Beginning an African collection

I've just started from scratch and I hope I'll stick to what I have decided:

1. Only 1:15 (or close).
2. Only African animals (with emphasis on Eastern & Southern Africa). The scale 1:15 excludes anything smaller than a meerkat as I don't think any smaller animals have been produced in that scale.
3. Only 1 of each (except in cases of significant sexual dimorphism).
4. Only realistic life-like models.

I have already bought or ordered about 20 animals that fulfill the above criteria. As soon as I have received all of them I'll post details and pics.

Basically I started as a way to add more African wildlife decoration to my home  (right now I have just a few decorative pictures and items, because I don't like clutter either). And the animals I'm going to collect are for the most part those that I have seen on location in my safaris (and some that I wish I had seen...). The long-term goal is to create a single diorama on permanent display.

Now that I have started looking around for various figurines, I've been surprised to find out that no company has ever produced a rather comprehensive assortment of animals in the same scale. I'm also surprised to see that their catalogues and websites rarely mention the scale of the figure. I can understand this with companies that are more focused on toys, but when you produce some less known lifelike animals then you must know that you also cater for collectors. Why not mention the scale ?

Of course I understand that I may never find some of the animals I'd like to own. Especially the less well-known antelopes are extremely improbable to ever being produced in a 1:15 scale in an acceptable implementation.

Welcome on forum and your project sounds quite exciting.
Actually it is something similar to what I want to start but my little 1:15 or 1:16 scale is more ambitious geographically but does not sound as professional" as yours.
I'm really excited to follow it.
I suggest you to follow [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] and the already iconic [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] which is basically half the size of what you want to collect. So, you can get a lot of useful information.

Welcome to the forum, it's great to have another collector who is interested in scale.

micmic wrote:

I've just started from scratch and I hope I'll stick to what I have decided:

Now that I have started looking around for various figurines, I've been surprised to find out that no company has ever produced a rather comprehensive assortment of animals in the same scale. I'm also surprised to see that their catalogues and websites rarely mention the scale of the figure. I can understand this with companies that are more focused on toys, but when you produce some less known lifelike animals then you must know that you also cater for collectors. Why not mention the scale ?

My collection is in 1:32 scale and I have been wondering about these things too!

There is a scale and size topic here, which may be useful for questions: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

In my collection, I seem to have five different kinds of models:

1. The very large species usually come from the major brands (Schleich, Safari, Mojo, Papo, CollectA).
2. Models from toobs are medium-sized species.
3. Models by Japanese brands usually have a similar size as the toob models (there is a bit more variation in size, sometimes they can be very small).
4. Models by vintage brands (Hausser Elastolin, Starlux, VEB Plaho, Clairet, etc.) have medium-sized species but also smaller-sized species.
5. Britains made models in 1:32 scale, so their models are good for species of all sizes.

Of course, your scale is different, but it may be useful to think about it in a similar way. For example, in 1:15 scale, the major companies may be useful for medium-sized animals. The toobs and Japanese models will be good for quite small animals and vintage companies may be useful for even smaller animals.

Once you start looking into it, you will find that information about the size of real animals can be hard to find and is quite often inaccurate. Wikipedia is a good source although it isn't always right. It is a lot of work to find animals at a particular scale, but it can be a lot of fun too. I have acquired a lot of models that I would never have thought of if I wasn't a scale collector.

1:15 scale is a probably a very good scale for an African collection, but before you start, I'd first check which species you'd like to collect and then see at which scale they are easiest to find. I think you probably want to make sure that the species that you like most are sold by the major brands at your scale. For example, 1:15 scale is not good for elephants, but probably (I don't know) good for lions and antelopes. I'd ask Kikimalou, one of the frequently visiting forum members, for advice because he has a collection in multiple scales. He can probably tell you at what scale he has most African animals.

Thanks for the replies, the topics you linked are treasure troves of useful information!

As I see it, the main difficulty with the 1:15 scale is the "Big-5" (not the well-known Big-5 ). They are also the most expensive. So far I think I have found which ones I should get for 4 out of the 5:

Bush Elephant: Kaiyodo Mega Sofubi
Giraffe: Safari Ltd Vanishing Wildlife
Hippopotamus: PNSO
White Rhinoceros: PNSO

I still haven't found an available or acceptable Black Rhino in that scale.

From Cape Buffalo and smaller, the choices are becoming more numerous - until we get down to honeybadger or very small antelope size where we have a problem again because the vast majority of models are bigger than 1:15.

I have already made a list of about 100 African animals with maximum and minimum sizes that the models should have in order to conform to the 1:15 scale. I'll post it at a later time. Some of them are of course very unlikely to ever hit the shelves (Dik-dik, duiker, oribi, reedbuck, klipspringer, steenbok etc). They would have to be custom-made and I'm not going there (at least not yet). BTW, steenbok and common duiker are commonly seen in some parks like Kruger, so it seems that they would have been produced by at least one company...

I also can't help thinking about whether in 10 or so years the 3D-printing will have evolved so much that anybody will be able to print at home whatever model they like - already painted, too and very cheaply. I hope that this doesn't happen that soon now that I have started my collection

It sounds like you have already done a lot of research. Yes, I was thinking that the larger species may be difficult to find in 1:15 scale, but you have already found a few.

Speaking of 3D printing, Mininature has made quite a few African animals: [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. They are unpainted.

About 10 years ago or so (perhaps more), many people thought that in 10 years time, everybody would have a 3D printer at home, but it hasn't happened yet. Printing 3D in colour seems to be difficult (or very costly) even for larger companies. I am hoping that the technology starts developing faster and that there will someone like Mininature who is going to make printable animal models in colour.

micmic wrote:

Thanks for the replies, the topics you linked are treasure groves of useful information!

As I see it, the main difficulty with the 1:15 scale is the "Big-5" (not the well-known Big-5 ). They are also the most expensive. So far I think I have found which ones I should get for 4 out of the 5:

Bush Elephant: Kaiyodo Mega Sofubi
Giraffe: Safari Ltd Vanishing Wildlife
Hippopotamus: PNSO
White Rhinoceros: PNSO

I still haven't found an available or acceptable Black Rhino in that scale.

From Cape Buffalo and smaller, the choices are becoming more numerous - until we get down to honeybadger or very small antelope size where we have a problem again because the vast majority of models are bigger than 1:15.

I have already made a list of about 100 African animals with maximum and minimum sizes that the models should have in order to conform to the 1:15 scale. I'll post it at a later time. Some of them are of course very unlikely to ever hit the shelves (Dik-dik, duiker, oribi, reedbuck, klipspringer, steenbok etc). They would have to be custom-made and I'm not going there (at least not yet). BTW, steenbok and common duiker are commonly seen in some parks like Kruger, so it seems that they would have been produced by at least one company...

I also can't help thinking about whether in 10 or so years the 3D-printing will have evolved so much that anybody will be able to print at home whatever model they like - already painted, too and very cheaply. I hope that this doesn't happen that soon now that I have started my collection

I'm affraid you won't find 1/15 Cape buffaloes easily, Papo, Mojo and Schleich are around 1/20 or 1/22 and Safari Ltd is 1/18,5 and 1/21,8.

If you want cheaper options for White rhino and Hippopotamus, The Safari LTd Wildlife Wonders can be within 1/15.

For the lion and lioness I would try the Safari Ltd Wlidlife ones.

Common duikers and Steenbocks are still unknown in the Toy world alas.

rogerpgvg wrote:

It sounds like you have already done a lot of research. Yes, I was thinking that the larger species may be difficult to find in 1:15 scale, but you have already found a few.

Kikimalou wrote:

I'm affraid you won't find 1/15 Cape buffaloes easily, Papo, Mojo and Schleich are around 1/20 or 1/22 and  Safari Ltd is 1/18,5 and 1/21,8.

If you want cheaper options for White rhino and Hippopotamus, The Safari LTd Wildlife Wonders can be within 1/15.

The problem I have with these larger species is that even though on paper they could all be 1:15 (if we take into account the normal adult size variations of each species), in practice they might not look too harmonious together. For example I have seen pictures of the Kaiyodo elephant next to the PNSO hippo and rhino and they look fine. But the biggest giraffe ever (the Safari Ltd Vanishing Wildlife), even though it could be 1:15 according to its dimensions, is only about 3cm taller than the Kaiyodo elephant and I don't imagine it would look proportionate to it. And if I choose a smaller elephant (like the Vanishing Wildlife one), then I think it might look relatively small compared to the PNSO (or Wildlife Wonders) rhino and hippo. So I'm looking for a combination of Giraffe/Elephant/White Rhino/Hippo that look good together and I'm not sure I have found that.

For the Cape Buffalo and the Black Rhino, I suppose I could just wait and hope.

The problem is that among the current toys, the probability of carrying out your project is 0. I collect a lot by scale and I would have to put together all the African savannah animals from scales 1/12 to 1/22 to have an acceptable small collection.
If you can afford to buy models like the Kaiyodo Elephant and the two PNSOs, and as your project is limited to the African savannah, I would advise you to check out Mininature and Divartsity.

Welcome here, sounds interesting

Kikimalou wrote:

The problem is that among the current toys, the probability of carrying out your project is 0. I collect a lot by scale and I would have to put together all the African savannah animals from scales 1/12 to 1/22 to have an acceptable small collection.
If you can afford to buy models like the Kaiyodo Elephant and the two PNSOs, and as your project is limited to the African savannah, I would advise you to check out Mininature and Divartsity.

I'm not in a hurry. I might start with a few iconic animals and then add to them as I go. I don't mind if it takes many years. But I'd like to start with the big 4 I already mentioned (Elephant, Rhino, Hippo, Giraffe) and I don't know if I can find all four in satisfying proportions. It appears that I can get a giraffe and an elephant but then the available hippos and rhinos would be too big. Or I could get an elephant, a rhino and a hippo with matching proportions but then there would be no big enough giraffe.

That Divartsity site has some amazing models.

widukind wrote:

Welcome here, sounds interesting

Thanks!

If you don't mind waiting you're a real collector. When someone wants just to build a diorama with some animals at a glance, it is not collecting but just a specific project.
Maybe you can start just with those who provide you a satisfactory sense of scale adding new models as long as you find them or they're released. I don't know a realistic 1:15 Cape buffalo, for instance, but I don't dare to say it does not exist. I'm quite surprised with the amount of different models Roger has been finding for his 1:32 scale collection.
By the way, a Cape buffalo at 1:15 scale is something Safari could introduce for their Wildlife Wonders series. I also think brands are not always sleeping, if a certain scale gets popular and is heavily debated on social media, websites, foruns or so, it might motivate the companies to use that particular scale for a bigger number of models.

Roger wrote:

If you don't mind waiting you're a real collector. When someone wants just to build a diorama with some animals at a glance, it is not collecting but just a specific project.
Maybe you can start just with those who provide you a satisfactory sense of scale adding new models as long as you find them or they're released. I don't know a realistic 1:15 Cape buffalo, for instance, but I don't dare to say it does not exist. I'm quite surprised with the amount of different models Roger has been finding for his 1:32 scale collection.
By the way, a Cape buffalo at 1:15 scale is something Safari could introduce for their Wildlife Wonders series. I also think brands are not always sleeping, if a certain scale gets popular and is heavily debated on social media, websites, foruns or so, it might motivate the companies to use that particular scale for a bigger number of models.

I'd rather not specify whether I'm a collector or not; I've certainly been a collector in other categories in the past and I was kind of obsessive and completist. I think I have a different mindset now.

It's interesting that I seem to have found a cape buffalo that's relatively cheap for its size and even larger that what I'm looking for. It's a hollow figure but if the dimensions are correct, this is an 1:9 cape buffalo and at least from the pictures it looks rather decent. I suppose it's a enlarged copy from one of the known manufacturers: Cape Buffalo. Of course I'm not going to be buying such a large animal but it gives me hope that rather big buffaloes and giraffes can emerge in the future.

The other option would of course be to scale down and focus on the 1:20. But then I'd probably have to forgo a lot of the smaller animals (maybe even more difficult to find that small meercats, fennecs, dik-diks, honeybadgers etc than it is to find a huge giraffe).

So I have bought about 20 African animals that I thought might fit the 1:15 scale if we take into account the extremes of the normal size range for each species. Not all of them do, as I found out when I received them and made more accurated measurements. What confounds the situation even more is that some figures are eg 1:16 according to the average species length,  but are eg 1:12 according to the average species height. So for example, the Collecta Springbok looks too small compared to the Papo Impala even though by some metrics they could both conform to the 1:15 scale.

In the same way, I realized that the PNSO hippo and rhino (which I don't have yet) might fit the 1:15 scale by length, but if we look at their height they are certainly 1:12. The same for the Kaiyodo Mega Sofubi Elephant.

Things get complicated   I might have to buy in various scales from 1:12 to 1:18 and see what goes well together when I put them side by side.

BTW, does anyone know of a reliable seller for that Kaiyodo Elephant ?

Yes, things can get complicated. Ultimately, only you as the collector can decide whether you are happy with the scale of a model. I normally go with shoulder height, as I find that most representative for the scale of an animal, but if I can't measure it or don't have good information about it, then I go for head+body length. Forum member Brettnj offers a very good service for buying Japanese models.

You have no choice. There's a lot of factors contributing to different results when calculating scale.
Sometimes even the measurements of the real animal.
If I'm not wrong, hippos stop growing in height but their length continues growing with age. Well, I don't think they turn into sausages anyway but it shows that you always have to adopt a system where some tolerance is needed. I have figures about the same size with hooves twice as wide as the other similar sized model. There's much about interpretation in each design. Also, some animals have very different proportions height/length depending of age and gender. Stoat males and females have radically different proportions, for instance. Well, there's no stoats in Africa but that's just an example. After a certain number of figures, you can even stop measuring. If you know a certain animal is close in size to another you already have, you just need to check if they look nice together.

So this is where we are at now. The hippo is still in the box. I'll also get the PNSO rhino and then I see few options for African animals that are in the 1:12 to 1:15 scale. As expected, everything looks rather small compared to the elephant and the hippo, but I'd rather focus on the elephant's scale. I'll buy other African animals too as long as they're no smaller than 1:18-1:20 and I don't already have them or are better looking than the ones I have.

Even bigger is the problem with the small animals, eg I can't seem to find ratels or civets small enough. The meerkat in front of the elephant's leg looks just right though.

Then there are those that I don't like enough any of the models I have seen, eg Gorilla or Ostrich.

The giraffe looks somewhat small too, but I don't think I can find a bigger one.

Now the thing I'd like most is a big enough cape buffalo but I can't find any that will match the elephant/hippo/rhino scale.

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

Great combination and arrangement
Would please upload a photo with elephant, rhino and hippo? I didn't realize their size in comparison

molla.nasreddin wrote:

Great combination and arrangement
Would please upload a photo with elephant, rhino and hippo? I didn't realize their size in comparison

The arrangement is just temporary; throwing everything into a cabinet until I'm satisfied with the variety and the relative scales so that I can make a diorama or something.

Will upload a photo of elephant, hippo and rhino as soon as the rhino arrives.

Nice african animal figures

Great bunch, all high quality models. The elephant indeed looks very large. What is its shoulder height?

rogerpgvg wrote:

Great bunch, all high quality models. The elephant indeed looks very large. What is its shoulder height?

26cm at the shoulder blade, which would make it 1:14.

Many websites (copied from Wikipedia) say that African elephants can reach up to 4 metres, but when you look at research articles, then it becomes clear that such large elephants are exceptionally rare or (I believe) don't exist. Adult males can be up to 350 cm, but more common for a sizeable male would be 320 cm. Some of the research is mentioned [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I had an extensive discussion with Kikimalou about the size of elephants a while ago, but I can't find this discussion.

But never mind its scale, the Kaiyodo is a fantastic elephant model!

rogerpgvg wrote:

Many websites (copied from Wikipedia) say that African elephants can reach up to 4 metres, but when you look at research articles, then it becomes clear that such large elephants are exceptionally rare or (I believe) don't exist. Adult males can be up to 350 cm, but more common for a sizeable male would be 320 cm. Some of the research is mentioned [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I had an extensive discussion with Kikimalou about the size of elephants a while ago, but I can't find this discussion.

Well said. I checked my "Safari Companion" by Richard Estes which indeed mentions 3-3.30m for male Loxodonta Africana Africana. On the other hand, the "Kingdon's Field Guide to African Mammals" says 3-4m. But you are right, the lower end of that range is much more believable. I went with a shoulder height of 3.60m when I mentioned that the model is 1:14, but if we go with the much more probable 3.20m then it's closer to 1:12. And of course this makes it even more difficult to find enough other animals to match that scale.

Yes, collecting to scale can be a challenge. Especially the smaller animals are hard to find, as you mention. But you have done very well finding so many high quality models at your scale. Have you had a look at toob figures to see whether any match your scale?

Your giraffe may be fine for size. I have found it difficult to find good information from original sources about giraffe sizes, but Reventlow (1949) reports that a female reticulated giraffe, which had stopped growing, was 4 m at 6.5 years old.

rogerpgvg wrote:

Yes, collecting to scale can be a challenge. Especially the smaller animals are hard to find, as you mention. But you have done very well finding so many high quality models at your scale. Have you had a look at toob figures to see whether any match your scale?

Your giraffe may be fine for size. I have found it difficult to find good information from original sources about giraffe sizes, but Reventlow (1949) reports that a female reticulated giraffe, which had stopped growing, was 4 m at 6.5 years old.

I did take a cursory look at the Toobs but didn't find anything of interest. The fenec fox and the meerkat come from Good Luck Minis.

I still find it strange that with so many companies and so many models there still hasn't been a series of African animals with matching scales. Heck, they don't even follow scale where it would be very easy to, eg why make an eland the same size as an impala ?