The Dinosaur Toy Blog

Review and photos by Nathan Morris (‘Takama’)

It’s a well-known fact that CollectA’s prehistoric animal figures vary in quality. Some of them are good and incorporate current palaeontological knowledge, while others are poorly sculpted and sacrifice accuracy. The subject of today’s review belongs to the latter group, but to be fair, the toy was released when CollectA was just venturing into the dinosaur toy business in 2007. The figure is supposed to represent Dilophosaurus, a 20 foot long Early Jurassic theropod notable for two thin crests on top of its skull and a distinctive notch in its jaw-line. However, CollectA’s effort bares almost no resemblance to the real animal. It takes on a cartoonish persona instead, which might appeal more to little kids instead of collectors.

Reviewing this figure and pointing out its flaws is a piece of cake, you will immediately see that this Dilophosaurus is in an outdated tripod position, but then you might also notice that its tail doesn’t actually touch the ground – it is able to stand on its own two feet. This makes the tripod position redundant as it could have been sculpted in a more accurate horizontal position like CollectA’s Eustreptospondylus and standard sized Neovenator (even though they were both bad sculpts as well). The rest of the body also has many flaws. Dilophosaurus was a long slender animal, but this figure is a pot-bellied, short-tailed abomination. And while it has a fat belly, the ankles appear too thin to support its weight if this creature were real. In general appearance the whole body has detailed wrinkles and folds of skin, a common feature of generic dinosaurs in the toy market. The arms should be shorter but at least the hands have the right number of fingers. On the head the bottom jaw is crudely sculpted and dislocated, while its teeth are blunt and pebble-like when they should be sharp and pointed. It also lacks the aforementioned notch in the jaw, so the only character that really distinguishes it from other generic theropod figures is the pair of iconic crests on top of its head.

The colours on this figure work fine in my opinion. A line of black is painted along the back of the figure, while the rest of the body is a dark blue-green with bands of lime green running down the flanks. The hand claws are just little black spots dotted on the edges of the fingers. The head crests are orange and the mouth is sparkling clean with pink gums and a raspberry tongue, when it should probably be rotten and dull from eating all those Anchisaurus.

So that’s it, in terms of accuracy this model is among the worst in CollectA’s ever-growing line of prehistoric figures. But accurate or not, I see this as a happy little fellow to be played with by a happy little child, although I can’t recommend it to anyone who only accepts the most accurate models into their collection. If you’re one of those people, then Safari’s awesome rendition of this genus might be up your street. I bought this figure because I’m a sucker for Dilophosaurus and CollectA’s expanding collection of prehistoric animals. And remember, it could have been worse – at least it lacks a retractable frill! Always available on eBay here.

Ah CollectA, what did we ever do without you?  CollectA have pushed out the boat once more with another bona fide bonanza of new figures for us in 2012. Their massive line up of 21 new sculpts will add considerable taxonomic diversity to their ranks, but more than that, CollectA has raised its game with a clear increase in quality to match quantity. These offering have initiated much discussion over on the dinosaur toy forum 2012 thread, as photographs of the new models have been released slowly but steadily over the last month or so. Well, now all the images are in so we can take an overview of what we can look forward to next year (pictures from Mike at Everything Dinosaur, used with kind permission). Honestly, some of these look wonderful and the sculpting seems to be top-notch. Others less so, but all of them noteworthy for one reason or another. Enjoy the show!

Six new theropods stand proudly (without need for support from their tails) in the line up:

Top row: Mapusaurus, Deinocheirus. Second row: Therizinosaurus, Rajasaurus, Neovenator. Bottom: Tyrannosaurus with Struthiomimus.

A couple or sauropods make an appearance, plus a single new stegosaurid and a family group of ornithopods:

Top row: Hypsilophodon family, Argentinosaurus. Bottom row: Miragaia, Amargasaurus.

We can also expect this ceratopsian-lovers dream – six new figures of horned dinosaurs, including no less than three new Triceratops  (one a repaint of an existing model):

Top row: Kosmosaurus, Triceratops corpse. Middle row: Triceratops (repaint), giant Triceratops (1:15 scale), Bottom row: Utahceratops, Koreaceratops family.

And in addition to the dinosaurs, there’s also a brontothere, a marine reptile, a pair of hominids, and some plant-life to boot:

Top row: Megacerops, Dolichorhynchops. Middle row, Neanderthal man and woman. Bottom row: Monanthesia + Cycadeoidea, Williamsonia.

CollectA are clearly moving forward with impressive purpose, energy and creativity. Their family groups of dinosaurs are especially intriguing, and their corpse and plant-life figures take their line into a fresh direction. One wonders how much longer CollectA can keep up this momentum, but it’s exciting to watch them continue to grow, and I hope we can review some of their new figures on the blog in more detail over the coming months. Also, Safari Ltd’s new offerings for 2012 have been out of the bag for a while now, so look out for an overview of those here soon as well.

Edit: For those who simply can’t wait, the new CollectA figures are already available from this seller on Ebay, but please note that they may be prototype versions: CollectA 2012 figures on Ebay Actually, there aren’t many left! They were there for a while but most have sold pretty quickly. Keep your eyes peeled for relistings

Guest review by forumite Fooman666 – edited by Marc (Horridus)

Seeing as CollectA have taken many of us by surprise this year I think it’s fitting that I review one of their 2011 figures for my first review in quite a while. Today I will be looking at the CollectA Lourinhanosaurus, which in some aspects I believe is one of the best of the 2011 line up.

Lourinhanosaurus was a medium sized theropod from Portugal, more specifically the Lourinha formation which is where it gets its name. It was a member of the sinraptorid group of the allosauroid superfamily and was the first theropod found with evidence of gastroliths (swallowed stones used to grind up food). There have also been eggs found with fossil embryos that are believed to have belonged to the (only) species Lourinhanosaurus antunesi.

Now onto the figure. Simply put, it’s spectacular – apart from the head which we’ll get to later. It balances nicely on two feet which for once aren’t oversized as those on a lot of CollectA figures tend to be – they are suitably thin and birdlike with all the claws painted (even the tiny hallux). As we go up the legs we find the excellently sculpted body with quite possibly the best arms on any CollectA theropod to date. Finally, the wrists aren’t broken and the palms face each other (round of applause please).

Going back down the body we find the first problem with this figure – the tail. The tail looks fine from the side, but when inspected from above we see that it seems to lack any muscle at all, it appears as though the skin is simply hanging from the vertebrae. This isn’t a much of a problem as the other end of the body – the head. This is what lets the figure down. Perched on top of an overly skinny neck is quite a deformed head that simply doesn’t resemble the actual skull at all, the fenestrae are incorrectly placed and much too small and the pitiful excuse for crests looks more like two tiny lumps of clay put on as an afterthought. The skull appears to droop down and the teeth although actually individually sculpted appear more like block teeth without extremely close inspection. The bottom jaw lacks any muscle and doesn’t even attach to the neck properly, instead it’s sort of just hanging there. The inside of the mouth isn’t detailed either.

All in all, it’s a decent figure let down by a few small problems, whether these were sculpting issues or lack of research I’m not sure, but they certainly detract from what could have been a flawless figure of a rather obscure theropod. However, despite its flaws, it really shows how much CollectA have improved since their early days, and shows that they are at least doing some research on the subject matter. It appears that CollectA are going to a force to be reckoned with in the years to come.

The CollectA Lourinhanosaurus is available here

Review by forum member Gwangi

I’m really starting to dig this dinosaur review thing, I’ve always enjoyed writing, learning and doing anything that involved dinosaurs so naturally I would have to give this a try and as you can tell I’ve gotten fond of it. Hopefully my reviews are meeting the standards of the blog, feel free to let me know. Thinking it was time to do another review I gazed over my collection looking for a figure that hasn’t already been reviewed, not an easy task. I came across my recently acquired CollectA…ummm…what is this thing? I looked under the belly but there was no name. It looked like a generic Ankylosaur and a Nodosaur more specifically but beyond that I had no clue what it was supposed to represent. I almost put it back on the shelf; I am not particularly knowledgeable regarding Ankylosaurs and without even knowing the species how could I review it? In the interest of educating myself I decided to give it a try anyway. I was quite shocked to find out what my figure was supposed to represent, a Polacanthus…what? Seriously? Polacanthus is a genus of Early Cretaceous Nodosaurid from western Europe. The first species discovered was P. foxii in 1865 by Reverend William Fox. The other species P. rudgwickensis was named by William Blows in 1996 and named for the village in which it was found in West Sussex, England. Enough on the detail though, any one of you can read the Wikipedia page as good as I can. For what it is worth the Wiki entry on the genus cites this animal in two pieces of pop culture; “Walking with Dinosaurs” and “The Land before Time”. I think the latter was the model by which CollectA probably designed this figure.

So where to begin with this guy, well lets start on the most well known feature of Polacanthus, the large sacral shield that can be seen in just about every reconstruction of this animal. Its not there! Evidently CollectA made a Polacanthus without the one thing that might distinguish it as a Polacanthus. When I discovered that this figure was indeed supposed to be a Polacanthus I was shocked and I didn’t believe it, how could it be possible? I realize CollectA has produced some really questionable figures but this one was made in 2008, years after WWD popularized the beast. It just goes to show you that they did absolutely no research on this animal and just tacked a name on a generic Nodosaur, I’m surprised they even had the sense to omit the tail club.

Along with not having the sacral shield there are a long list of other glaring errors. The head it beakless, narrow and horse-like…a generic head for a generic dinosaur. The spikes are excessively long and I’m certain there are more of them than should be. The feet even have one toe too many, I guess if you’re going to do it wrong you might as well do it on all fronts. So…what’s good about this figure? Not much. The figure is a flat brown color and covered in small pebbly scales which I guess is something to be thankful for. The pose is fairly static but at least more dynamic than the Toyway Polacanthus. The overall sculpt really isn’t bad and if you can forget that it is supposed to be Polacanthus could pass over for a fairly good generic Chinasaur. The actual Polacanthus was about 16’ long and this figure at a little over 5” puts it at about 1/30 scale.

I hate to give it such a bad review because it is a cute little figure but it is what it is. I really cannot recommend this figure to those who want accuracy but it does make a half way decent hairbrush as I discovered while proofreading this review. If you are a diehard Polacanthus fan (and who isn’t?) then you’ll probably have to settle for locating the Toyway version, good luck with that. Hopefully this genus will someday get its due. One last note: I apologize for pushing the Sideshow Apatosaurus down the list with this thing. I’ll wait for the hate mail to start coming in. (Sideshow Apatosaurus forgives you. –Ed.)