Re-Ment Japan-"Pose skeleton" elephant review and alteration

This week I bought the new 2015 Re-ment pose skeleton African elephant from Japan.  There is an elephant, rhino, gorilla and moose from the series.
The models is unique because it has 16 poseable joints, but the sculpting is not accurate.

I customized the figure by carving and adding epoxy putty to re sculpt large sections.  
The skull was entirely the wrong shape, as were the shoulder blades, arm bones and to a lesser extent other areas.  
The knee caps (patellas) were missing so those were added as well.  

The whole thing was repainted with an airbrush and new tusks were made.

Packaging
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Modifications made
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Reference image source
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Compared with the Schleich elephant
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Carving and resculpting with epoxy
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Assembled and spraying on white primer
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Excellent job I can't stop laughing when I look at the last pics

Your knowledge and improvement are awesome Andrews

Amazing !

I wonder what it was before, - a youngster ?
But estpecially the hip bone looed odd, din't it ?

Great job, great pictures, great fun

Interesting stuff :) Congrats

Very interesting model and great improvements! And now you have accurate AND playable model! Amazing!!

Even it is not originally very accurate, I find interesting that Re-Ment released something like that. As an autority in elephant matters, you surely did a perfect work and improved it a lot.
I see that elephants are much happier after a good diet.

Kikimalou wrote:

Excellent job  I can't stop laughing when I look at the last pics

Your knowledge and improvement are awesome Andrews

Thanks, the last pose is possible in real life, elephants can sit like that.

SUSANNE wrote:

Amazing !

I wonder what it was before, - a youngster ?
But estpecially the hip bone looed odd, din't it ?

Great job, great pictures, great fun

Thanks, yes a lot of parts looked odd, the skull needed the most fixing.  I don't think it was based on a young animal as the proportions are of an adult, even young elephant skulls don't look like this....too narrow at the top.

widukind wrote:

Interesting stuff :) Congrats

Thanks Andreas.

Ana wrote:

Very interesting model and great improvements! And now you have accurate AND playable model! Amazing!!

Thanks Anna.

Roger wrote:

Even it is not originally very accurate, I find interesting that Re-Ment released something like that. As an autority in elephant matters, you surely did a perfect work and improved it a lot.
I see that elephants are much happier after a good diet.

Yes I'm glad that Re-Ment released such a unique figure, I've never seen anything like this before.  I only wish they had gotten someone from Kaiyodo to sculpt it, which would have turned out amazing I'm sure.

I have a photo taken in Thailand of me sitting on a 5 year old female Asian elephant's left front knee . She was sitting in the same position as your last picture elephas _ maximus . I am also holding her trunk . What a happy and incredible animal she was !

And if I may , What colors did you use for the bones and tusks ?

Coop wrote:

I have a photo taken in Thailand of me sitting on a 5 year old female Asian elephant's left front knee . She was sitting in the same position as your last picture elephas _ maximus . I am also holding her trunk . What a happy and incredible animal she was !

Sounds great, the front "knee" is actually their wrist joint just like in humans.  Their arm structure, in terms of joint placement, is more similar to a human than say a horse.

Coop wrote:

And if I may , What colors did you use for the bones and tusks ?

I used yellow mixed with brown for the tusks and a cream colour mixed with yellow and tan for the bones.

elephas_maximus wrote:

Kikimalou wrote:

Excellent job  I can't stop laughing when I look at the last pics

Your knowledge and improvement are awesome Andrews

Thanks, the last pose is possible in real life, elephants can sit like that.

Possible or not, it is still so funny Andrew