1/32 scale animals

I love these ZooZooZoo animals! The poses are great! It's nice to see some variation from the usual standing form, representing animals in all their natural positions and as you said there are many others- like the sleeping polar bear! I really love the cub too, very sweet!

Thank you, Lilias!

Roger wrote:

Since you mention lazy, this photo is pure morning madness.
I can see clearly the kid desperated asking mom to take him to the elementarctic school.

School? No, he is asking whether he can have more toy animals.

Now let me show you one of the biggest disappointments in my collection:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I bought this right whale more than two years ago and was so disappointed that I didn’t even catalogue it. I put it away in a box so that I didn’t have to see it again. I expected something higher in quality, not a toy lacking detail that is meant for your bath or the beach. But probably the main reason I was so disappointed is that I bought it together with a whale shark that the seller did not include. I complained to Aliexpress (where I bought it), but they said that the parcel tracking proved that I had received it and they closed my complaint. Yes, I received the right whale, but not the whale shark!
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

After two years, I came across the whale again and then realised that while it doesn’t have much detail, it is largely accurate and it is my only 1/32 scale right whale. I think I got over the fact that I lost my money on the whale shark.

So what is it? It was sold as a “Giant Ocean Sealife Model” and is made of soft vinyl. It has a total length of 39/1248 cm and a fork length of 38/1216 cm. Wikipedia says that adult right whales are between 13 and 17 m (or 16 m, depending on which section you read), and while this is roughly correct, sexually mature right whales can sometimes be smaller. Miller et al. (2012) found that the length of North and South Atlantic right whales ranged from 11.46 to 14.63 m, while Johnston et al. (2022) found that lactating Southern right whale females ranged in length from 11.84 to 15.22 m. Males tend to be a bit smaller, but it is harder to determine whether they are mature.

As I mentioned, one reason for my disappointment is the lack of detail. The mouth isn’t sharply delineated and the pectoral fins look kind of shapelss and “blown up”; there is too much air in them.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The other thing is that it is quite shocking to see the underside:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Overall, it looks quite crude. Still, as far as I can tell, the main things like the shape of the body and mouth, the blow holes and the callosities are modelled correctly. I have many figures that are less accurate or detailed, it is just that they are a lot smaller so it’s less obvious.

Here it is with my only other vinyl model, the Recur whale shark:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Although it isn’t quite the right colour, the Recur is more detailed in how the mouth and the fins are modelled. I expected the right whale to be similar.

How does the right whale compare with my other big whale, the Safari Monterey Bay humpback? In terms of quality, it doesn’t compare at all. In terms of length, they are very similar:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The right whale is much bulkier though, and this is how it should be.

I now appreciate the right whale for the comparisons with other species. Here we have it with the Papo sperm whale (also produced by Maia & Borges and Schleich):
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

And here with an elephant:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The elephant is a new addition to my collection. As you may remember, I previously had a knock-off of this 2012 Schleich African elephant bull. The knock-off now enjoys his retirement from the 1:32 reserve, the first animal ever to do so!

rogerpgvg wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I'm sorry to hear about your whale shark. This right whale appeals to me, maybe because it looks slightly less realistic and quite cute , and I also like the fatness of it's body and the soft sheen of its skin.

Congratulations on your knock-of replacement! Did a duel take place ?

I agree it isn't the most realistic and detailed Right whale ever but it is nonetheless a figure which gives another dimension to your collection. Even if they are not the most beautiful, the very small and very large models frame a collection to scale and give it more depth.

Thank you, Annette and Christophe. I've accepted the right whale now. As long as you don't see it too closely (as in my photos), it looks all right and it is a unique species in my collection. No duel, the Schleich copy elephant retired gracefully.

Let’s continue with another whale, but one at the opposite end of the quality spectrum. It is the CollectA minke whale:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I think whales, dolphins and sharks are often rather grey and lack interesting morphological features, but I am very fond of this minke whale. The irregular, different shades of grey and white make it stand out and I find that its shape is very elegant (whatever that means). Unfortunately, I don’t think my photos do it justice.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

According to the Animal Toy Blog [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] it is a dwarf minke whale. I agree that the patterning suggests that CollectA intended it to be this subspecies. That’s a good thing because it would be too small for one of the other subspecies.

Her (it’s a female) total length is 19/608 cm. Kato et al. (2021) estimated that female dwarf minke whales sexually mature at 6.0-6.5 m, though the mean body length at physical maturity was estimated to be 7.16 m.

It looks good on the underside too:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Let’s compare it with the Schleich minke whale, which is larger with a total length of 23/736 cm. The Schleich doesn’t look like a dwarf minke whale, so it is good that it is larger.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The Schleich may be an Antarctic minke whale. They are probably the largest of the minke whales and the Schleich would be quite a small one. Bando et al. (2006) found that 50% of males were mature at 7.29 m (Indian Ocean) or 7.17m (Pacific Ocean) and 50% of females matured at 8.16m (Indian) or 7.97m (Pacific).

Or compare high with low quality, small and large:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I don’t know whether dwarf minke whales are hunted by killer whales, but I imagine that they do because the dwarf minkes are quite small.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

This is the Safari Monterey Bay model. At 17.8/570 cm, it is definitely not the largest killer whale in the 1:32 reserve. Don’t worry, it is only licking.

So you are the baby bear? Hahah, I haven't noticed it is an old family pic, everything looks black & white when the Arctic is the scenery.
Those episodes like the missing whale shark are quite irritating. They can always check the tracking and tell you received the box but what happens if the box is empty or with missing figures as it happened to you? If we can't do anything, something is defintely wrong.
I love minke whales, they're surely among the most beautiful whales. On the other hand, right whales are not very graceful and your hollow model surely intends to enhance it.

Yes, I find Aliexpress hit and miss. I normally try to avoid it, but sometimes I can buy things that I can't find anywhere else and sometimes the price is so low that it is worth taking the risk.

Kaiyodo Shinagawa Aquarium white sturgeon, Acipenser transmontanus
Body length of figure 6.7 cm for a scale of 1:24-1:31; up to 1:91 for a maximum-sized specimen

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Thanks a lot, I wasn't aware of this figure. I need to try and find it.

Cretaceous ±1:32. I was requested this picture (I think by [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]?) some time ago, and seized the chance during a little rearrangement of my collection. Sorry for the low res, bad camera and had to be quite distant to include them all. It was meant to be all mesozoic, but I ran out of space.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Larger

Left to right:
Battat Utahraptor
Safari Baryonyx
Collecta Mantellisaurus
Collecta Neovenator
PNSO Yutyrannus
PNSO Acrocanthosaurus
GR Toys Carcharodontosaurus
Vitae Sinoceratops
Battat Styracosaurus
Battat Euoplocephalus
PNSO Deinocheirus
Collecta Struthiomimus
PNSO Tarbosaurus
Battat Carnotaurus
PNSO Tyrannosaurus

Thanks a lot, Leyster. It's a wonderful to see this Cretaceous comparison. I don't know much about dinosaurs, so it is great to see how they compare in size. Do you normally display your collection by scale?

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] yes, but not in a straight line like this, they would take too much space (just the Cretaceous pictured here is more than 1,5 meters long). This is part of my display, the classical IKEA Billy (pictures taken some tima ago, they lack some recent acquisitions)
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
Top to bottom:
1) 1:26 theropods (just Vitae) plus PNSO mini Guidraco
2) ±1:32
3) 1:20-1:25
4) Ornithischians ±1:25-1:30

Great collection. I like seeing them together organised by scale. It's nice that you have quite a wide range of sizes within each scale. And funny that that almost none of the models that we have are the same, but we do both have the same Ikea display cabinet.

Safari Ltd. Sauropelta.
Figure length 18.5 cm for a scale of 1:27-1:32

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Thanks, perfect in the Cretaceous theme!

Indeed it is a masterpiece

Leyster your dinosaur parade is very inspiring

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] well the IKEA Billy is indeed a classic, easily affordable and nice to look at.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] thank you!

Leyster wrote:

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] well the IKEA Billy is indeed a classic, easily affordable and nice to look at.

I also use the IKEA Billy system (albeit in white)

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
The Battat Styracosaurus is 1:31 based on AMNH 5372, on which the model is based on (inferred from the horns).

Another disappointment, but one which I got over much more quickly. I had been considering buying this Papo “Wild Animal Kingdom 2” tube for almost as long as I have been collecting in 1/32 scale:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

However, the Lego block on TAW suggested that only the brown bear was 1/32 scale and the tube is rather expensive, more expensive than other tubes such as by Safari and CollectA. I love the brown bear, but £22 (including postage) is rather a lot for such a common species. But after years of resisting the temptation, one day I was weak and pressed the “pay now” button.

After a few days, the postman arrived. When he handed the parcel to me, I could hear the animals rattling in their box, making me worried that they would be scratched. When I unpacked them, they all looked fine except, arggh, no, the brown bear ! He has a scratch on his bum !
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

How disappointing! Papo should package their tube figures better. They are very loose in the box and because they are made of a hard plastic, they scratch each other easily. There is a lot of foam at the bottom of the tube, but it should be between the figures so they don’t touch each other.

First, I thought I’d just accept that the bear isn’t perfect, but the next day I already started thinking how I could find another one or perhaps buy another tube. £22 for a scratched bear! I felt too bad about it, so I contacted Wonderland Models in Edinburgh where I had bought it. They were fantastic. They apologised and immediately sent me a new brown bear!  Good on Wonderland toys for their excellent customer service, but not so good on Papo for packaging their product so badly.

So now I have two brown bears:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

They are lovely bears. Not hyper-realistic but very charming. Smaller than I thought based on the Lego block, but they are meant to be Pyrenean bears and they are relatively small. Wikipedia says that the last Pyrenean bear was shot in 2004  and current bears in the Pyrenees were introduced from Slovenia. The original Pyrenean bears were part of the Cantabrian brown bear subspecies. According to Wikipedia, they are between 160 and 200 cm in length and between 90 and 100 cm in shoulder height. The Papo has a head+body length of 5.2/166 cm and a shoulder height of 3.2/102 cm. Perhaps a bit too tall for a Pyrenean bear, but I don’t normally try to get the size right at the level of the subspecies (unless the subspecies looks very distinct).
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Here is the Papo with two older compatriots, a sitting bear from Clairet (from 1952 or 1953) and a walking bear from Starlux (1960):
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Who knows, they may be true Pyrenean bears from before they became extinct. The Clairet may look a bit arrogant with his snout pointing up, but he is in fact very lovely when you get to know him better and start seeing him from a different perspective:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

It is interesting to compare the Papo with the brown bear in another recent tube by CollectA:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

They are very different. Both are great sculpts and are well painted. However, the CollectA doesn’t work so well in 1/32 scale because its head is so small relative to its body. This suggests that the CollectA is a very large bear, but in 1/32 scale, it is not (3.1/96 cm shoulder height).

Once I got over my disappointment of the bum-scratch bear, I realised that the tiger was a lot smaller than I had calculated using the Lego block and is also 1/32 scale .
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

It is 3.0/96 cm at the shoulder. Smaller than most vintage 1/32 scale tigers but that is mainly because the vintage tigers are towards the top end of how large tigers can be. Here we have the Papo with the late Britains, early Britains and Hausser Elastolin walking tigers (all 3.3/106 cm shoulder height). I have found it difficult to find recent measurements of tigers, but hunting records of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar (1908) show that Bengal tigers were between 86 and 114 cm.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

CollectA also made a tiger for their Mini Wild Animals tube:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

The CollectA is an Amur tiger. I used to think it was too small (2.65/85 cm shoulder height) but Kerley et al. (2005) report shoulder heights between 82 and 106 cm. Both tigers are again well sculpted, but I think the CollectA is painted better. The Papo’s stripes are too thin. Still, overall the Papo is a good-looking figure.

Even the Papo giraffe is usable, although I have to cheat and pretend it is young.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

It is subjective, but I really think it is better as a calf than an adult. I don’t mind cheating , but most of the time, it is easy to get caught. Take the CollectA giraffe, it doesn’t look like a calf:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Here is the Papo with the Eikoh adult giraffe:
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

So after the initial disappointment, a great result from the Papo tube with 3 out of 6 figures in 1/32 scale. The Cape buffalo, Indian rhino and leopard aren’t, but they are well made too, making it worth keeping the complete tube. Perhaps I’ll have another weak moment another day and press the button for the lion in the Papo “Wild Animal Kingdom 1” tube (the Gorilla may have the right size too, does anyone know?).
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Good ending story Roger

I like that bear! The tiger is better than the CollectA for me even if the last one si better painted.

Seriously, I think YOU DON'T NEED TO KEEP THE INDIAN RHINO... Look at my eyes and repeat after me...

I agree with Christophe about Papo's being a nicer tiger figure but atention, it is a female. It seems to be a mini of the giant model.
I also agree with Christophe about the rhino and sorry for telling it with my nose pointed up. I really don't want to sound arrogant. If it has no use for your collection, what's the logic of keeping it for Tube completeness.
I was planning to rescue the fennec from your future Safari Desert tube but my plans went down the drain.

I love when you write this:

"The Clairet may look a bit arrogant with his snout pointing up, but he is in fact very lovely when you get to know him better and start seeing him from a different perspective:"

It's a difficult situation, Christophe, because I know how much you like the rhino. Complete boxes often have more value for for me, perhaps because of my interest in vintage figures, where complete boxed sets are often very valuable. The Papo tube is a high-quality set of which I enjoy the other animals too. At least for now, I'd like to keep it, but I'll remember you if change my mind one day.

I don't know whether anything in the Safari Sahara Desert Toob will be 1/32 scale. Perhaps the addax, but I fear it may be too small. I am a complex person and not every tube is the same for me. If the quality of the models is not so high and there is only one in 1/32 scale, then I might be open to negotiation I'll have to see if I get it.

Poor Kiki I understand of course.

Each time I look at this toob, I refrain from buying it, the price is a little prohibitive when you only plan to keep one animal, even an Indian Rhinoceros.