Delayed thanks, Jungle Man!
Time of an updating!
Recently I decided to make a purchase in Minizoo, the Australian online animal figurine shop. What made me buy here is the presence of the brand PNSO, that I don't know from any other great online shop, as well as a retired Mojo figurine that was in my wishlist, and they had only 1, so I must hurry. So as son as I was able, I bought the figures that I want.
PNSO and Science & Nature are two brands previously unrepresented in my collection. A new brand of accurate models always is something that makes me happy.
I was much less happy because, as in the only other occasion that I bought in MiniZoo, Customs charged me an extra of 26€
MiniZoo did a perfect job with shipping, I know it's not their fault, but I will never buy it again. I don't want to buy figures for the double of price that I paid!
But coming back to the positive things, there are the figures:
1. Beluga (
Delphinapterus leucas), Hynnix the White Whale from PNSO. I like the idea that PNSO put names to their models. Probably this is the best beluga in the trade. The musculature of the body is extremely well done, as well as the wrinkles of the skin (especially in the neck), and the bumpy crest in the midline of the back.
The underside shows how amazingly detailed are the genital parts, and also shows that the underside of the flippers is painted grey, even dark grey. Is that realistic? I left it untouched. Should I paint them white?
2. Pronghorn (
Antilocapra americana) from Mojo Fun. This retired figure is one of the only two pronghorns done recently by western brands, the other being the Safari's. But Safari's pronghorn is oversized and have unaesthetical very divergent horns, as well as worst proportions and paintjob. So I wanted to find the Mojo one since long time ago but I only find too expensive ones. Here, MiniZoo had the last one for a cheap price! I'm sooo happy to have this figure sculpted originally by the famous and so talented Anna Dobrowolska
As some of you may know, I'm a bit tricky and perfectionist with figures. So I customized quickly my pronghorn. You can see it have now more accurate facial marks and neck-chest bands, I also sharpened the horns, and painted the legs (much more white and turning black just in the hooves, instead turning gradually black all over the leg).
Before:
After:
3. Another PNSO figure, the red kangaroo (
Macropus rufus), Noce the Red Kangaroo. This is a figure previously unknown for me that I discovered just while making the purchase in MiniZoo. I saw the promo images, and told myself, finally a male red kangaroo! I'm sick of figures of red kangaroos with a baby in the pouch. I wanted a reddish MALE kangaroo and this one have a nice well developed scrotum. And oh oh the measurements are sooo nice! Is not enormous as are many figures of red kangaroos by western brands! OK the paintjob is a bit lazy but I can correct it easily. So here I have... A big disappointment
Totally hidden in the promo pics, this kangaroo HAVE A JOEY IN THE POUCH
and a scrotum at same time!!!!
Once arrived to my collection, I went to the difficult task of turn it into a perfect kangaroo. Well, a perfect male kangaroo already exist, is the Southland Replicas one. Is as realistic as an alive kangaroo. But just one problem: it's really enormous. So I took the PNSO model and customized it. I cut the too long and bendy, pointy ears, making them shorter and rounder. I also noticed that while the left foot have five toes, the right foot have six! So I cut the most outdoor toe and shortened the fifth.
But the most difficult part was cutting the joey, and overall, left an even surface and trying to make a fur texture in it - without tools for doing that! With a lot of patience I went cutting small stripes of surface with a cutter, until I finally got a passable texture
After that, it wen the paintjob work. Very nice and satisfying to do that. I tried to match the colours of the perfect Southlands model. Still, Noce have a very anthropomorphised expression, more likely a "general animal" than a kangaroo. Almost like an antelope. The eyes should be a bit higher and the lips a bit lower for get the perfect male red kangaroo expression that Southlands model get perfectly. Despite that, with the new paintjob the figure improved a lot.
Well, is not a great model. Overall, the head is too big, the neck is too thick.
