The Dinosaur Toy Blog

Now here’s a figure I know some of you will recognise from your childhood – the Carnegie Deinonychus trio. Remember your childhood? Those halcyon, carefree days that were spent frolicking through flowery fields and dawbing awful dinosaurs using wax crayons? Well, those days are gone – GONE – and you can’t have them back. Ever. However, if you’re lucky you can still get this long-retired figure from your youth back into your collection, and it’s a nice little piece for its age.

Of course, these days it’s horribly out of date (no feathers, inaccurate hands etc. etc.). However, it’s still a lovely little 20-year-old figure. Three ferocious Deinonychus are stuck into the rocky base, all of them lunging forward at some unseen prey. The poses are very dynamic and convincing – two of the animals have their left legs springing them forward with the right leg raised high, while the other, with its right foot touching the ground, looks like it’s about to fall over in the frenzy. They are very reminiscent of Bob Bakker’s famous depiction of a running Deinonychus – they even appear to have wattles.

As is typical of the early Carnegie figures, fine detail can be a little lacking – particularly when it comes to the heads, which look a little crude and blobby, as do the painted-on eyes and teeth. In addition, the animals’ feet that connect with the base are – at least in the case of the rear pair – notably larger than those raised in the air. Not a single claw is painted either (although they do have the correct number of toes). However, in some places the detailing is rather good – the animals all have nostrils, ears and a covering of scales (incorrectly nowadays, but it was 1990) and I like the subdued sandy-with-tiger-stripes colour scheme. There are also suitable skin folds to give the creatures a sense of fluidity and motion.

It’s a curious little figure this one – one of the minority of early Carnegie figures to have a base and the only one to feature 3 animals at once. These days smaller dinosaurs are released at a different scale to the behemoths like Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus etc. which makes these early efforts at keeping all the Carnegie dinosaurs at 1:40 very interesting (see also Protoceratops and Dimetrodon which, admittedly, is not a dinosaur). Each Deinonychus here is about 7cm long, which at 1:40 scale gives them a length of 2.8m. That’s close enough, as is the stated length of ’10 feet’ on the base, which for some reason they have translated to a stupendous 8 metres! Steady on, Utahraptor hasn’t been discovered yet.

The Carnegie Deinonychus trio is a fantastic vintage dinosaur collectible – few other figures have matched the dynamic presentation of these animals. It’s a must have for any Carnegie collector of course. Unfortunately it doesn’t appear on eBay as often as some of the other old Carnegies, but if you see it I would highly recommend picking it up.

In spite of not having a name ending in ‘raptor’, Deinonychus remains a high-profile dromaeosaur in the public imagination, and rightly so for an animal that revolutionised our understanding of dinosaurs. This fairly small and affordable toy is manufactured by Favorite, and is clearly modelled on their larger (and somewhat more expensive) resin ‘Desktop’ model. Just as with the Desktop model, our friend is most definitely feathered – and hallelujah for that.

There’s something I must get out of the way first – mine won’t stand up on its own, hence the rather obvious blob of Blu Tack in the photos (apologies for that, it could be smaller). It’s a little irritating, although I have no idea how common a problem it is. If you have this toy, be sure to let me know in the comment box whether or not it’s prone to falling on its face like a Cretaceous drunk. Given the relatively pliable nature of the plastic it can probably be fixed quite easily with a hairdryer and a bit of tweaking.

Anatomically this model is pretty sound. The legs are a little short (and with rather large feet), and the tail is exceptionally long, but these changes are almost certainly for balance reasons and don’t detract from the sculpt too much. The head is quite low and tapering in line with more modern reconstructions, and the arms feature long feathers as per Deinonychus‘ close relative Velociraptor. The rest of the plumage has a rather scruffy, shaggy appearance, reminiscent of a modern-day ratite, and hugs the body closely. The feathers on the likes of the Carnegie Microraptor are probably more convincing, but these are perfectly acceptable – at least it isn’t ‘plucked’!

The paint job will please those of you who dislike day-glo-saurs that resemble an acid trip seen through the eyes of Luis Rey, but seems like a bit of a missed opportunity. The body (including the ‘naked’ areas, ie. the feet and jaws) is entirely brown with stripes in a darker brown and a banded tail. It’ll do, but a little splash of colour wouldn’t go amiss. Another figure that is ideal for repainting.

Overall: it’s pretty good, but it’s certainly not up to the very best Favorite standards. The Tyrannosaurus and Stegosaurus, both previously reviewed on this blog (the latter by me in fact), are fine examples of what Favorite can achieve when they really pull out the stops. That said, the mere fact that it’s an affordable feathered figure of a large dromaeosaur makes it worthy, given that bald versions continue to be released in the face of palaeontological progress. For readers who’ve moved on from the 1990s I can recommend it, if with caution!

Review & photos by Marc (‘Horridus’)

Sometimes available on Ebay here

Review and photographs by Brandon

In Japan, many figure companies are quite exciting due to their sculpting and selection of lines. For a good example take Bandai’s Godzilla Complete Works, Konami’s Gamera, Kaiyodo’s Dinotales to mention a few and if you know these lines and their respected makers then you know the orient also holds fantastic figures and not just the USA. There is an underrated company over on the other side of the world of the far east called Kabaya. Several years ago Kabaya made a great dinosaur figure set of their own. The Kabaya Dinosaur set includes six dinosaurs and one of them was a featured “build a figure”, where you had to collect all five of the regular ones in order to make the bonus figure, a similar gimmick to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends & Mattel’s DC Universe. The figures included two Tyrannosaurs, (one green the other red but sculpted differently from each other) Deinonychus, Spinosaurus, Triceratops and the bonus dinosaur, the Seisomosaurus (which is now named Diplodocus hallorum)! They range from several inches tall and several inches long but the Seismosaurus is the longest at around seven inches in length. All of these figures are very appealing and sculpted by Kazunari Araki. Here is the Deinonychus!

The Deinonychus antirrhopus, is not only one of the most popular dino-birds but also one of the most important discoveries to date. When John Ostrom discovered this maniraptoran it became an important entry in the Archosauria because the species’ allowed one to study its evolutionary relationship with modern avian theropods. The Deinonychus is one of my favorites of all of the dromaeosaurs and this species was a great choice to be included in the set. The pose of this large dromaeosaurid figure perfectly captures the aggressive hunting style and behavior it most likely had, and this is one of the best that has ever been produced. The particular look, not just the pose but also the color scheme, seems to be inspired by the illustrations by the great dinosaur illustrator David Peters.

The sculpting of this Coelurosauria member is just phenomenal. The sculpt is so good that you can clearly identify that this dinosaur IS a Deinonychus, not a Velcioraptor or any other dromeosaur. Another terrific aspect I just love about this figure is that it shows theropods were not lizards but were actually different ancient birds! Nearly the entire body of Deinonychus is covered with integumentary feathers. The head is arguably the most detailed because of the great set of eyes of determination, narrow snout with the upper section where the nostrils are visible and the lower part of the mouth showing some teeth and tongue.

The back of the neck is very feathery but kind of ruffled and these epidermal growths follow on through down the back all the way to the long fan-like tail. This Deinonychosaur is a pure maniraptorid as you can have a perfect visual that the creature has very strong arms, the arms are stretched out allowing the feathers to protrude outward hinting that they can be used to some extant for a possible type of flight. The hands have three fingers which end in three sharp looking claws. The feather appendage ends at the calves of the legs which also appear strong and muscular and like the hands, the feet end with claws but these are the infamous hyper-extensible killer sickle-claws on the second toe. The appearance of them looks deadly and even though this is just a small replica you can clearly tell that these could easily rip open flesh!

Underneath the dinosaur the breast bone is far out like this particular part of the body is seen in many modern birds! Again, truly a great sculpt and the running position is just so accurate of the “Terrible Claw”! His stand is somewhat detailed that looks of rock terrain. A clear peg fits into a peg in the stand as well as the the figure’s stomach to make the running effect possible.

The painting is really good especially the red and black eyes. The overall color that D. antirrhopus has reminds me of the Psittaciformes (parrots). Some of the paint applications are a bit sloppy with a little bleeding and tiny spots missed here and there but its nothing major.

I’ve always loved this figure because it really shows what a “true” dino-bird the Deinonychus was, that it was to be feared, and that he’s an important species because he’s a close relative of today’s avians! I purchased the Kabaya set of five on eBay – it is sometimes available but can be scarce.

Sometimes available on Ebay here