My Ice Age Collection (Update: 3/1/2019... Customized Wild Republic figures)

Wonderful figures! I like how your collection is focused on the certain theme. Ice Age is an exciting choice, very educational and fun.

sbell wrote:

But I don't see a Safari Mastodon...!

Oh, he's there, lurking behind the peccary and the badger in the group shots :)

SUSANNE wrote:

I love your collection, and all that it/you tells us !!

For instance that walrusses lived in what is now called San Fransisco. Also that they are so big compared to a mammoth

And you are working on a book of the Ice age in America ? That must be enormously exiting !!!  

I was actually surprised to find out that a walrus could get so big. Even though I write about the "Rosie" specimen for my book, I never gave much thought to how big a walrus actually is. Safari's figure might be a teensy bit big, but not by much.

My book is on the Ice Age in Western Canada, mainly in the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. All of North America would be a bit too big in scope for me :) But yes, it has been a good time working on it, and it's kind of in the home stretch. I just need to finish up a couple chapters, do some more drawings, go on that photo excursion, and then submit it to prospective publishers!

CWGross wrote:

sbell wrote:

But I don't see a Safari Mastodon...!

Oh, he's there, lurking behind the peccary and the badger in the group shots :)

Now I see it!

What I don't see are any walleye, pike, salmon, sturgeon, trout (other than fuzzy ones!), burbot, or many of the other fishes.
Unfortunately, the one company that made all of those (RTF) has ceased production...I still have walleye and a few species of trout available in my shop! And a burbot form my own line...!

And the Wild Republic Canadian tube has a decent salmon and brown trout (why that species? Because no one bothers to  make sure that the right species, or even one that could be close to correct, is included). Plus, you could hunt down a Yujin Dolly Varden but they are kind of pricey and hard to get to Canada.

When we think about Ice Age, I guess most think in animals with big teeth. So, why not a walrus? I think it is actually one of these still extant animals that are really impressive in an almost prehistoric sense. We are really used once they are popular throught media but they look really bizarre. And yes, they are huge!

Some time ago I got the Papo cave bear as a stand-in for the North American short-faced bear, since nobody has made or likely will ever make a short-faced bear figure. Papo's is a great figure, but I wasn't content with how much it looks like a very large grizzly bear, compared to the grizzly bear in my collection. So I took it upon myself today to paint it up like a South American spectacled bear, which is the closest living relative of the short-faced bear. We don't really know how short-faced bears were coloured, but I think painting it like a spectacled bear nicely shows the relationship between the two and the alienness of this Ice Age animal.

Before...
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My supervisor during the project...
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After...
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The camera doesn't catch it all, but I'm actually quite proud of how it turned out.

You only have to be proud! The result looks very interesting and the connection with the spectacled bear very intringuing. Serious supervisor there.

CWGross wrote:

Some time ago I got the Papo cave bear as a stand-in for the North American short-faced bear, since nobody has made or likely will ever make a short-faced bear figure. Papo's is a great figure, but I wasn't content with how much it looks like a very large grizzly bear, compared to the grizzly bear in my collection. So I took it upon myself today to paint it up like a South American spectacled bear, which is the closest living relative of the short-faced bear. We don't really know how short-faced bears were coloured, but I think painting it like a spectacled bear nicely shows the relationship between the two and the alienness of this Ice Age animal.

Before...
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My supervisor during the project...
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After...
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The camera doesn't catch it all, but I'm actually quite proud of how it turned out.

It looks good. Although there is at least one Actodus...near impossible to get now!

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And it's a pretty small scale--1/60 or so, from FaunaCasts.

Nice newcomer :)

sbell wrote:

It looks good. Although there is at least one Actodus...near impossible to get now!

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And it's a pretty small scale--1/60 or so, from FaunaCasts.

I stand corrected... I'm not liable to find a short-faced bear at a scale that is useful to me

CWGross wrote:

sbell wrote:

It looks good. Although there is at least one Actodus...near impossible to get now!

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And it's a pretty small scale--1/60 or so, from FaunaCasts.

I stand corrected... I'm not liable to find a short-faced bear at a scale that is useful to me

The funny/disappointing thing is that every other mammal that he did is 1/40, so it's weird to compare them!

There was a major oversight in the BC part of my collection...

OGOPOGO!!

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Well, Safari's sea dragon, but it works!

Congratulations

Great additions
Ohh, and you got the Carnegie Safari mammoth !!! I always adored that model !

So now we know that there were dragons during the ice age
It looks great with the blue guy among the others

Well, our trip to British Columbia, and a short trip to southeastern Saskatchewan, came and went. Between the two trips, an order off Ebay, the zoo, and a pet store in town that has started selling Safari figures, I've got some new additions...

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Mojo Pronghorn, CollectA Pilot Whale, CollectA Mountain Goat, Papo Cheetah, Safari Manatee, Safari Peregrine Falcon, Safari Long-Eared Owl, Safari Arctic Fox, Safari standing Black Bear and cub, and Safari Monterey Bay Aquarium Humpback Whale. Papo's Cheetah has a derpier face but a better overall pose than the Schelich one I had before. I'm glad to finally get the Mojo Pronghorn, which is a bit big but otherwise fine. The Manatee is actually meant to stand in for the Steller's Sea Cow, a relative in the North Pacific that finally went extinct in historic times.

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I love this Humpback... She's HUGE!!

Now the CollectA Mountain Goat had a bit of a problem... Besides being a pretty bad sculpt by someone apparently only vaguely familiar with the idea of a Mountain Goat, they painted it in a rather ugly fashion. The most striking thing about a Mountain Goat is its beautiful, snowy white coat. So that had to be fixed...

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Much better!

Phantastic additions :)

Is the pet store Pisces? Because they sold Mojo there once...before the Canadian distributor stopped doing it.

Among your great additions, I'd say the humpback whale is the most notorious member. You did also a good work with your mountain goat. Actually, this is a couple of mountain goats with a strange story. They started on CollectA as belonging to their farm series and it turns somewhat doubtful that they were originally intended to represent mountain goats. They were also never half as popular as the Schleich figure that was also released by Safari. There's also no comparison possible, the Schleich figure is far better.

widukind wrote:

Phantastic additions :)

Thanks!

sbell wrote:

Is the pet store Pisces? Because they sold Mojo there once...before the Canadian distributor stopped doing it.

Yep! We were there picking up supplies for our fish when, lo, a light shone from Heaven and there were Safari figures. I also bought the Safari Quetzalcoatlus while I was there. I wanted to buy the feathered T. rex as well, but I've restrained myself because even though it's a gorgeous model, it's not accurate

Roger wrote:

Among your great additions, I'd say the humpback whale is the most notorious member. You did also a good work with your mountain goat. Actually, this is a couple of mountain goats with a strange story. They started on CollectA as belonging to their farm series and it turns somewhat doubtful that they were originally intended to represent mountain goats. They were also never half as popular as the Schleich figure that was also released by Safari. There's also no comparison possible, the Schleich figure is far better.

I'm not surprised the CollectA one wasn't a Mountain Goat to begin with. I just looked up the Schleich/Safari one, because I didn't know they made one... It looks better in places, but still not completely spot-on. If I found it I might buy it, but I'd still have to fix it up a bit. The Safari version at least has a better paint job already.

Such wonderful additions!

Only choosing from different brands can give this kind of beauty

One of my big collecting complaints is that we had three species of giant sloth in Western Canada - Jefferson's Ground Sloth (Megalonyx), Harlan's Ground Sloth (Paramylodon), and Shasta Ground Sloth (Nothrotheriops) - each with its own different skull, size, characteristics, and habitat, yet not a one of them is available as a figure from any major company. I've had to content myself with a single Megatherium plasticus, the Common Toy Sloth, to represent all three.

Well yesterday, I happened across a store that had a stock of the old Schleich Common Toy Sloth. Since it had the old crappy Schleich paint job, and was in the standard brown colour of the Common Toy Sloth, I redid it. Running through the options, I stayed conservative and based my redo on the Two-Toed Sloth. Now it represents the Harlan's Ground Sloth in my collection (which was more ground based with a diet of grass and low browse) whereas the Safari one represents the Jefferson's Ground Sloth (which lived in forests and stripped browse from trees). If I can find one about half the size of these guys, I'll finally have a stand-in for the Shasta Ground Sloth too.

Anyways, before...

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And after...

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WOW ! That is indeed a fantastic transformation !!!!

When I read the first you wrote, I thought it was a shame to repaint such a rare, old model, but seing what it turned into, I LOVE it

Thankyou for sharing, and thankyou for the interesting information ! I didn't know there used to be several kinds of ground slotrh

SUSANNE wrote:

WOW ! That is indeed a fantastic transformation !!!!

When I read the first you wrote, I thought it was a shame to repaint such a rare, old model, but seing what it turned into, I LOVE it

Thanks!

I admit that I am a bad person who has no respect for the collectibility of the figures I buy. Maybe it's because I buy them for an express purpose of using them in education, so I'm more concerned with what meets my needs than if I'm keeping a figure in original condition. I'm not at all above painting them to something I think looks better or more accurate. The only time I chose not to is when you all made the appeal to keep that original Carnegie Collection Smilodon I found as is :)

We can't complain too much about lack of diversity during these days. Every year lots of new figures representing species never released before are launched. Both in prehistoric, wildlife or whatever. Obviously with the huge amount of extant and extinct species that exist and are found, toy industry will only be able of covering a small part of it. So, considering your collecting interests, it was a good decision to use existing moulds and to customize them to represent these non featured species. You did a great work.

Roger wrote:

We can't complain too much about lack of diversity during these days. Every year lots of new figures representing species never released before are launched. Both in prehistoric, wildlife or whatever. Obviously with the huge amount of extant and extinct species that exist and are found, toy industry will only be able of covering a small part of it. So, considering your collecting interests, it was a good decision to use existing moulds and to customize them to represent these non featured species. You did a great work.

Personally, I think my list of top most-wanted figures would make some pretty good ones... Columbian mammoth, short-faced bear, giant beaver, stag moose, and the different ground sloths... At least it would be better than the constant remakes of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, Smilodon, and the Common Toy Sloth.