Did you back the Beasts of the Mesozoic: Raptor Series Kickstarter? Yes — you are about to be blown away by some amazing figures. No — shame shame shame.
Back in May of 2016 (just shy of two years ago), 2,661 dinosaur and cool figure aficionados came together to help bring David Silva’s 1/6th scale scientifically accurate dinosaur action figure line to life. Since the end of the campaign, an additional 4,520 people have supported the campaign through Backerkit. The project started with an initial set of three raptors with an additional nine planned out for the Kickstarter. Through the earnest encouragement of the people supporting the line, David ended up adding four Accessory sets, four “Fan’s Choice” repaints of “mostly” existing sculpts, and three sets of nestling raptors to mimic the coloring of the initial three Raptors.
While sitting at work, a box arrived — that I honestly was not expecting until late next week. Apparently FedEx will deliver SmartPost packages with other deliveries if you company already has something going out on the route. Seriously — food for thought for everyone that gets their stuff stolen off their front porch — always have your stuff delivered to your place of business.
I supported the project with a pledge for five Raptors, two Accessory Sets, and one Nestling pack. Since I have the raptors in hand now (the other stuff came in January and is sitting in my toy room), let’s take a quick look:
Wave 1 Raptors (Velociraptor mongoliensis, Atrociraptor marshalli , Balaur bondoc, Dromaeosaurus albertensis, Zhenyuanlong suni, Pyroraptor olympus, Linheraptor exquisitus, Velociraptor osmolskae (red), FC Dromaeosaurus albertensis, FC Pyroraptor olympus, FC Zhenyuanlong suni) are currently shipping, and Wave 2 (Tsaagan mangas, Velociraptor Osmolskae (blue), Sauronitholestes sullivani , Adasaurus mongoliensis , Acheroraptor temertyorum , FC Saurornitholestes langstoni) will be arriving late April / early May.
These things are hand candy. They are articulated everywhere: jaw, tongue, base of skull, neck, shoulders, elbows, “hands,” mid-torso, hips, 1st knees, 2nd knees, ankle, sickle claw, toes, tail base, tail ball joint, and finally bendy tail — whew.
What’s in the Box!? You get a cool full color backdrop to take moody pictures with, an environmental base, a short posing rod, a support clip and a clamp clip. Note that the clamp doesn’t lock onto the raptor; you just put a leg in there for an appropriate pose. The short posing rod is good for standing and running poses. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite long enough to support a Raptor in an jumping or attacking pose, but there are longer rods available in the accessory packs. Also included are a pair of alternate toes that you can swap out with the standard ones to create a running look as seen here:
left: standard, right: running
Everything that I can see in the limited hour and a half that I have been posing and working these joints over is nothing short of the quality you normally expect when you purchase a professional product. I can’t get over the level of detail that David was able to achieve in the paint and sculpt of these beautiful prehistoric killer turkeys.
Each of the raptors has one of two base bodies. From there everything starts to get species specific from skulls, wing secondaries, legs, tails, and neck covers. If you have seen a breakdown of the Build a Raptor sets, you will see just how many unique parts he created to give each species its own look and personality. The only sculpts that are completely the same are the Velociraptor mongoliensis and the Velociraptor osmolskae (red and blue), as well as the Fan’s Choice variants of Dromaeosaurus, Pyroraptor, and Zhenyuanlong. The Fan’s Choice Saurornitholestes got a unique crest to further homage the roadrunner that inspired it’s paint scheme.
My personal favorites are the Red and Blue Velociraptor variants as well as the standard Dromaeosaurus offerings.
David is still hard at work on organizing the remaining shipments of Wave 1, getting the production and shipping finished of Wave 2, and tirelessly toiling on the next phase of the Beasts of the Mezosoic line: Ceratopsians
If you want to get your own scientifically accurate raptors, David is still selling them through Backerkit, as well as his own website Creative-beast.com. David is continuously updating his progress on the Ceratopsian line on his Facebook page. You can check out a video giving a full breakdown of the raptors on his Facebook page as well HERE.
