Hello everyone! While I’m getting the next review ready, I thought I’d share a bit about this nice new model (fine… toy) I recently purchased with some birthday money! I don’t intend to make a habit of toy reviews, since I don’t want to step on the Dino Toy Blog’s turf, but when I receive something I’m particularly excited about, I’ll post a brief review here.
As the post title suggests, today I’m reviewing the Struthiomimus model by CollectA. (Click the link to see it on Amazon.) Now I’ll state right off the bat, the completionist in me is half the reason I like this toy. I’ve been trying to collect decent representations of all the major dinosaur groups for a while now, and as very few companies appear interested in producing figures of the “ostrich dinosaurs”, I’d resigned myself to likely never having one. But leave it to CollectA and their habit of promoting less well-represented genera! I’m incredibly excited to finally close this “species gap” in my collection.
So, I’d enjoy the figure either way, but how does it stack up to the real thing? The name Struthiomimus means “ostrich mimic”, and when one looks at it’s skinny, gracile form so convincingly conveyed by this model, one can certainly see why it got its name. If not for the long, stiff, bony tail, one might confuse it for a real ostrich! In keeping with recent discoveries, the animal is covered with feathers; possessing simpler, downier feathers on the body, and more complex ones on its arms. The arm feathers are unfortunately the one major drawback of this figure. They look rather tacked-on, and they should really form more of a wing, covering the hands as well, just as with their modern namesake. I would have made the body feathers look a little fluffier as well, but that’s just nitpicking at this point. Speaking of nitpicks, I always try to buy my models roughly in scale with each other, since I like to get a feel for how large this or that species would have looked next to each other. This generally works out to around 1:40 scale or so, and this toy fits perfectly in that general range! I love this figure overall, and I’m happy to add it to my collection!
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, while the model is certainly small and spindly, and I would not let my 3-year-old play with it without supervision, the plastic is nonetheless surprisingly pliable, meaning I don’t have to worry too much about it breaking, at least under gentle play!
Incidentally, if this critter looks somewhat familiar to you, you probably are recalling it’s slightly larger cousin, Gallimimus, specifically its appearance in the stampede scene in the first Jurassic Park movie.
As a very close relative of Struthimimus, Gallimimus should also be covered in feathers, but as Jurassic Park came out in 1993, I suppose we can give it a pass on this one.
That’s all for now! I hope you enjoyed this non-book related post, and we will see you soon as we get back to our normal content with our review of “Boy Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs“!
If you’re interested in other toys like this, check out my reviews of the Battat Dinosaurs 5-Pack, the Safari Ltd. Prehistoric Sharks Toob, and Wild Past Protoceratops.
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