Burger's Customs

I bought a cheap bootleg of the Favorite Co. Ltd. Anomalocaris, the original which was sculpted by Hirokazu Tokugawa comes with a detachable base that connects to a hole inside the figure, the knockoff I bought to customize lacks this hole.

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

I wanted to give it a base anyway as this flat figure would be nicer to display with one so I sculpted a sponge with an Aysheaia crawling over it.

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

While I love Tokugawa’s paleoart the figure needed some significant updates, one of the reasons I went fot the knockoff, the other being that the original is hard to find outside Japan, I added a head shield and dorsal spines on the raptorial appendages, edited the oral cone, gave it gills, added the six anterior flaps, attached a telson with a cloaca and some other changes were done as well such as enlarging the eyes but that last one was purely an aesthetic choice.

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

It looks rather nice displayed with other top predators across the ages although these are not to scale.

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

The custom figure also makes for a nice center piece surrounded by the figures from the Safari Ltd. Cambrian Life Toob.

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

I love that anomalocaris!! its so cute, and i love the color scheme!

Oh wow, what a beautiful new model! Excellent work on that one.

Nice work bringing this sculpt more in line with what's known! I also like the little 'lobopod' on the base.

Amazing!!!

Thanks everyone, I am very happy with the outcome.
With the colours I tried as much as I could to make it look transparent despite the figure not being transparent at all.
Instead of actually transparent it just looks like the trans flag (blue, pink, white, pink, blue) now, but that's close enough I guess.
Lobopodians are such great animals and it's nice to see that there are so many figures of Cambrian ones, however I still wish any company would make a modern velvet worm, I only know of some plushie versions by indie creators such as Spirellity but no resin or PVC models anywhere, one would think that Yujin or Kaiyodo would have been interested in making one but there is nothing to be found, a velvet worm would honestly also fit nicely into Safari's Incredible Creatures line.
I could even imagine a children's magazine having a velvet worm as a gimmick toy that squirts water out of the glue glands or something like that.
I guess in the end I might have to make one myself.

I have finished the anteater but my phone just crashed and keeps failing to reboot, it's the only decent camera I have since my last proper photo camera died on a field trip back in 2017 due to humidity, I hope it will work soon.
All I have for now is a terribly blurry photograph taken with my webcam.

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

My phone works again, I took proper photos now.

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

It’s nice to have an anteater in the xenarthran lineup that doesn’t look incredibly awkward.

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

It’s odd that Schleich somehow messed that up, especially with the neck length, considering how nice their brown-throated sloth looked.

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

It is a pretty large figure still, roughly 1:12, so it is ridiculously oversized here next to this 1:20 Nigel Marven.

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

To give another idea of its size, here the anteater is rearing up on my varnish bottle.

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

Oversized or not, the giant anteater is a force to be reckoned with, avoided as prey by jaguars today, perhaps only Smilodon may have attempted an attack.

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

While I don’t believe that knuckle walking in spinosaurs is likely, I noticed before that the PNSO Spinosaurus’s knuckle walk looks similar to that of an anteater so I wanted to place both figures next to each other.

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

OK, this is fabulous! He is a rebel, while the original was a clean-cut civil servant. Also in terms of accuracy you've done an excellent job. Very realistic model.

Oh this is nice, he really suits the extra shaggy tail hair and the bit of crest/mane along the spine, and his new colour is so much nicer, and although we know it's obviously still created with paint, the shoulder stripe looks really natural now, not 'painted on'

It's kind of funny that you both assume it to be male as midway through resculpting I was thinking of adding a baby on its back like the Safari one but then felt like it was too much work, but still I originally intended it as a mother.
I might try doing that another time maybe when I feel like, perhaps reposing the head to point in another direction as well.

Very realistic repaint!

Thank you, I had a lot of fun exploring the subtle patterns of giant anteaters and while looking at various photos of them I noticed how much variation there is among individual anteaters, each one is so unique and beautiful.

Burgerenby wrote:

It's kind of funny that you both assume it to be male as midway through resculpting I was thinking of adding a baby on its back like the Safari one but then felt like it was too much work, but still I originally intended it as a mother.

To be honest, I was just copying the person before me, rather than making a guess based on the actual look of the animal, cos I'm not really in-the-know about these wildlife sculpts and assumed the previous commenter knew more than I do

George wrote:

To be honest, I was just copying the person before me, rather than making a guess

Haha, I also used a gender without thinking I'm using a gender, it was a random "he"..

Oh, your giant anteater custom is much more than just an enshortened neck version of Schleich's. There are a lot of changes that turn the model far more realistic and richer as a whole design. I wished I could make anything like htat. I surely love the picture with the spinosaurus, we can find some similarities actually. It looks like the spino is worried and thinking: - Will I look like that when older?

Who knows, the 2020 version is certainly not the final Spinosaurus haha.
The neck on its own did a lot already but adding the mane really made it whole.
I also just had to carve the stripe region off and resculpt that, the stripe was not just painted on in the original figure but also in the sculpt so the employees who painted it had some sort of guideline.
It makes production a lot easier but aesthetically it's a bit strange, maybe they could have printed it on instead of painting, but now it looks much smoother.

Beautiful, you have recreated an even more realistic model!
I love how you have given this anteater lots of different shades subtly blended and placed in the right areas- and of course how you have changed the sculpt, it looks wonderful now!

Amazing overhaul, the detail is so authentic. The texture alone is convincing and fits so naturally with the existing mold while also enhancing it. And then the beautiful paint work just compliments it perfectly. Really nice!

Really nice custom, thanks for showing it!

Burgerenby wrote:

Who knows, the 2020 version is certainly not the final Spinosaurus haha.

The horizontal posture, knuckling walk and flattened tail are turning a spino more and more similar to an anteater , let the palaeonthologists find that spinos were hairy with long tongues.

Thank you all so much for the compliments!
I'll do some allosaurs for [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] next and then it's time for the Visayan warty pig.

Awesome! It's so much better than the priginal! It's a very beautiful anteater now!

Turns out I ended up finishing the Visayan warty pig first.

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