Continuing on with my “Savannah Summer”, when on safari, you want to see the largest species a country have to offer. And when it comes to Africa, there is no larger than the largest land animal on earth, the African bush elephant (Loxodonta africana). These powerful proboscidians populate a large section of Africa, though their numbers are in decline as a result of poaching for ivory made from their tusks. There have been a lot of models of these magnificent mammals, and here we see a set from Noah’s Pals!
As figures in a 1:24 scale, they are, by far and away, the biggest figures in the Noah’s Pals line (though not the tallest, that goes to the giraffes). As a result, to prevent it being too heavy and costing too much to put out, they are hollow, thus making them lighter. This isn’t too bad, but you can tell by the seams where certain parts are attached, the tails and trunks specifically.
Onto the elephants themselves!! First we have Elliot, the bull male, who is trumpeting gloriously as it moves forward, or possibly reaching for food. The sculpting is good, though I feel the head is a little under detailed and the pink trunk underside isn’t quite right, but otherwise ok. It is very large, measuring 7″ high and 9.2″ long, so pretty sizeable.
Next to the female, or cow, Ellen. She is flapping her ears and twisting her trunk, possibly for threat or just trying to cool off as she goes for food, depending on your opinion. She is, much like Elliot, fairly well detailed, aside from the eyes, which I feel could be better done, with less pink on the trunk. She is pretty large, like Elliot, measuring 4.9″ high and 7.1″ long, so again, decent size.
This is a pretty nice set, though the head could be a bit better. It may be the fact these are hollow figures or the age of the figures, but it doesn’t really work well as more modern figures. It’s not terrible and could be worth picking up, especially if you like keeping things in the same scale. These are part of the “vulnerable” part of the line, so there are only 20,000 sets of these elephants, but it does seem to be more present on places like eBay than the others. if you like it, do get it, it is worth while, but more modern lines have made better models.
Nice to finally see a review of adult African bush elephants. Surprised that no one has yet tackled any of the ones from CollectA, Papo, Safari, or Schleich.
[…] are rarely done or look interesting. Noah’s pals has been a good example of this. It does have a few classic species as models, but they have had a few unique and interesting models. Here we see one […]