This Saturday, shark week will take a slight detour into skates, covering this alleged ”Devil Fish”. Skates are the group of batoids belonging to the Rajiformes order. They appear to resemble sting rays but can be distinguished by their thicker and shorter tails that lack the venomous spines. Skates are found all across the world in both marine environments and even estuaries. Most species are the typical ”bottom-feeders” that hang out on the sea bead. On average, skates are usually smaller than stingrays. Due to their slow maturation and reproduction rates, skates are threatened by overfishing.
Today’s review will cover another AAA figure, a skate dubbed the ”Devil Fish”. At first, I thought this name was some misplacement for the relative of the Manta ray. After doing some research, this name originates from the practice of sailors drying out skate’s bodies and carving the devil’s face along the underside as ornaments. Beyond being a skate, I couldn’t quite label the species. The furthest I got was narrowing down to three species, which all coincidentally belonged to the same genus (Bathyraja): the sandpaper skate, rough-tail skate, and Aleutian skate.
This figure is pretty large, with a disc width of about 17cm and a total length of 26.5cm, this generally places it in the 1:6 scale for the maximum-sized Aleutian skate. The ”Devil fish” is a scaled-up version of another figure that’s virtually identical to it.
Overall, I’d have to say the sculpt is pretty nice. Granted, without a proper species-level ID, it’s difficult to be too precise when criticizing it, but overall, this is a very realistic-looking figure. The notches and little folds all along the pectoral fins and tubercles really help sell the look. The eyes are realistically sculpted along with the spiracles.
Underneath, the figure continues to impress with the mouth, nares, and five gill-pairs. Overall, there are no obvious inaccuracies when treating this figure as a generic skate.
And now for the paintjob. The top portion is a solid brown color that almost seems like a dark maroon. It was this portion that made it difficult to establish a species ID for this figure. Not much to say other than it looks natural.
The bottom appears to be the base color of the rubber, an off-white. Seem pretty realistic for a skate. There’s honestly not much to say here, but it’s well done.
Overall, I really can say I like this figure. The size would dissuade many, but despite the age and wear, this is ultimately a fairly high-quality rubber figure when compared to what we normally see from AAA. This figure is long retired, so those interested should know to look on eBay or other secondhand marketplaces. Fortunately, they seem to be plentiful.
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Safari used this sculpt for the ray in the sharks toob
there is no way Safari can use a 26 cm sculpt for a TOOB figure 😉
I meant they used a shrunken down version of this sculpt for the starts toob
AAA is known for casting some figures from actual specimens (esp reptiles and amphibians); could this have been cast from an actual specimen do you think?
Wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case. Do you have any idea of when they started doing that? When I tried to find the release date for this figure, a thread gave me the idea that it’s at least around 20 years old.
most AAA are at least 20 years old, and yeah they were doing cases as long ago as the 1990s I am sure.