most (if not the most) anticipated figures of 2010. This is one of the first times where papo has released one of their figures so early in the year; I’m glad I got mine so soon!
Pachyrhinosaurus, despite being a very funky ceratopsian, is very obscure, and has been largely looked over by toy companies. The only other plastic renditions of this animal I can think of are the largely inferior tyco and procon Pachyrhinosaurs.
The sculpt on this is great, if not a little small. The skull is very true to the real thing, and the mass of bone on the snout is the right shape and has no odd horn sticking out from it like some renditions have on them. The tail is very small, which is good – ceratopsians like Pachyrhinosaurus had relatively short tails, but many toy makers and paleoartists alike give them tails that are far too long. The limbs are correct in size and proportion and have absolutely fantastic muscle detail. There’s also nice folds of skin connecting each limb to the body which is a very realistic touch. The horns are very nice. Papo finally decided to give a ceratopsian non-fossilized horns (the horns on the triceratops are horribly cracked and look more like the fossils than what you’d expect on a living animal!). The horns at the very back of the frill aren’t correctly shaped though – they look more like deer antlers than the horns of a Pachyrhinosaurus!
This is very small compared to the Papo Triceratops. There are very nice ornamental scales on the ridges of the skull and on the ridge down the back. The enitre body is covered with irregular finely sculpted scales. The front feet seem a little off though, isn’t the toe placement incorrect?
The colors are mostly shades of grey and brown. I’d imagine a reptilian rhinoceros to be colored like this. It isn’t anything exceptional, but it isn’t anything grotesque either. The coloring of the claws has me a little puzzled, though; the claws on the feet are black, while the horns and beak on the head are grey, and the small horns on the sides of the frill are the same color as the rest of the skin! I wish they would have made them all more uniform in color.
(papo Allosaurus head for scale purposes)
All in all this is the best Pachyrhinosaurus replica on the market. The price, however, is a little off-putting – it’s the same size as the Wild Safari Triceratops but it’s triple the price! For that I think they could have made it the same size as the Papo Triceratops, but this is still one of the best ceratopsian toys ever produced and it is still very worth owning.
Available from Amazon here
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Mine has some weird thing that looks like a broken horn on the left cheek
I love this figure for all the above mentioned. However, I did noticed that this Pachyrhinosaur and the Papo Styracosaur must’ve shared the same body, if not the heads and tails. I could be mistaken but, put their paws together and see the similarities between their forms.
If this is the case, I applaud Papo for recycling body parts to create different models, though this can only go so far.
[…] on some of the older Carnegie Collection models. It lacks the extremely fine scales present in the Papo figure, which might be disappointing to some, but I think the figure is great the way it is. The figure […]
[…] models are generally small, but this model in particular is tiny, as shown below next to my Papo Pachyrhinosaurus for scale. However, this doesn’t mean the quality of this model has been diminished. The […]
[…] in dinosaur toy form, although more so in recent years (See figures by CollectA, here, and Papo, here). With its starring role in Walking with Dinosaurs the Movie 3D, this is sure to change its […]
[…] in terms of quality – while they all displayed the usual high production standards, only the Pachyrhinosaurus was truly great, the Oviraptor emerging as a scaly basketball player and the Plesiosaurus as a […]
Why are this and the papo steg filed under “ornithopod”? They are ornithiscians yes but not ornithopods.
[…] by Dino-Men’s Health magazine. Just compare its sheer mass to the recently released Papo Pachyrhinosaurus (its name begins with ‘Pachy’, see?) and try and imagine the Jurassic […]
Just to add, it was a really good review.
I was disappointed at how small this model was, but seeing this reveiw has made me want to buy it after all. When I first saw the catalogue picture I was thrilled. It’s very detailed and the colours are nice. Perhaps the neck is a little on the long side.
Yeah, I don’t like those parietal horns either, but they won’t stop me from buying my favorite ceratopsian. The sculpt looks great, although I’m not a huge fan of how far forward and out that forelimb is. I do like the color scheme and attention to detail, though.
It’s pretty clear that this sculpt is based on Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai, which is good, and I wonder if the sculptor used the recent description as a reference when making the head.
The last pic is hilarious; look at the faces of those two dinos, they can’t wait to smash eachother apart XD
Great review, by the way 😉
Out of all the Papo releases this year this is the one I’m definitely getting.
What?! You aren’t going to shell out $45 for the loch ness monster, retroviraptor, or imitation JP3 male raptor?! 😉
45 what….? 😉 Regardless, you’re right – I certainly won’t be!
It’s $45 altogether for the nessie, retroviraptor, and raptor repaint!
I’ve noticed the extreme variation amongst them in paleoart. Checking the various links, though, made me realize most of those were from relatively inexperienced artists, and most of those reconstructions differed greatly from the known skeletal material.
This is still a very cool toy, though. Probably my favorite ceratopsian.
Fantastic, far better than the promo picture.
Very nice dynamic figure, and I love the details and colours.
In my country it will be about 11 to 12 euros.
Good price for a good miniature.
Wiki says that the frill was highly individualised…well, there is some room for speculation there.
There are numerous models of this species and all have different configurations on the head.
Check all the pics on your search engine.
Whoa, it looks like he really want to go toe to toe with your Allo.