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Amur Goby (Yujin - Freshwater Fishes Series 2, second release)

Started by sbell, July 09, 2015, 02:49:00 AM

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sbell

This walk around is part of my series of the Yujin Freshwater Fish series. Part of this will be repeating this same introductory and concluding info because copy-and-paste is easy, and it keeps things consistent.  So feel free to only read this once (or never...) as well as the stuff at the end. My main motivation is that Yujin does not have many walk arounds on this site, which is a shame because they make some great models. It is also an attempt to flood (!) the site with some fishes, because there simply have not been enough lately. ;)

One other thing--when I give the lengths of the living species, I will be using the length given on the figure's paper for consistency. Some of them seemed off, but they seem close—often better than my original usage of the Fishbase TL (unless the FB one is more interesting...). When there are more than one, I will use the higher values. And the scales will be rounded and approximate!

So now, the fish!

This figure is the Amur Goby, Rhinogobius brunneus , number 28 from the second series. This is the only Yujin true goby (Gobiinae, family Gobiidae) in the series. They are quite small fish, generally living on the bottoms of freshwater streams and brackish estuaries, hunting small invertebrates. They are unique in how their pelvic fins are fused to form a suction-cup to allow them to cling to the bottom in fast water. Apparently, the Amur Goby is anadromous, spawning in freshwater, and then traveling as juveniles to marine environments to mature. Amur Goby are naturally found in rivers in Japan and China, but have been introduced to several other Asian regions as well as the Pacific Northwest of the USA; despite their small size the presence of the Amur Goby is apparently having negative impacts on the natural environment. The Yujin model gives a length of 10cm, although are more likely to be close to 5cm.

This model measures 6cm long, giving a scale of roughly 1:2 (1:1 with the smaller, more common length). Once more, we have a very brightly coloured fish. The base colour of the fish is a light green or turquoise with a sporadic series of dark blue blotchy chevrons-like bands along the lateral line, plus a few along the dorsal margin. Interspersed among all of this is a series of small reddish-brown dots in a few rows on either side.  The scales are deeply incised, which is a good representation of the large, obvious scales of these small fish. The fins are a translucent yellow with strong, obvious fin rays; the tail has a white margin on the tail fin, with a dark orange band along the inner edge. Overall, the fish appears to be in some sort of display or fight pose, given that all of the fins are up and prominently displayed, and the mouth is held wide open. The pelvic fins are clearly sculpted to demonstrate the suction morphology seen in gobies. The head is well-sculpted, with the bulbous blue eyes and big round cheeks clearly displayed. Even inside the mouth are a few sculpted ridges, although the entire space is simply coloured pink while the lips are dark grey. The head is coloured like the body, with a base colour of green and a number of reddish dots on the cheeks, reddish vermiculation markings on the top of the head, and a thick horizontal strip on the top of each cheek. Like the Sculpin, the Amur Goby is a two-piece figure, again separating the head and pectoral fins from the body. This is another Yujin fish without any base at all; again, given the given the bottom-dwelling habits a 'swimming' pose may not have been deemed necessary.

There are a few other goby figures out there, but I could not find a reference to other Amur Gobies; as expected, the other gobies tend to be marine species made by Japanese companies like Kaiyodo, Colorata and Yujin (marine set).

Pictures:










This is the figure in its two pieces—as the figure is not unusually large, and there is no base, the 2 pieces may have been required or preferred to properly capture the detail of the head.



I refer to this one as the bowhunting tournament pose--a hole in it, tossed on its back...but it's easy to see the detail that Yujin puts into every side of the models (and can often see the numbers in the photos).


For those not familiar, the Yujin Freshwater fishes were released as two series of fish, for a total of 32 fish figures. This number includes at least 3 secret figures (whose numbers remain in sequence--all figures are marked somewhere with the number) but does not incorporate a number of re-issues and repaints; there was at least one complete reissue (from which mine all come so far). The original releases, from what I can find, had yellow papers; the second release used light blue for the Series I and black for Series II. The entire set, with all variants and secrets, is actually available as a boxed set on YAJ (for around $300!), but individual figures can be found there or even on eBay for a variety of prices (the secrets & specials are of course the most expensive). Myself, there are still two or three species I don't have, but I haven't put a lot of effort into changing that...

Another nice thing about these Yujin fish model is that, like most Yujin releases, almost all of them come with a natural base and acrylic stem to display them (the Series II has a few exceptions). There are 4 or 5 bases used, plus a few unique ones for some specials. When I received mine several years ago, the fish+acrylic stems were not directly associated with the bases, so I just went with whatever worked (so if you have one or two, and the base is different, now you know why--I couldn't find a way to be sure if the bases were specific). All of the bases are based on environment--wood stems, gravel, river rocks, silt+plants, that sort of thing. Most are monochromatic, but a few are painted differently (again, often for the specials). In fact, if I wanted to get really pedantic, the bases themselves are labelled with letters based on the style, but I won't.


Jetoar

Awesome. Translucent parts is the best point of this figure  ^-^.
My website: Paleo-Creatures
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brontodocus

Brilliant! :) Nice to see the accurate suction cup that's formed by the pelvic fins.

sbell

Quote from: brontodocus on July 09, 2015, 02:59:56 PM
Brilliant! :) Nice to see the accurate suction cup that's formed by the pelvic fins.

I do believe that Yujin has mastered producing freshwater fish figures, beyond Colorata or even Kaiyodo in many instances. The care and detail right down to the fins is remarkable--and even better in person. Especially on these colourful little ones.

The funny thing is that, now that I'm doing this (only 3 more!) I know what I am missing (only two species, and about 12 notable colour variations). Which means I have to try really hard to be good and only get the species I'm missing (unless a good opportunity presents itself :P)