Creative Beast Studio - Beasts of the Mesozoic Raptor series

Omg dinosaurs.

So, okay... back when I was like, 7, I was OBSESSED with paleontology, it was my JAM man. Anyone who asked me what I wanted to be, I wanted to dig up dinosaur bones man! it was so cool.

I had, no joke, the largest collection of dinosaur toys of any kid at my school and regularly brought them in for show and tell.
One time, my mother, who was an estate agent sold a house to a guy who was a real life paleontologist who agreed to meet me. He gave me fossils! For years my most prized possession was a fossilised tree stump roughly the size of my own head.

And of course, as most kids who love dinos do, I had a favourite dinosaur which I suspect is partially if not completely the fault of Jurrassic park. Velociraptors.
Let's face it, they're awesome. Small, fast, smart and stabby.
And as we now know, feathery too! Like angry buzzards.

Of course the toy market, and indeed movies, seem reluctant to actually embrace this current scientific understanding and the general public seem to freak out at the idea of "birds being scary" and it's like guys? have you never tried to have a picnic near geese? have you never been chased across a park by a very angry swan? have you SEEN emus?!
People who say birds aren't scary are idiots, birds are terrifying. Birds with TEETH are even scarier.

He's gonna eat your fucking FACE!

Anyone who claims feathers make dinosaurs less scary is a fool, and I bet would change their mind once one started chewing on them.

 Anyway, the scarcity of scientifically accurate dinosaurs, particularly raptors, in the marketplace was something that mattered to people, not just me. And so that's where Creative Beast comes in. Over 2 years ago they started a crowdfunding page for just that, feathery raptors at 1/6 scale.
Of course they absolutely SMASHED their goal and since then have been tinkering away trying to get out the perfect product.
It's taken a while, but they FINALLY arrived and omg i'm so excited.




Now, Creative Beast Studios is in the US, so I was really hoping the UK would get a stockist just to avoid horrible customs fees. As it happened, one company did get these in. Everything Dinosaur https://www.everythingdinosaur.com/ who sell well... everything dinosaur obviously

Seriously, from tea cosies to toys to kitchenware, if there's a product with dinos on, they're gonna get it. it's awesome.

I'd budgeted for having to import and pay customs fees, so when the price lists were finally compiled I found that I actually had enough to order not only the two full sized dinosaurs I wanted, but a set of hatchlings as well (eee babies!)

They come in spectacular boxes with gorgeous artwork on the sleeve. Look at that majestic Dromaeosaur!  They are beautiful and they KNOW.

All the raptors in this set were based off of real life bird patternings because it's fun. I chose this one because I think the kestral patterning is freaking gorgeous.

The "fans choice" indicates that this one is a colourway variant that was voted for by fans and backers.

The back of this box shows the four fan choice colours. Pyroraptor tempted me too, but I had to be strong. I only had the budget for these ones, not ALL of them lol.

There's also a little info on the back of the sleeve telling you about the specific dinosaur. A nice little fact sheet.

Everything Dinosaur also sent a4 printed fact sheets they did themselves to tell you a little more, which was cute.

The colourful sleeve slides off to reveal the full packaging.
These raptors are packaged with their tail detatched to save on space, those tails are LONG so they'd double the length of the box if they were shipped attached to the body.

They also come with a second set of feet with closed toes for more action poses. (these are Velociraptor's feet showing open toes and closed variations.)

Under the sleeve on the back of the box are the instructions.

And the side of the box has a lovely piece of artwork on as well.
I love these images, they're gorgeous.

The backing sleeve is an image of the dinosaur's environment. In this case the lovely mountains and forests of Canada where the fossils were found.

The whole thing is very easy to press out of the plastic tray and the tail pops onto a ball socket very easily.

the whole tail is bendy, so you can pose it in loads of ways.

Even the little sickle claws are jointed!

They come with a stand and a base, though in this particular figure's case, the little clip you're supposed to put around the crotch area is too narrow for ol' pudgy butt's well.. pudgy gut. I couldn't not matter how I tried, figure out how to get it to clip on, it seemed to be too small.

The stand also comes with a larger U shaped clip but I don't know what that's for, the instructions don't say.

As it stands though, just propping ol' chunker here against the prop of the stand itself seems to help it stand up.

These figures are rather top heavy and their hyper articulated feet, while awesome, make them a little too unstable to stand unsupported. They sort of NEED a stand or else they just collapse.
But i'm yet to find anything shaped like this that doesn't just fall on its face without a stand. Scale models aren't like actual real animals, they don't have muscles to support them and distribute their weight and center of gravity.

The figures have 26 points of articulation apparently, including jaw and TONGUE, they have a jointed TONGUE!

It's pretty fiddly, but you can lay the tongue flat in the jaw or raise it up for dynamic roaring poses.

There's also two joints at the neck and though most of the joints don't move much, they combine to give the figure quite a range of dynamic poses.

Certainly these figures are far more realistic and impressive looking than the old Jurrassic park figures.
And no, the JP figure can't stand up either, despite the giant feet.

The extra claws clip into the underside of the base with a teensy little peg, which is clever. Velociraptor's pictured here clip on fairly well, but Dromaeosaur has fat paw-like toes so they're a bit fiddlier to make stick in reliably. 

Their bases are environment specific too, which is a cool touch. Dromaeosaur has grey rocks and green foliage while Velociraptor has well.. sandy looking rock.

The clear plastic prop for the stand is on a ball joint so it can be positioned pretty much however you want.

Velociraptor CAN have their crotch clip attached, which means they're far far more stable on the stand.

I admit, i was pretty impatient to get these open so I failed to get an in box pic of this one... oops.

The backing card is a sort of deserty scene in reds and yellows.

And the artwork on the side is different too, which is a nice touch. Makes them easy to differentiate.

The back of the box shows how many different species are represented by this line. A lovely 12 different species, plus the 4 colourway variants and a kickstarter exclusive blue velociraptor. So that's 17 different raptors to collect!

Velociraptor is rather dubious of the JP "alpha" velociraptor, who's taking far far more liberties in design and has a rather preposterous injury exposing the BONE of the spine (because suuure, you'd survive that and be walking around aok huh?)

Side by side really does emphasise how much artistic license was taken with the JP toys. While the original movie claimed to try to get as accurate as possible to the knowledge AT THE TIME, the raptors in it were never realistic. too large, their snouts too blunted and short. They weren't velociraptors and never will be. In fact they look more like the Dromaeosaur figure (though apparentlythe movie raptors as seen on screen are more close to a Deinonychus in both size and shape)

I find it interesting though, how similar the colour schemes for these are. Many of the old JP dinos are a sort of sickly lizard green or grey, I like the brown and red on this figure which is why I own this one instead of the standard puke coloured ones.

These figures measure approximately 5 inches tall and 12 inches long snout to tail tip and are supposed to be 1/6 scale.

So, a velociraptor was pretty small, like, turkey sized, which for a bird is huge but for a dinosaur? pretty teensy.
Wikipedia claims they were about 1.6 feet tall at the hip (random). Everything Dinosaur says they were about the height of a 6 year old child (which is around 3 foot tall)
All the images online show them as being just under hip height on an average human.

Makie Fizz is 10 inches tall, so a little on the short scale for a 1/6 scale doll. Still, these raptors don't look too vastly out of scale alongside her.
They come up to Barbie's waist.

"My motherfucking soufle is ruined!" - The Bloggess

Their articulation is impressive, especially for something at this scale.
Also impressive is how many unique parts each figure has. They aren't just recolours of one another, they're quite morphologically different. Dromeaosaur has really broad paw-like hands and feet and is substantially stockier than Velociraptor, they also have completely differently shaped skulls.

Dromeaosaurus has feathers down to their toes while Velociraptor has more bird-like feet. Of course, we don't know what they REALLY looked like in terms of feathering and how much was covered and what colour they were, but I like the variety represented here.

Their tails are different too. Dromaeosaurus has a slightly shorter wider tail while Velociraptor's tail is really elongated and has a narrower "plume" at the end.

So pretty.

The nestlings were a bit of a spur of the moment buy, they looked cute.

They come in three colours, these amber ones, black, and white.

The back of the box has cute artwork of the little guys. Lol the one falling over at the front. Funny.

Now I admit, initially I assumed they were just three of the same sculpt, a trio of clones so to speak. Boy was I wrong.

While hatchling 1 and 2 are similar, they are in different poses but then there's hatchling 3 who... I just... what is even going on with this?

Look at this crazy little dude

What is he even doing?

You okay buddy?

He can't straighten his head up, he's stuck looking demented.

I admit initially I was somewhat disappointed by this limitation. The seated position is fine but the strangely twisted head just looks seriously uncomfortable. But the more I look at it, the more it just makes me laugh. I mean, it's bizarre, but this crazy little thing is somewhat endearing in how bizarre he is.

Each of them come with a little base that they can stand on. The base has a ball joint and a tiny little pin that sticks up which fits into their foot. it's a shallow fit and feels a bit... fragile. I was scared I was going to break it.

I also have a factory error on this particular raptor, his extended foot is split, the plastic where they put the hole in the foot for the peg (both feet have a hole) has split the whole foot open. Ouch, looks painful, and like it's going to break if i'm not super careful.
I don't know who I contact about this, Everything Dinosaur or Creative Beast Studio?

Anyway, aside from wonk head, these small raptors have a joint at the jaw and their arms and limited mobility in their hips. They can also move their neck and have a small bit of motion in their torso which for the scale is impressive. But the hips and the way the legs are sculpted means this one particularly is really hard to pose. One leg is extended straight while the other is bent, so there's actually no way I could figure to get him to actually stand totally on the base or to stand without it.

He doesn't actually fit onto the pin on the stand properly, a tiny bit of the pin sticks up out of the foot which doesn't seem right. Surely it should sit flush or be hidden? I don't really know as there's no instructions for how to attach the raptors to their bases so i'm just guessing. 

This little guy is my favourite, nice standard neutral pose. His head can twist a teensy bit, he can open and close his mouth and he can flap his teensy little arms. It's cute.

This one doesn't fit properly onto the peg either though, the hole in the foot is too shallow for the peg.

Hmm.

Given how well done the large sized raptors were, it's disappointing that the hatchlings have so many random issues.

They are really stinking cute though. I'm calling them Hewie, Dewie and Louie and nobody can stop me! bwhahahaha

They're about a third of the size of the adult raptors. Dromaeosaurus looks a bit dubious.

Sweet little family portrait! Whoo.

I am very glad I got these guys though. I've been waiting a few years and while I didn't donate to the kickstarter (I found out about them shortly after it closed), i've been watching the progress and pining.
It's sort of surreal to finally have them in hand, they're MINE at last. After so long spent staring at photos online and lusting, to finally have them in hand is awesome and kinda weird.

The full sized raptors range from £28:99 to £32:99. a bit pricey for a toy but they are quality figures. Certainly you're getting more bang for your buck than buying any of the recent Jurrassic Park offerings.
I definitely recommend the full sized raptors.

They also have scenery packs which come with microraptors and other small dinos like that, and of course the nestlings which are nice if you like to build dioramas but the real majesty and the real highlight is the full size raptors themselves. They are just so beautiful, their paint work is impeccable, their jointing system is impressive and their sculpting is top notch.

A proper dinosaur toy for grown ups who never grew out of their dino phase right? Hah.

I will use these as a rebuttal to anyone who ever dares to say that feathery dinosaurs must have looked silly. Heck no, they look regal and majestic!

Well... except this dude....