Safari Ltd. 2018 Alien Dragon, Leviathan and Anzu Wyliei Review:
I have been a fan of Safari Ltd.'s offerings for many, many years and eagerly look forward to new reveals each year. This year, there were only really 3 items that jumped out at me as being "must haves" so I ordered them from Amazon last week.
Safari Ltd. crafts their unarticulated figurines out of a dense, heavy vinyl making figures that can stand up to rough play from younger kids but at the same time make for great collectibles for older kids and adults that are kids at heart. The sculpts vary from figurine to figurine from extremely crisp to somewhat softer, rounded detailing. The paint varies widely from figurine to figurine as they are hand painted so I prefer to look over multiple examples of each figurine in the store to pick the one with the best paint work, sadly, none of the usual brick and mortar outlets have carried any new figurines since 2016 and ordering online doesn't allow for this so you are at the mercy of the employee pulling them out of the master cartons. I got pretty lucky as both the Alien Dragon and Anzu Wyliei have really nice paint apps. The Leviathan is a little sloppy but I can fix that myself.
The figurines themselves are quite striking. The Alien Dragon mixes a traditional fairy tale monster with something like H.R. Giger's Xenomorph to create a truly unique new creature. Its 6 limbs and the mandibles surrounding the mouth further enhance its otherworldlyness. The icy blue hues used on the figure are quite nice and different from the reds, greens and browns usually associated with dragons.
The Leviathan is Safari Ltd's take on the mythical Biblical beast of the same name (similar to last years "Behemoth" figurine). As the Leviathan is never really described in the Bible beyond being a massive sea creature, Safari Ltd. went wild with its design. The body is long and serpentine like a classic "Here there be monsters" sea monster but it has arms with webbed fingers and a beaked head full of tentacles and 4 eyes! The design is mythical and alien all at once. The colors really pop with a bright lime green on the webbed areas and metallics for the main body. As stated above, the paint on this one is alittle sloppy so I will have to fix it sometime in the near future.
The Anzu Whliei is a new (to me anyway) dinosaur resembling a skinny Oviraptor-type theropod covered in feathers like a modern quail. This is one of the crisper sculpts from the 2018 offerings with great textures across the entire figure ranging from scales to feathers to a sharp looking beak. The colors are just amazing with a rich dark green covering the majority of the figure's surface and several secondary colors to bring it to life.
The only real downside to Safari Ltd.'s product aside from the lack of articulation is the price. They are fairly expensive for their size. The small Anzu Whyliei was $11.74 on Amazon (slightly cheaper than buying direct from Safari Ltd.) while the larger figurines were between $17 and $21 (also cheaper than ordering direct). They are fairly heavy and well constructed, but still expensive for what they are so I am actually glad that there were only 3 figurines I wanted from them this year.
I am a little disappointed that I had to buy these as Safari Ltd. had reached out to me back in December or January about sending me review samples of their 2018 line. I replied and filled out all of the necessary paperwork to become a reviewer for them but they never sent me anything. Maybe next year...
