Review and photos by Hubert, edited by DinoToyBlog
Hello! Plenty of people who are passionate about dinosaurs today likely started being so early in their lives. The toy producers at Wing Crown are surely aware of that phenomenon. Their attempts to appeal to the young has resulted in the creation of dinosaur depictions so anthropomorphised, goofy and friendly looking, that a child who understands the concept of food chains might experience cognitive dissonance trying to play with these toys. I certainly did when I was a kid – I wasn’t sure whether these silly looking fellas would ever get into a conflict outside the realm of dollhouse drama scenarios.
One day, after some unspecified number of attempts playing with these dinosaurs in a more naturalistic fashion, I finally put them aside, and subsequently played only with the more realistic figures. I’ve since grown up and lost my naivety and innocence, but somehow I didn’t lose these odd looking dinos. I always thought these were too charming to get rid of, even if I didn’t make use of them anymore. Recently, I was surprised to rediscover them in my grandma’s attic, where my unwillingness to let go must have brought them. My first thought was to sell them, giving into the more constructive mindset of a dinosaur collector who avoids storing figures that aren’t really in his taste or interest anymore, even if some archivist in me wants to keep a mostly complete unique set of these uniquely styled dinosaurs that really belong together and nowhere else. Before selling them though, after a quick attempt to ID them, I saw that none of these toys have been reviewed on the Dionsaur Toy Blog yet. So, I decided to add my entries, since I still think these are unique figures that are worthy of recognition as an interesting line of cartoony but fun versions of well-known species. Better than Funko pops, right?
Wing Crown makes it easy for anybody curious about their range of toys because they’ve got their series itemised on their website: https://www.wingcrown.com/ . The ones I had collected are found in the tab appropriately named “Cartoon serial” (presumably they mean “series”), alongside other sets of similarly cartoonized animals, with characteristic frog-like googly eyes, and all-important wide smiles. They also mass produce plenty of more realistic dinosaur figures, some of which I’m sure had been a part of your Chinasaur collection at one point. I am not sure about the state of current production of the ones I’m reviewing here, but the line doesn’t seem to be retired. If you Google search you still can see their different variants sold brand new around the world, and their newer versions regularly pop up on second hand dino listings too, so they probably are still around being sold somewhere.
I originally compiled this review to cover an entire set of these cartoony dinosaurs – the [7 inch dinosaurs’ – and to provide a general overview of some of the other sets. However, in the end, the article grew so long it made more sense to split it up into separate reviews. So, this article will provide the background and context for the company as a whole, and focus in detail on one of the figures. But expect more reviews, and overviews, of the other Wing Crown models in the future…
The set I’m focussing on contains six dinosaurs that also appear in a couple other sets, where their sculpt differ insignificantly and the material will be a softer type of rubber, while this bunch is made from one comparatively hard and dense material. On the website they are described simply as “7 inch dinosaurs”, and are probably the main set with the most detail and paint application, even if it is prone to scratching (as you’ll be able to see). My models got a little worn over the years, while the softer ones I have don’t really suffer from it. They are indeed each around length of 7 inches/17 centimeters, and the tallest ones are about 5,5 inches/13 centimeters high. All are marked with the year 2007, so I believe that’s when the production began.
So, getting to the first of the actual figure reviews, the first one is going to be the Brachiosaurus.
It has an uplifting color scheme of bright yellow, with lime spots and stripes going along its spine, and a darker tone of bluish green under the belly. Very fresh and citrusy overall, this toy could easily go missing in your fruit bowl. As you can see it is a very stylized interpretation, and it looks like a generic sauropod. So, I can’t really call it a good depiction of the literal “arm-lizard”, since its back limbs are taller and way more muscular than the front limbs, and it is way taller and thicker at its hips. The neck is nicely curved and held up high as you would expect for this species, ending with a peanut shaped head and a cute face of innocent expression.
The upper body’s surface is covered in relatively large scales, so even on the head where they’re smaller they still look like armor plates laid on the skin. For the person playing around with the toy, the texture is really nice in touch, just to slide your fingers around and feel all the different scales. This will also be the case for some of the other species coming up.
All of these figures are hollow inside. Theoretically they are squishable with enough force due to the air holes on their bottom sides, but the material is hard so it takes a lot of strength to do that kind of action, especially for a little kid. I am reminded of that hollowness each time I put them out of the box and on the table, and they will still squirt out water from back when I cleaned them a couple months ago. On their undersides is a Wing Crown logo, 2007 Copyright, and the name of the dinosaur, which certainly did help in this case!
Thank you for reading. This was my first review, so I hope it was an alright experience, and I hope you found the dino toys I wanted to share interesting. In my next review we’ll take a detailed look at another model in the “7 inch dinosaurs” line, and briefly explore some of the other size ranges in the Wing Crown/Gosnell line. Bye for now!
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