Well this is the 2nd kit that I have gotten that Steve has designed (this is his 3rd release)
This one was done with Matt Manit of Little Monsters Presents.
They teamed up to form Primeval Plastics.
I hope they keep working together for a long time. As much as I loved the protoceratops, this one surpasses it in several ways. While the subject itself isn't really up my alley, and it doesn't have the moveable joints like the proto, it captures the PS feel even more.

Now that I have teased you a little, lets get on with the review and you can decide for yourself.
Or, you can jump down to the bottom for my summary.
(but not before a quick word on photographing purple parts. Aaaaaagh!
You will notice that most of the pics, the purple will look more pinkish than purple.

On the left you can see the actual color. On the right you can see what it looks like in most of the pics

The main reason for the problem was lighting. I tried all the background colors I had handy.
The gray sucked up too much of the light and left things too dark to see.
The white caused a glare and washed out the detail.
That only left my blue which caused the purple to look pink.

Here is the box, that arrived inside a priority box with plenty of peanuts.
(hey, got to give props to good shipping habits also)

The kit is 15 pieces.
And as you can see, they are well packed.
Many baggies to make sure nothing gets lost or banged around.

Well, let's start with the tree.
The trunk is 2 pieces. That fit nicely, both with each other and the base.
Then below you can see both sides of the leaf cluster.
Obviously drawing from the jungle swamp, but with a little something more to it.

So the tree is nicely detailed and has that familiar PS feel while still remaing very 'real' looking.
Nice to see so much attention paid to what is realistically an incidental piece.

On to the base.
2 pieces

A very adiquate base that has a lot of nice detail that you don't notice until you look.
Nice texture, little plants, rocks, the nest of course.

Then the part that really blew me away.
Look at the picture below, with this butted up to the armored dino base.
The texture and details line up exaxtly with it!
I was amazed and had to call my daughter down from her room to come check it out.
Really SWEET attention to detail.

Now for the right 'standing leg'

Yeah, I took a bunch more pics of this leg.
But I wanted you to see all the sweet detail on it, and it was easier to show on this leg than the left one. Also this one has the plant-type stuff under the foot that I wanted to get shots of from a few different sides.

Sorry, only one pic of the tail. All the others came out blurry.
But you can see the textures. It too is keyed to fit to the body easily.

The head is small, so kind of hard to get a good detailed shot.
Hopefully you can make out all the fun stuff going on.
Pupils in the eyes. Tongue and other mouth details.
The feirce, yet not to menacing facial expression (which really screams PS to me. You can make it look like it has a goofy grin, or like it is about to rip your head off)

The nameplate and egg are cleanly cast as well.

Now on to the main piece!
The body.



Nice flowing form. Great skin details, and nice muscle structure.
Notice how it is designed to help hide the seams where the arms and legs connect.

Here is the instruction sheet that came with mine.
The new one that looks like an actual 1972 Aurora instruction isn't quite done yet.
I will be getting one of those when they are ready.

Ok, I have gushed enough. I have told you all the great stuff about this kit.
Now for the other side of the coin. The drawbacks.
Not a whole lot to say against it, but here are a few minor quibbles.

The first thing I noticed, was that the keys are a bit long. On both the arms and the legs.
They need to be trimmed a little.
Not a huge issue and easily taken care of, but I thought is should be mentioned.

The tree. When putting the 2 pieces of the trunk together,
it appears the texture only lines up when you have it lined up one specific way.
Not a big deal, but the key is a round pin, so it doesn't help you line up that texture at all.
Again, minor, but worth noting.

As far as casting issues go, this is very minor.
I packed the void with aves epoxy paste and it is all fixed up.
There was no loss of detail at all, because that skin of resin was still intact.

But for those PS fanatics who might not be familiar with resin, I thought it was worth pointing out that there can be issues occasionally with castings. I have no doubt that if was anyting that was a real issue (lost detail, incomplete part, etc) an email or phone call to Matt and there would have been a replacement part to me in the mail in no time.

And for those who are curious about how something like this happens,
I think I have an explanation.
Sometimes when parts are cast, you end up with an air bubble trapped in the resin, or you just come up a little short on your resin and don't have enough in the mold to fill the part completely.
The reason this had the skin on it though is because Matt's caster probably uses a technique that almost all the good caster use.
They pour a little resin in the mold, and slosh it round to make sure to fill all the details.
Then they pour the rest of the resin to fill the mold.
This method ensures that you don't end up with bubbles or voids in the details of the cast.
Especially with complex shapes, undercuts, or lots of angles.
As air can get trapped with no way for it to get out.
Using the slosh method usually all but eliminates that problem.
As can be seen with this peice.

And now with instruction sheet!