Once upon a while, companies decide to make some very obscure dinosaur genera. Procon is one of those companies, releasing this year a number of dinosaurs not many have heard of, such as Becklespinax, Rebbachisaurus, and so on. Agustinia is one such dinosaur.
Agustinia ligabuei isn’t a well known sauropod that hails from Argentina. It appears to be a titanosauriform that bore strange plates all along its neck, splitting into longer double rows of spines towards its back. It is known from such spines, and some vertebrae. Some researches think it might be allied with little known, high spined diplodocids known as rebbachisaurids.
The figure itself is very nice for a sauropod figure, painted in an olive green with darker green highlights all over. The spines and osteoderms around its neck are painted in olive green. The model itself is very smooth compared to other scaly dinosaurs. The reason why this dinosaur is so attractive is because of its rarity, and its obscurity. Agustinia isn’t very big, barely measuring 20 cm long. Apparently, a bigger replica is due for release soon, with different colors, at almost twice the length.
If you like obscure dinosaurs, this one is for you.
At last the Carnegie Giganotosaurus is available to the world. This is one of the finest dinosaur pieces of its generation, due to its high level quality. This is simply one of the best dinosaurs Carnegie has ever released, not because it’s an impressive dinosaur, but because it’s very accurate, and very detailed.
At a little more than 30 cm long, he’s slightly longer than the Carnegie Tyrannosaurus (as he is in scale with the rest of the line). Giganotosaurus harbored a lot of attention by the media recently, because it appears to be the longest theropod found yet. Carnegie has done an excellent job producing Giganotosaurus carolini in all its glory.
The figure is colored in a beautiful mix of cerulean blue, creamy white for the underbelly, and darker cerulean blue all over its back, with some light green stripes running along. The Giganotosaurus is posed in a sort of “I’m king of the world” pose, with an open mouth, and a classic “roar” stance. It towers over most Carnegie dinosaurs. It’s certainly one of the most impressive dinosaur molds as of late, with its awesome color, size, detail, and above all, accuracy. It definitely deserves all the hype it’s getting among dinosaur collectors. This is a must buy for all dinosaur lovers. And he’s certainly not that expensive, either. It can be found anywhere you look. On all major dino shops, museums, specialty stores, and so on.
Giganotosaurus is carnosaur found in Argentina. It lived along some of the biggest animals to ever walk the land.
Available here for example.
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The spectacular Utahraptor by Toyway based on the BBC Walking with Dinosaurs series, is a sleek, slender, rather mean looking figure. The anatomy is accurate, this is one of the first ‘raptor’ figures to break away from the trendy but erroneous vision put forward in Jurassic Park. Notably the hands in the Utahraptor are true to the fossils, the wrist joint directs the hands backwards and the palms face each other. The tail is extremely long and slender and held stiff, the arms and legs are lean (skinny seems to harsh a term), but the sculpture is easy on the eye and quite believable.
Feathers were not included on this figure or in the dinosaur as seen in the series. Although there is no direct evidence for feathers in this species, it is probable based on our knowledge of it’s very close relatives, that Utahraptor sported a covering of feathers. The colour of the skin is true to the series, quite like a large predatory cat with yellow skin and black stripes. The belly is paler and he extremities are grey with the claws highlighted in black. The mouth is closed so that no teeth are visible and the eyes are evil-looking red.
The posture is static and not particularly dynamic – the tail is held out directly behind, the head faces forwards, there is no lateral ‘motion’ in the figure at all. Time seems to take it’s toll on the hard plastic used to make WWD figures, this is only a problem in the two legged figures because the plastic deforms/bends over time and the figures struggle to stand unassisted.
The figure is long (about 25cm) but due to the diminutive amount of plastic used on the figure, the figure came accompanied by an additional figure – a Laellynasaura – but that is a topic for a future blog entry.
The WWD figures are no longer in production so they are difficult to find. They were predominantly released in the UK so they most frequently can be found on Ebay UK, but sometimes on Ebay US
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