The STS 2013 Wildlife figure of the year: The Mojo Gaur

Voted ! (GAUUUR)

Miguel

i voted papo tigress with cub

When the animal with the least number of votes is the Mojo Sloth, you know it was an outstanding batch of candidates. (I didn't vote for the Sloth, but it was still one of my absolute favorites from this year, a figure I was particularly impressed by when I held it in my hands.)

Actually, the 'holding it in your hands' effect (where the figure looks much better in person than it did in pictures) was particularly pronounced with all Mojo models this year (except the Gaur, I think, which looked great both ways). I just received the Mojo Vulture today, and a few weeks ago, the Mojo Pronghorn. They are gorgeous models, but they didn't wow me until I held them in my hands.

It occurs to me (as I'm writing this) that Mojo would benefit greatly from producing better stock photographs of their merchandise. I feel bad saying it because I'm sure someone out there works very hard to generate these photographs and that the criteria for what counts as a good stock photograph is not at all like the criteria for what counts as producing a good photo for this forum (for example). But the fact remains, many of us make our purchasing decisions using the internet and many of Mojo's 2013 photographs did not put their subjects in the best light. The models were much better than the photos represented them to be. CollectA and Papo, on the other hand, are examples of companies that tend to produce stock photos that make their products look fantastic -- eye-catching and enticing.

This wasn't meant to be a long ramble. Sorry!   

Scott, agree completely with you. Though, I find the 10th place of the sloth very meritorious too, remember that figures like emu, clouded leopard, gibbon, maned wolf, fennec fox, etc., haven't even achieved the top10!
Below the final ranking:

1. Mojo Gaur  
2. Papo Tigress with cubs  
3. CollectA Blackbuck  
4. CollectA Saola  
5. ColectA Markhor  
6. CollectA Baird's Tapir  
7. Papo Gharial  
8. CollectA Scimitar Horned Oryx  
9. Mojo Brazilian tapir  
10. Mojo two-toeds Sloth  

On preliminar choices, saola was slightly more voted than gaur what means that it was the most consensual figure. When we were obliged to choose only one, it hasn't even reached the podium and it was not even the most voted of CollectA figures.
Great performance of Papo tigress with cubs, but the winner was the Mojo gaur, I believe not a big surprise.
Other curious results are those that compare similar figures.
CollectA tapir more voted than Mojo tapir.
Out of top10, Schleich vulture better than Mojo vulture, a surprise for me!
CollectA fennec better than Safari fennec
But the best surprise was the total of 143 votes. The most participated poll of ever on STS-Forum!
Thanks to all!

A BIG     to Mojo/Anna collaboration   

For me is a big suprise that the Papo tigress is on the top of this list.   
She isn't any rare species and also looks a little strange(in my eyes, I don't want to start a discusion here, but for me she is one of the badest figures in 2013, a cub without a tail and tigers with very bad paintjob). Maybe the people voted for her because the special pose?
Here you can see very well that everyone has a different taste.
Thank you very much Admins for do this project with us!

Oh, thank you so much for choosing Gaur as wildlife figure of the year 2013! I feel so happy and honoured to learn he got the first place     
I think it's also fantastic news for Mojo     

   Yippee!! Tigress with cubs is in the second place!    

Congratulations for winning this competition, Anna!  

skysthelimit wrote:

A BIG     to Mojo/Anna collaboration   

    

Yes, when in a poll with so magnificent figures, Ana and Mojo, relatively new on market, get almost 30% of votes among collectors, it is more than fair to congratulate all envolved in the development of that figure. I have it, I also voted in it and anytime I see this gaur it is like to see a treasure!

Congratulations to Mojo and to Anna! Very well deserved!

The Gaur is really fantastic. For me, the only other model on this list that I treasure as much as the Mojo Gaur is the CollectA Saola. I don't know why, it's not a particularly complex or striking figure. But there is something very "collectable" about it (for lack of a better word). I'm very attached to it. It doesn't surprise me to learn (from Roger) that it was on more lists than any other figure.

This is not to take away from any other of the figures. The only one on the list that I don't love is the Oryx (for some reason, I've been slow to warm up to that figure), but I still think it's impressive. They are all fine models and as Roger also rightly notes, many great figures were left off this list.

Anna, James and the Mojo Team: Big congratulation   

Thank you everybody for participating to the first "STS animal figure of the year" contest.   

As Roger said, 143 votes is a success and a very good surprise for us!

A few more stats ?

We were 40 to make lists for the first round and we listed 57 models. I guess the last number is a good indicator of the quality of the 2013 production.

We listed 8 companies: CollectA, Kaiyodo, Kitan club, Mojo, Papo, S&N, Safari Ltd and Schleich. We have a large variety of taste   

Roger wrote:

Out of top10, Schleich vulture better than Mojo vulture, a surprise for me!

It's for me the most incredible surprise of this contest   

scot(t) wrote:

It occurs to me (as I'm writing this) that Mojo would benefit greatly from producing better stock photographs of their merchandise. I feel bad saying it because I'm sure someone out there works very hard to generate these photographs and that the criteria for what counts as a good stock photograph is not at all like the criteria for what counts as producing a good photo for this forum (for example). But the fact remains, many of us make our purchasing decisions using the internet and many of Mojo's 2013 photographs did not put their subjects in the best light. The models were much better than the photos represented them to be. CollectA and Papo, on the other hand, are examples of companies that tend to produce stock photos that make their products look fantastic -- eye-catching and enticing.
 

I agree some companies like Mojo need to have better advertising pics. Papo in the past had the same problems, their pics havn't done justice to their models 3 years ago. Now their models sometimes have worse paintings than their official pics    For CollectA some pics still need to improve; look at the Saola, most of the official pics are showing the model before the last very important changes  

For me the most surprising is the Mojo emu didn't find a place in final 10, it's such a lovely figure, but that means the 2013 really was great year for wildlife animal figures

Ana wrote:

For me the most surprising is the Mojo emu didn't find a place in final 10, it's such a lovely figure, but that means the 2013 really was great year for wildlife animal figures  

I guess Mojo paid the fact their models became available late in the year. I also think 2013 was a very rich yaer for wildlife models.   

I think Christophe is right, I placed emu in my personal top10 once I had received it some days before and got impressed. I find it surely a better figure than the oryx, for example.
If my choices were before having it in hands, I would probably not list the emu.
On the other hand, the gaur also arrived late but won the poll . :)

Yes, but the gaur is The Gaur