Here we are.
As soon as it was officially anounced, I swore before holy Diana that I would be the first one here to buy and show what I was deeply convinced to be the future 2021 STS figure of the year, the CollectA basking shark
I mean, that model had everything to be an absolute must-have even before being released :
- ABC, absolutely impressive, charismatic species yet rarely and, in my opinion never decently represented
- Open-mouthed pose that had already prove its worth with the praised Papo whale shark
- Good size
- CollectA branded, a token of quality these days
Unfortunately for me, new member Loon was officially the first to show it with a wonderful display on his collection topic. People asked him a walkaround but, fortunately this time, he didn't fulfill their wishes
So, here is now for you dear fellow collectors, the beauty from every angle !
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]I'm usually very (too) talkative but this time, I don't really know what to say. I have always felt like the formula "a picture is worth a thousand words" was merely a lazy excuse but I don't see anything constructive about repeating "it's good", "it's amazing", "it's a masterpiece" in fifty different ways to fill my topic. Anyone who has already seen a basking shark in documentaries will understand at first sight that this model got everything perfectly :
- The general long and tapered silhouette, wide and massive at the head level, narrowing progressively until becoming extremely thin when it reaches the caudal fin : checked.
To the contrary, the shorter Safari rendition quite don't render that narrowing feeling, or at least not as much.
- The shape of the gills, incurved to the back at the top : checked.
Again, the gills' shape is totally random on the Safari model.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]- The exact shape of the mouth when it's open, including the hollow at the cheeks' level : checked on both models but more subtly on the CollectA in my opinion.
- The long but rounded nose and the exact distance between its extremity and the eyes : checked.
In comparison, the Safari model has an inaccurately short and sharp snout.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]- Unlike what we likely all thought from promo pics, the eyes of the CollectA model are not full black dots but are actually circled like those of the Safari rendition. Yet, in a much subtler way respecting the proportions between iris and sclera and with no striking white circle making it look like a bloody cod !
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]-The inside of the mouth however, despite being one of the most impressive features of the figure when you first take it out of the package, may not be the most successful part of the model, at least on my sample whose paintjob is quite "dirty" while it should be as clean as on the Safari rendition :
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]So, finally, I had a few things to say about that shark and the initial feeling of incredible likelyness to the real beast could actually be explained by the obsession of surgical accuracy CollectA's sculptors put in every aspect of this model.
But the general realism and aesthetism of the figure is not its only quality. Nowadays, major brands seem quite reluctant to produce sealife figures as large as in the past and I believe that there is no much hope to see M+B sized whales again for example (except the same moulds reused by other brands of course). Yet, the basking shark is the second largest cartilaginous fish in the world, this is a feature that strongly defines it in our minds, so a toy replica of it has to respect that size hierarchy and rank just after the whale shark but before any other one.
I often said that CollectA was the most compatible brand with Schleich as far as size was concerned. I do believe that CollectA has the size compatibility issue in mind when designing their figures. They release mostly unusual, obscure and threatened species, they are an elitist brand which is aware that their main customers are collectors and animal lovers like us rather than children in my opinion. So, they tend to be convenient with size, unlike Safari that doesn't give a shit for example.
Once more, CollectA was kind enough to care about our shelves and display cases and release a monster perfectly compatible with our other sharks. It's 22.5 cm and, when I took it out of the package, I first thought it was a little big. But in fact, it's just the perfect when compared with other sealife figures.
Most of you here use the Papo open-mouthed model as your whale shark which is 24 cm long. Considering that a whale shark in the wild measures 4 to 14 metres (exceptionally reaching 18 m) while a basking shark's length is rather 8 metres on average (exceptionally reaching 12 m), the CollectA model just scales well with the Papo used as medium-sized specimen.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]However, any zoology redneck like me will be tempted to show ostentatiously the gigantism of the whale shark within his/her collection. In that respect, the size difference is thus maybe even better with the M+B whale shark sold by Schleich in the 2000s.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Finally, one may also be interested in a comparison with the third plankton-eating shark, the megamouth, as some scientists believe that both may belong to the same family. Considering a 6 m length for that species, the size difference is again allright.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]That last pic gives me the opportunity to say a few words about the paintjob as I see some similarities between both models. I already said it, Safari is the boss when it comes to render the skin of sharks and that megamouth is one of their brilliant examples. CollectA did a great job too by managing to make its basking model's skin look rough and mate like it should be, unlike the plain and glossy Safari figure. I think you already understood it, the Safari basking makes no honour to the very good sharks line of that brand in my opinion.
As a conclusion, the “CollectA masterpiece label” should definitely be given to that new jewel. I would even go further by saying that it might be the best shark figure by major brands up to date. Of course, that's very subjective, there is such a diversity of species and it would be absurd to compare the wobbegong from Schleich with the basking shark from CollectA and try to figure out which one is better. But I do think that the winner of that completely biased and irrelevant contest of mine should be something impressive, something big. So, the only contenders would be the great white, the whale and the basking shark.
Even though I think that the M+B great white model is tremendous, it does not quite reach the level of Papo whale shark and CollectA basking shark in my opinion. And between these two, the basking has to be the winner because of its CollectA finish as opposed to the plainer Papo texture and paintjob of the whale cousin. And also because the species is more exciting, lesser-known but still famous, much rarer in toy form, long awaited at a good size and closer to us, Europeans, as it haunts the cold waters of our seas. When expectations are high, the risk of being greatly disappointed and hating the final outcome of something you've long desired is high too. But CollectA managed once again to meet our crazy expectations, confirming its status as best big brand for animal replicas.
Finally, I'm taking the opportunity provided by this topic to show you another model I bought several months ago but never presented on forum : the Papo baby whale shark.
Here, you can see it with Schleich mom wile Papo daddy is swimming nearby. Indeed, as it almost always happens with sharks and rays, females are larger than males.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]In Rtas' collection, even sharks are in family
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