The Dinosaur Toy Blog

I guess it is time for a review of Bullyland Deinotherium.
It is a highly sought after figure, not yet a myth, but quite close. This is due to the relatively little number of Deinotheriums that have been produced and delivered.
Deinotherium (“terrible beast”) was a large prehistoric relative of modern-day elephants that appeared in the Middle Miocene and continued until the Early Pleistocene. Bones of at least three different subspecies have been found in Erurope, Africa and Asia. In life, it probably resembled modern elephants, except that its trunk was shorter, and it had downward curving tusks attached to the lower jaw. The tusks may have served as tools for abrading the nourishing barks off the trees.

Bullyland always made fantastic mammal figures, and their Deinotherium makes no exception. It is a heavy and massive figure, measuring 11cm in height and 21cm in length. Its sculpt looks like a monument. I can´t deny the charm of the figure; it is a proud bull caught in a protruding walking pose. It is, however, probably not scientifically correct. In the original skeleton, the back declines more than the Bullyland version reveals.

The reconstructions of the animal vary from rather slender to really fat and hippo – style. Bullyland took the golden middle – massive legs and feet on the one side, obvious ribs on the other. The ears are a matter of discussion, too. Were they as big as the ears of an elephant or were they smaller? The Bullylands version tries a compromise that is not that good: The ears do not really seem to fit to the rest of the overall look of the figure. Sorry, they remind me of the ears of an aardvark. But this is the only downer, really. Maybe the feet are a little too massive, too.

Unfortunately Bullyland paint uses to wear off quite quickly. My Deinotherium probably had a long slumber in a toy chest and has been moved very often while the child looked for other toys, and collided with other figures, toys or even sharp objects.
Some collectors thus decided to do fantastic repaints. You find those in our forum. As for me, I love the worn-off style of my own copy, showing it had a life before my cabinet episode. The toy chests and children who underestimate the value of the figure are the chance for collectors. Sometimes Bullyland Deinotherium shows up in lots with other animals, also recent ones. People then seem to consider it an elephant.
I bought mine on ebay, where a seller wrote “Dinotherium”. It was a snip compared to the value this great figure seems to have.

We’ve already previewed the upcoming offerings from CollectA (New CollectAs for 2012) and Papo (New Papos for 2012), so now we’ll have a peek at what Bullyland have in the pipeline. They have two new figures for our perusal, a somewhat googly-eyed Spinosaurus, and a feathered Therizinosaurus.

The Spinosaurus:

The Therizinosaurus:

Bullyland are continuing their trend of adding points of articulation to their figures, presumably to increase playability and provide a marketing hook, so the new releases have moveable arms and jaws, respectively. Next up from me, an overview of Safari Ltd’s 2012 releases.

German company Bullyand seem to be slipping off the radar a little bit in recent years but still continue to provide new releases every twelve months for their Museum Line, although in rather small quantities. 2011 saw two new figures released by Bullyland, both resculpts of previously produced species. The first, a controversial feathered Dilophosaurus, is one we should review soon and will no doubt generate some…interesting discussions. The second is that most popular of pelycosaurs, the sail-backed Dimetrodon.

The previous Bullyland incarnation of Dimetrodon seems to have been produced in two paint versions, a rather plain green-grey version, and a more striking deep green with a red sail. The 2011 paint scheme is almost identical to the latter, with a stunning blood-red sail and deep green hues with yellow and gold highlights. Beautiful as it is, it shows a little lack of adventure by picking both a species and a colour scheme visited before.

Overall there isn’t that much difference between the old and new versions, the main one being the more upright posture in the 2011 figure. Where the old one was resting lazily on his tummy (I’ll presume it was a ‘he’), the new one is performing impressive push-ups. Despite retaining a sprawling limb posture the new figure is entirely raised up off the ground in a much more active posture.

The second major difference is the articulated mandible. This play-feature works well in this figure, but has been a bit hit-and-miss in other Bullyland dinosaurs (I’m thinking of the hip-hop Iguanodon).

The sculpt is typically and recognisably Bullyland, whatever that means. It has a softness to its appearance that imparts a cartoonish feel, and although visually pleasing from a distance, the textural details are quite crudely rendered for such a large figure. The figure is 18cm long, so pretty big. I’ll point out the ‘blobby’ teeth here. On an anatomical note, the skull lacks the notch in the jawline, that is so distinctive for this species. In its favour, there are depressions behind the skull that represent the ears, and there are five digits in each hand and foot, spot on.

Placed alongside today’s immaculately produced Carnegie, Wild Safari and Papo figures (maybe even CollectA figures in recent months), the ‘Bullyland look’ is starting to look a little old and out of place. As of yet, there is no news on what Bullyland have in store for 2012, but it would be exciting to see Bullyland produce new species rather than ‘play it safe’ with resculpts of old favorites. Let’s watch this space…

I picked up my Dimetrodon in a small museum on a recent trip to Germany. The Bullyland lines can be difficult to find in the shops outside of Germany. Luckily for us, however, this new representation of the sail-backed Dimetrodon is widely available online (e.g. here)

Andrewsarchus, the interesting (in terms of its discovery, its size, its habits and its look) large basal mesonychid from the Eocene epoch is rarely depicted by toy lines. Safari and Bullyland are the only companies that released it as a commonly available toy figure. Kaiyodo made a small one from plastic, and there is a tin version from Mega Miniatures.
I like the Bullyland version very much. A credible pose, showing the animal prowling and watching out for prey (or intimidating an opponent by snarling) and great proportions make it irresistible. And it looks evil! It is snarling. Although this evilness changes into silliness when you look at the head from its very front.

Then Andrewsarchus seems to peer and looks like the big wolf from the story of the three little pigs.
It is obvious to colour an animal that probably resembled recent lions or tigers tan and brown. And it is also obvious to provide it with a mane at the long neck. Dark dotty stripes at the flanks may have served as camouflage. This Andrewsarchus looks like a bastard between a boar, a bear and a tiger, which is probably very close to its appearance in real life.

Bullyland Andrewsarchus is a good choice for every collector and shows up on ebay quite often for reasonable prices.