T is for Toy Fair 2018 Reports - Terra by Battat

Well, less than seven days to the next Toy Fair, I thought I'd better clear the decks of the remains of last year's! This is actually a combination of the Toys Fair shots, some catalogue-scans and the last of the shelfies Brian B sent some time before the Toy Fair, most of which have already been included in other posts.

Starting with the dinosaurs, these are quite exquisite with really nice colouring, it's funny; not only are Battat trying to break into a Schleich/Papo duopoly (the triumvirate [tripartite?] surrendered to them by Britians a while ago now), but when you look at some of the cheapie-toy dinosaurs these days - they've all raised their game, both in sculpting and the realism of the decoration, as referenced by modern/extant snakes and tropical birds - each of which is a good starting point.

However back to Battat these are all ten sculpts in the catalogue a year ago and while covering all the common or 'headline' types, there are one or two less obvious species in the line.

On the left the dinosaurs, on the right the mini-animal tubs, along with the counter display unit (CDU) for larger farm animals, apparently 2-each of the larger animals and 1-each of the smaller, there's less adherence to scale here, especially the sheep and pig.

Those mini-animal tubs; they seem to be aimed at the party-circuit/market, with not just duplicates but multiples of every sculpt? You feel that one-of-each of pairs in smaller headed-carded bags. Also they are a bit 'bright' and you wonder if they are either bought-in or simply made with less love, for a budget end-price! Note that the 'Reptiles' also contains amphibians.

Close-ups from Mr Berke of the Wild Animals (in the catalogue but not on show last year) and the REP-TILES [with amphibians], at 60 pieces it's obvious that there may be as many as 5 or 6 of each animal in the tub - a likely minimum of 5? Which will make it easy to collect these when they start appearing in Charity shops, but will also mean the duplicates will be near-impossible to off-load (if you're a dealer) other than by gifting to younger relative!

Also from Brian we have two of the 'family' group sets; lions and gorillas, the later look quite nice, but the former are not so hot, there's a slight simplicity or naivety to the sculpts, the lioness particularly looks slightly cartoonish and while manes are never easy, this one is poorer than most.

There's cats . . . and a cat tree! But again there's a bit of a mix, the rabbit set looks very good, bt I'd walk straight-past the dog firehouse, not only does in look a bit daft (do people actually have shit like that for their dogs?) but again the animals are a bit cartoony, although the lioness looks better in this sample!

Also it's nice to see separate sculpts for Brown and Polar bear families, instead of a paint change. Zebra's are poor, but so are just-about all model zebras - against the real thing, which has a subtly all model-animal companies seem to struggle-with, not the shape; they mostly get the shape, but the markings . . . oh dear!

CDU for the larger animals contains some new sculpts and some of the 'adults' from the family-group boxed-sets. The cheetah has lovely markings but the under-colouring is a bit limp, while the midge-collecting bird on the back of the water-buffalo is a nice touch.

I hope the liner has a hole in it for the giraffe, but how do you stack multiples in a warehouse?!!!