Building a Synoptic Collection of Penguins ... now without Japanese figures

At last some news from "THE MASK" itself  The rarest model of a rarely represented species

But where is my CollectA Gentoo ? can't put my hands on it

Wow! What a beautiful and rare figure, I didn't even know about yellow-eyed penguins

Thanks dear faithful friends! I was reading some old posts and the SSS model was a marketing test for Australia. It may mean that in New Zealand a full batch could have been produced.  

Kikimalou wrote:

At last some news from "THE MASK" itself  The rarest model of a rarely represented species

But where is my CollectA Gentoo ? can't put my hands on it

Hahah! I think your CollectA gentoo is the one on the right. At least when comparing with [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
He surely wanted to visit its twin in Portugal.

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As I moved the crested penguins to the last day, today I am presenting a very popular group.
Banded penguins (genus Spheniscus). They are known as banded because they have a horseshoe shaped band runing their chest.
It turns them easily identifiable as a group but it is not so easy to distinguish the 4 extant species.
I will provide simple ways to distinguish them.

Colorata released 3 of the 4 specis.

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Humboldt, Magellanic and African.
Thus, we need to find a Galápagos penguin to complement it.
Let's start finding a few differences.
The Magellanic, in the middle, is the easiest of them because it is the only species presenting two bands in its chest.
Though, the Humboldt (first) and African penguin (third) are quite identical. It is common to mess these two species.
There are a few differences but the fact that the Humboldt has pink on the base of the beak seems to be an efficient way.

It is missing the Galapagos and the one I use is a Safari TOOB figure, very simple and small but Galapágos penguins are the 2nd smallest species of all and by far the smallest of the banded penguins. While other species average heights of 70 cm, the Galapágos is just 50 cm tall.
Here it is together with the Colorata models. All of them work for 1:12 scale but not for larger specimens. Colorata made these relatively small.

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Galapágos can be identified for its facial strip, it is C-shaped from side view, somewhat similar to the Magellanic but a Galápagos don't have two bands on its chest. The beak has a complex coloring but the simple Safari model does not feature it.

I believe that repainting a penguin figure is not such a hard task so the Schleich African penguin, with a little customisation can also be transformed into a Galápagos penguin.
Mine is in its original condition because I don't dare to paint a figure.

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From major brands we only have the Humboldt and the African in their standard sized ranges. There are the Safari TOOB for Galápagos but no Magellanic penguin.
In my collection I have these Humbold penguins.
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This is Safari, K&M from the AZA collection and the Colorata.

As you can see, the Safari model is somewhat large, 1:9 scale and the K&M, is a tremendous model, both in quality and size. It was a fantastic gift from Isabella.
Thus, the best alternative to the Colorata is probably the Safari model even if it has a strange beak and it has carved lines to guide the factory painters.

Before the Colorata, the only Magellanic I owned was the huge Maia & Borges, a figure released in 1998 for the Oceanário opening, a wonderful aquarium in Lisbon and Magellanic penguins are the stars here.
An interesting point, Magellanic penguins only get black feet when they are about 10 years old of age, before, they're mottled. Thus, it seems Oceanário penguins were not that old when the aquarium opened.

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African penguins are relatively popular among major brands. I only have the Schleich, Safari gliding and now the Colorata.
As you know, CollectA and Papo also released their versions and there is a more recent standing Safari.
I know Blaine and a few other members favored the Papo model that is curiously my least favorite among them. CollectA's model has a very strange pose but it is probably the most detailed. This Safari is quite simple but presentes a different pose,. I think it is sliding or on water surface. Yes, they don't live in the frozen Antartic regions but they love to slide down on large inclines.

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Here are the two large penguins together. K&M AZA Humboldt and M&B Magellanic.

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Now a picture with all my banded penguins together.
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Very nice figures! I always found it so funny when I discovered that some penguins live where its warm on the beaches. Colonies of South African penguins on the beach is such a contrast to emperor's in Antarctica.

They have a really cool African penguin exhibit at the San Diego Zoo. There is a building when you can go in and see the massive tank underwater (like at an aquarium) and you can see the penguins and the leopard sharks they added to the enclosure swimming around. Then if you follow the path outside of the building, you can see them swimming up top and walking along the "beach".

What a wonderful banded penguins collection with every interesting and useful information to go with it! The pose of the Safari model is definitely interesting and unusual- and the little African penguins are so sweet!

Man, sometimes I hate working because I am too tired to read the forum as much as I'd like and I am behind... splendid topic Roger! I am not big on penguins myself, just not a group that excites me the way some others do, but I too have been working on making my species representations better. Really great to read and see so far! Thanks for making this topic for us.

You're welcome! Paige, this is that kind of topics that you can read whenever you want. I hope you find time and energy to do it and that it will be helpful to you find more interest in this group of cute creatures. I also think collecting them randomly result somewhat boring so I decided to give them a different approach.
Jolie, it must be exciting, penguins can porpoise like dolphins, float almost like ducks and fly out of the water to land somewhere. I think it is quite fantastic when we know they are just birds.

I love that topic, I read it three time now .
As Blaine I still think the Colorata set is the easiest and serious option to begin a synoptic penguin collection but I appreciate a lot your alternative propositions. It is very interesting.
As I promised you a long time ago, I will open another penguins topic to show another alternative way to build a penguin collection .
But I’m not in a hurry, I know you will show us more good things here very soon

Hmm... I think the idea of repainting the Schleich African to a Galapagos is very good, since it's a great small model and will scale perfect with the CollectA African I have.
The difficulty for me that I have no experience with painting models, is to find the correct shade of white, because Schleich is using an off-white shade, probably there's some yellow and grey in it...

Kikimalou wrote:

I love that topic, I read it three time now .
As Blaine I still think the Colorata set is the easiest and serious option to begin a synoptic penguin collection but I appreciate a lot your alternative propositions. It is very interesting.
As I promised you a long time ago, I will open another penguins topic to show another alternative way to build a penguin collection .
But I’m not in a hurry, I know you will show us more good things here very soon

I hope you found some time to sleep. I remember you telling about that topic and that was the reason why I hesitated about opening this one but I wanted so much to show how cool is this Colorata set. I am glad you can complement this subject, probably with Kitan and Kaiyodo models that are absolutely fantastic!
Today I will present the little blue and tomorrow the crested penguins, the most complex group and that's all.

spacelab wrote:

Hmm... I think the idea of repainting the Schleich African to a Galapagos is very good, since it's a great small model and will scale perfect with the CollectA African I have.
The difficulty for me that I have no experience with painting models, is to find the correct shade of white, because Schleich is using an off-white shade, probably there's some yellow and grey in it...

You're right, Most of these penguins just mix pure white and black but the Schleich model has a much more sophisticated painting with softer transitions and less contrasting colors. It is not more correct but gives a less toyish finish to the model. It will also turn much more difficult to use the existing paint and just adding black and white strokes to transform it into a Galapágos. I am sure it would result artifitial.
One strange thing about the Schleich African penguin is that it has a different beak from my other African penguins, is it the same when you compare with your CollectA?

Roger wrote:

spacelab wrote:

Hmm... I think the idea of repainting the Schleich African to a Galapagos is very good, since it's a great small model and will scale perfect with the CollectA African I have.
The difficulty for me that I have no experience with painting models, is to find the correct shade of white, because Schleich is using an off-white shade, probably there's some yellow and grey in it...

You're right, Most of these penguins just mix pure white and black but the Schleich model has a much more sophisticated painting with softer transitions and less contrasting colors. It is not more correct but gives a less toyish finish to the model. It will also turn much more difficult to use the existing paint and just adding black and white strokes to transform it into a Galapágos. I am sure it would result artifitial.

Here's a tip for paint-matching really tricky colours like off-white, as long as you're using acrylic paint (not oils or enamels, big mistake)
Wet one corner of a towel with plain warm water, and keep it by your side as you test paint. Once you've got the paint mixture looking roughly right, just touch a tiny bit of your colour onto the area you want to match; if it isn't right, wash it off and dry the model on the other bit of the towel, then try again with an adjusted colour mix.
As long as you're quick and wipe straight away while the paint's wet, it won't stick or mark in any way, and you can have as many goes at matching the colour as you like.

I'm enjoying this topic, I'm not going to start collecting penguins but it's still fascinating to see which companies have made the most accurate and aesthetically pleasing figure for each species (and it's helping me remember what the differences are between the ones which look fairly alike!)

The little penguin should be the last one but I moved the largest group, crested penguins, to the end so that's not the end of the story.
The smallest penguin of the world, is the only species of its genus, Eudyptula minor is its scientific name.
There are a few subspecies and probably it will be split into two different species but it is still just a supposition. They have variations of shades of blue and there is the White-flippered penguin that has white patches in its wings and white feet.
Let's work just considering it is a single species what is the consensus for now.
It averages 33 cm in height and is easily recognizable for its blue color.
I have now the Colorata pair and for a long time I own the lovely Science and Nature model. You can see a few more at the Toy Animal Wiki.

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All of them are nice models and the S&N has a texture and finish more similar to major brands.
Ironically, this small figure now looks too big!
It is close to 5 cm high so it is a 1/7 scale model while the Colorata works for 1/10 scale.

when comparing with other models, we can see the S&N is larger than the Safari Galápagos penguin what is not supposed for real specimens and it is even slightly larger than the Schleich African penguin. Actually, S&N and Schleich are more similar then it looks at first glance.
As [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] confirmed with the picture of the CollectA model, that has a correct bill, the Schleich penguin has an almost triangular bill and it is not very different from the little penguin so maybe another idea could be to repaint the Schleich as a blue.

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Her is how it is going still without the crested penguins.
Colorata released 9 of the 11 no crested species so here is how I complement them with the SSS yellow-eyed penguin and the Safari TOOB Galápagos penguin. (6 and 10 respectively)

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The big trouble will be the last group once Colorata only released 3 of the 7 species of crested penguins but that's a subject for a future post and that will require some ideas from you.

I love the last pic, too bad the yellow eyed penguin is a bit too big.
Colorata gave us two very nice Fairy penguins, l would prefer only one blue and a Galapagos instead.
I can’t wait to follow the most uneasy entry of the topic, the crested penguins

Crested penguins (genus Eudyptes ) represent the biggest number of species among penguins.
They are also very similar and their classification as species, subspecies or morphs is constantly debated.
Using part of the chart we can build our synoptic collection taking these 7 species as reference. This is also the most commonly accepted classificatiion.

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My collection is still misrepresentative regarding this particular group. I owned only two poor rockhoppers before the arrival of the 3 Colorata.
Thus, I can't complete the group of 7 but since Christophe will open a topic under the same subject, maybe he could provide a few good ideas.
To be fair, before the release of the CollectA rockhopper that I still don't have, I was only aware of 4 of the 7 species. Also, it was always my least favorite group of penguins, those red eyes with yellow crests do not appeal me at all.

The chart is very good and the most efficient way to distinguish these figures is exactly checking their crests.

Royal and Macaroni have the same "hairstyle" but royal has a distinctive white face.
Kaiyodo released one.

Erect-crested is also easy, it has a parallel pair of erect crests, quite different from all other species.

Northern rockhopper has the falling yello plumes much longer than Southern.

Fiordland and Snares look quite the same to me, Fiordland has thicker eyebrows.
I don't know figures of these two species.

Colorata released 3 species,

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Macaroni, erect-crested and rockhopper

when the set was released, all rockhoppers were considered a single species.
This rockhopper has relatively long plumes but in my opinion not enough for a Norther rockhopper so I assume it is a Southern rockhopper.
I don't know the meaning of the white or pinkish strip on the base. Eastern rockhoppers have some pink on lower mandible but not like that.
Though, these models are all very good representations.


The only figures I owned were the Safari rockhopper (early version) and this silly K&M Rockhopper from the Polar tube.
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Both are definitively not good alternatives. K&M figure seems to have ears or horns and it is narrow bodied, maybe a youngster but it is hard to understand the lack of the black feathers on crest.
Safari is very cute and acceptable but only if you get the 2019 version  that has a correct feet color and the crest with a lesser number of yellow feathers.
These are all Southern rockhoppers, I still have to get it but CollectA's is a better option if you don't mind about the heavy writing on it and it is indisputably a Southern rockhopper with a beautiful crest.
Please [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
It seems the CollectA is slightly less massive than the Colorata so it works great if you use the Japanese model as a Northern.

Post goes long, I will share collective pictures in a future post.

The smallest penguin in the world makes up for it with its sweet interesting looks represented by these wonderful models!

Such wonderful models! I really need to get CollectA's gentoo and rockhopper penguin

Well, build a crested penguin collection is still impossible for now without making some customs. Even considering Rockhoppers as a single species ( no identified Northern on the market) the Snares and Fjordland are nowhere to be seen. The good thing with the three Colorata is the size, they are more or less acceptable for a "nearly on scale" collectiion and won't hurt Kostas picture like teh Yellow-eyed penguin.

I can't wait to see the family Big portrait

I think Safari rockhopper with a little customization can be transformed into a Northern rockhopper to go with the Colorata or CollectA Southern. For Snares and Fiordland is is more complex once it requires a complete resculpt of the head feathers.
I will hshare family picture later but for now the promisde alternative for the 6 species project (one each genus). That's one of the options.
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Safari emperor, SSS yellow-eyed, Mojo gentoo, Safari Southern rockhopper, Schleich African and S&N little blue

Emperor has a few alternatives, again the yellow-eyed could be replaced by the Yoie USA and CollectA's has a better option for a Southern rockhopper. For a smaller little blue SSS presents an alternative and of course, it doesn't need to be exactly these species, I just think they are the most representative of each group.

This is a wonderful topic Roger !
I love penguins , I have and love the Colorata set.
And I love the way you are presenting these models to us.
Topics like this one, are priceless for our forum.
Thank you very much for doing it !
Fun fact : Your least favorite group of penguins - Crested ones , are probably one of my favorite
Especially of those red eyes with yellow crests , appeal to me a lot
Even one Atlantic puffin, wanted to look like a Crested penguin on Happy feet 2

It was missing a picture without Japanese figures.
but here is a group of 11 of the 18 species using different non Japanese brands.Those are standard sized figures, it is impossible to present something close to Colorata

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Safari emperor, Schleich king, Mojö Fun Gentoo, Safari Chinstrap, Happy Kin Adèlie, SSS yellow-eyed, Safari Southern rockhopper, Safari Humboldt, Schleich Jackass, Safari TOOB Galápagos and Science and Nature Little blue.
SSS yellow-eyed, Safari humboldt and S&N Little blue are clearly large but not as disturbing as if I added the Maia & Borges Magellanic in this group.
As I mentioned before, it is recomended to use Yowies yellow-eyed, CollectA Southern rockhopper and SSS Little blue instead. The rockhopper from CollectA is a beter model and the other two are smaller.

costicuba wrote:

This is a wonderful topic Roger !
I love penguins , I have and love the Colorata set.
And I love the way you are presenting these models to us.
Topics like this one, are priceless for our forum.
Thank you very much for doing it !  
Fun fact : Your least favorite group of penguins - Crested ones , are probably one of my favorite  
Especially of those red eyes with yellow crests , appeal to me a lot  
Even one Atlantic puffin, wanted to look like a Crested penguin on Happy feet 2  

Thanks Kosta! Yes, it is incredible how someone that loves penguins as I do, almost ignored completely this group of crested penguins. I must fix it and get at least the CollectA model.
I haven't watched Happy Feet 2 yet, I liked first movie, actually a dancing penguin is an interesting subject for you.
I must see that puffin, it was easier for him to copy a tufted puffin instead.

Your penguin collection is huge, even without the Japanese models you can create a lovely array of the different species!