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Post by sbell on Oct 10, 2008 21:11:49 GMT
This is tricky... I'm very much leaning towards the 1/80 (Battat miniature) scale, just to keep the collection to a manageable size. Because We are wanting this to be open-ended, and to create as many figures as we can if the first batch proves viable in sales. I do share everyone's concerns about a small scale resulting in ridiculously tiny raptors, therapsids, et al. I really think those guys will have to be of a larger scale, in a subset. Now that I think of it, 1/80th is actually a pretty nice scale. I just figured out that Safari's Sue T.rex collection are pretty close to that scale... and I really like those figures. You probably couldn't do anything much shorter than 4m before the figures would get too small, but that still leaves a lot of stuff. At 1/80, a 4m figure would be under 2" long--that is very small, and probably won't capture the details we'd like. It's easy to say 4m when thinking only of dinos and marine reptiles, but name the number of mammals/megafauna/fish that break the 4m (12 foot) barrier? I turns out, this scale would be far too small for everything in my opinion. I am leaning toward multiple scales depending on the animals being reproduced. Dinos at 1/80 would generally be okay (velociraptors and other little ones might be too small) as would most marine reptiles. However, to get into some of the interesting Paleozoic fish stuff or some of the Teritiary mammal faunas, many of them are far too small to effectively reproduce them at that scale. We certainly wouldn't want to see bias toward bigness here, since there is a lot of great paleo stuff that would best be descrbed as small.
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Post by comandantedavid on Oct 11, 2008 21:21:03 GMT
Hi all, I've been reading the forum on and off for a few months now - but this thread finally got me to register and submit a first post!
I have to put in a good word for a 1/80th or similar smaller scale. I think Safari's "Sue" line shows that detail CAN be fantastic at a smaller scale, and David Krentz's antedeluvia line (unfortunately no longer online...) shows that both detail AND species variety are possible.
I suppose I have particular interest in a smaller line - I'm trying to collect a variety of diorama-quality models that scale roughly to HO for a model railway project that is mostly daydream-production at this point. I've taken the Sue dinos as my standard for quality and size (looking for recs on other good lines - have my eyes on a select few kaiyodos, safari toob dinos, battat minis, etc...)
Lastly, as a grad student I am very concerned about budget. I almost bought a papo spinosaurus with a missing leg from the local museum today so that I could get it on the cheap!
Looking forward to more posts, and to see this line that kustom has in the works. dlr
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Post by kustom65 on Oct 12, 2008 0:40:10 GMT
Thanks comandantedavid. I favour the 1/80 scale too. But I would certainly use a bigger scale for certain subsets, such as the ancient fish and other paleozoa; It's not as if trilobites will be tackling Albertosaurs in the same scenes. The scale would need to be bigger for the Cenozoic beasts too -- nobody wants tiny little Cave Bears!
I'd love to acquire the Colorata items that sbell alerted us to, but looks like those are unobtainable outside Japan.
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Post by sbell on Oct 12, 2008 3:00:40 GMT
Thanks comandantedavid. I favour the 1/80 scale too. But I would certainly use a bigger scale for certain subsets, such as the ancient fish and other paleozoa; It's not as if trilobites will be tackling Albertosaurs in the same scenes. The scale would need to be bigger for the Cenozoic beasts too -- nobody wants tiny little Cave Bears! I'd love to acquire the Colorata items that sbell alerted us to, but looks like those are unobtainable outside Japan. You just need to know someone in Japan...okay, that's not always that easy. UDF used to sell them occasionally on Ebay, but of course Sakurai is long gone.
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Post by kustom65 on Oct 12, 2008 8:37:17 GMT
I used to know a few collectors up there but have lost touch over the years. I was trading for Chocolasaurs 10 years ago before they were all over tweeBay. I need to either establish some new contacts, or learn Japanese!
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