Stomping into online retailers is the Beasts of the Mesozoic Pachyrhinosaurus figure. Designer David Silva was kind enough to send us a sample of this figure from wave 2 of his Ceratopsians line, so here are our thoughts on this majestic-looking collectible.
The packaging
The Pachyrhinosaurus is packaged in a colorful box with a nice design and red foil lettering. If you’ve read my review of the wave 1 figures, you’ll know I’m a fan of the art design and packaging. Like with the other ceratopsians, there is some assembly required — the tail is separate from the body of the figure.
There’s a set of instructions that advise to heat the tail either with water or a hair dryer, and I highly advise following these steps. The tail is attached to the body via a dumbbell joint, and if you simply tried forcing the tail on without softening it up, you’d risk irreparably breaking the figure. There’s another drawback to this design, which is that once the tail is attached, it’s not particularly easy to get off, and since the box and the plastic shell are designed to hold the tail as a separate piece from the body, it’s not a quick process to get the figure back in the box.
Like with the other Beasts of the Mesozoic figures, the packaging also has a removable insert that works as a diorama background. These inserts are always a pleasure, allowing the figures to be set along a real-world background without needing to take your figures outside (especially useful if you’re like me and live in an apartment complex without a green area). Also included is a collectible card with art by Raul Ramos, featuring the same art on the outer sleeve on the box.
The figure
Even compared to the larger wave 1 Ceratopsians, the Pachyrhinosaurus is a tank. The figure measures 16″ from beak to tail tip, and in a neutral pose, stands about 6″ tall to the center of the back. It also weighs approximately 2 lbs., according to my scale. I’m not saying you can cause an extinction level event with it, but it’s definitely something I wouldn’t want in the hands of a child who might want to swing it around. The product packaging labels it as an adult collectible for ages 15 and up, and I would encourage any parent to use discretion before buying this for younger children.
Moving beyond the size, the sculpted detail is amazing. Individual scales of varying sizes are sculpted throughout the figure, and even hard-to-see details like the teeth inside the upper and lower jaw are sculpted in. That being said, there are some minor issues. The back piece appears to have been separately applied, so there’s a small seam that runs along the animal’s back. It’s mostly obscured by the detail of the scales, but it’s a noticeable blemish in a sculpt of this quality. There’s also a matter of an odd line in the left hip. Once again, it’s a smaller flaw in comparison to the whole figure.
As far as accuracy, this figure is immediately recognizable as the animal it’s meant to represent. Pachyrhinosaurus (that’s “thick-nosed lizard”) isn’t a hugely famous genus of dinosaurs, but it did get some shine as the lead character in 2013’s Walking with Dinosaurs 3D. But even in a family as eclectic as the ceratopsians, it stands out as a bit odd.
A centrosaurine ceratopsian, Pachyrhinosaurus was related to and is perhaps directly descended from animals like Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, and Einiosaurus (all of which are represented in the Beasts of the Mesozoic line). While all those animals had pronounced horns over their noses, Pachyrhinosaurus had a big bony boss on its nose. This is depicted well on the figure, with rugose details and an uneven sculpt that make it seem like an organic feature, rather than a part of a toy. The figure is meant to be in a 1/18th scale, which means it should fit well with your 3.75″ scale action figures, like the Star Wars Vintage line.
The figure’s paint is perhaps even stronger than the sculpt itself. I love the glossy finish on the eyes, which give them a lifelike, wet look. The Pachyrhinosaurus takes influence from a coloration morph of green iguanas, in which the animal is mostly red with a green or almost teal underbelly. As such, the majority of the Pachyrhinosaurus is a reddish brown, and the belly is almost a minty blue or seafoam green. The contrast is also used on the animal’s frill, making for a wonderful display feature. Brown might be a bit dull of a base color, but the blending in drybrushing of various shades on the figure makes it quite lovely in hand.
I’ll be frank, I was not wowed by the color scheme in the release photos, but having the figure in hand, I have a hard time taking my eyes off it. One of the little details that I love is that there’s some light brown on the blue belly, making it appear a little dirty. It’s one of those details that makes the figure feel even more alive. There was some minor chipping of the paint along the horns adorning the Pachyrhinosaurus’ frill, but the figure is otherwise quite lovely, and I’ve had far worse experiences with other lines at much higher price points.
One of the big selling points of the Beasts of the Mesozoic line is the articulation. The Pachyrhinosaurus boasts 20 points of articulation: a jaw hinge, a ball-jointed tongue, a ball joint at the base of the head, going into the neck, a hinge joint where the neck meets the body, joints at the waist and the base of the tail, and three joints for each of the front limbs and four for the back legs. These joints are a bit stiff, which, given the weight of the figure, is probably a good thing. None of the joints have felt like they were loosening.
While the figure boasts a lot of articulation, the range of poses is a bit limited by the anatomy of the creature. I couldn’t get the figure to stand on its hind legs, something I was able to achieve with some of the smaller ceratopsian figures. I was, however, able to get it in a decent lying-down pose that I quite liked.
The verdict
A massive tank, the Beasts of the Mesozoic Pachyrhinosaurus is available for order now directly from Creative Beast Studio, as well as from other online retailers. While there are some minor issues with the paint and the sculpt, and the weight of the figure limits articulation, this is still one of the best quality dinosaur figures around, and a must-have for any fans of the prehistoric creatures.
AIPT Science is co-presented by AIPT and the New York City Skeptics.
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