Safari 'Toob' on the left and the K&M
'Wild Republic' header-card/bagged
set on the right, the latter is the smaller offering, and may be the less
expensive as a result, while the Safari's
contents' are more expansive, the figures are almost the same.
I tell a lie actually; Peter sent the
bagged K&M set along with the two
pyramids from a larger Wild Republic
tub/bucket play-set (which we looked at here) which also has palm trees and the like, while I quickly sent off for the
Safari set from that there Amazon dot com, to do a comparison. And interestingly, the Egyptian set was cheaper than
some of the other sets they do.
These are the Safari sculpts less the two in the next pic' and you can see they
are aimed at museum gift shops and sort of 'middle school' learners (as opposed
to early learning if you know what I mean); gods, grave-goods and other common
tropes, which can be dissected in a
school project!
Gold plastic and muted colours would
benefit from a heavy weathering with sand washes and dry-brushing, to make them
more realistic as war-game scenery?
The small sphinx is lovely; here scaled
with Atlantic 1:72-scle figures, but
the 'Great' pyramids of Giza trio are somewhat of a disappointment! They have
both been given a sand dry-brush in the factory and take the toob's
content-count to 12 items.
The Wild
Republic set is one of several they have in their itenery at the momenet, a
large bucket and a set of ten items closer to Safari's being the notable others. This set has 8 pieces making
seven items (Maat's wings are glued-on, but came loose with my sample), and the
subjects are similar to the Safari
set, with several 'duplicate' sculpts.
Also similar is the shade of polymer used. but
over-paint colours are brighter and limited to one per figure, and not all sculpts.
All together; the similarities between some
of the gods mean that a modeller/scratch builder or converter/painter could
easily produce eight different gods from the line up and together they make a
nice addition to the collection.
Safari - Toyway - K&M comparison, not much in it, and
the Toyway gets an inch on the others
only by dint of having a deeper base! The Wild
Republic set are slightly simpler or 2D sculpts and Toyway went with a more traditional, multi-colour paint job, but
all three sets post-date the 'golden age' of toy soldiers, so it's fitting that
they match each-other as well as they do
The seven standing deity poses from
behind/the other side. I guess the K&M's
are slightly smaller overall.
Rack-toys, out there now, with the additional
toob set from Wild Republic to be
found - which does include a proper 'mummy'.
Great fun- Yes, that is a copy of the famous Nefertiti bust (now in Germany, which annoys the Egyptians). The death mask is that of Tutankhamun, he's the only one to have both a cobra and vulture head on his brow.Witohut a hieroglyph or symbol on her head, the winged figure could be any number of goddesses, including Isis (Maat has an ostrich feather glyph on her head). (I know, Ancient Egyptian pedantry!).
ReplyDeleteHi Andy . . . not pedantry; all useful stuff! I did wonder about Isis, but thought to mention the lesser-known Maat as she seems to be commonly shown with wings, while Isis is more commonly depicted without them . . . likewise there are several hawk-heads, I went with the commonest . . . and you do need to know the significance of every part of the headdress, clothing and the items they are holding . . . I don't! Also two can be used simply as a Pharaoh (K&M Osiris) and his queen (Safari's Isis).
ReplyDeleteH