Continuing my snake purchases from Snake Gorge, I pre-ordered this ball python figure. I was particularly interested in this one as I have a normal morph ball python as a pet. Ball pythons are also known as Royal pythons and have the scientific name of Python regius.

So I paid my deposit, paid the balance and CN¥1,880 and some days later…

See the red writing on the right? Yeah, that restriction stops you from shipping an item out. Oops. And that’s a lot of money to spend on something I couldn’t return and potentially ship out. After writing an email to support, thankfully they changed the restriction and allowed me to ship out. I wasn’t worried about customs issues personally – on an x-ray it would appear as an inorganic “poo”, and anyone inspecting it for more than two seconds would know it was a resin model. However the proxy was nervous about it, so slapped it with the most restrictive restriction… which still allowed EMS, so EMS it went. Didn’t even hesitate to clear Chinese or British customs. Glad to know I can still import PU resin.

But hey! It’s a testament to Snake Gorge’s quality! So realistic your proxy may refuse to ship it 😅. I would love to order one of their 1:1 scales, but they’re around CN¥5,000 and not sure if I want to deal with the back and forth to be allowed to ship it. Oh, and also scrounging up the CN¥5,500-6000 to buy and ship it.

Snake Gorge just package their snakes in foam:

Not the most glamourous, but gets the job done. The snake itself came in a plastic bag so that it wouldn’t rub up against the foam.

So let’s have a look at him:

Well, I say “him”, not sure how you can sex a resin snake, especially when the species lacks external physical traits to denote gender. No cloaca to probe on this one. But hey, this one I won’t have to clean up any stinky poops! Or get lost behind my desk…

Let’s take a better look at his face:

D’aww. Certainly looks the part with his cute face, heat pits and triangular body. At first I wasn’t so keen on the whitish areas between some of the scales, but this is part of the patterning of a ball. Can see my pet snake has these too. The painting is very precise – the patterns are sharp and keep to the scales.

Some side views:

Honestly can’t fault the shape. They’ve even given his body some folds near where he’s sharply folded himself. This fellow has decided to tuck his tail up into a fold – mine I’m pretty sure prefers to curl his tail beneath him and tuck it in there.

Back view:

He looks nice all around – his pattern stretches all over his body which is nice to see. The faded areas are where the pattern would fade towards his belly scales, but think there are some areas that may have benefitted from a bit of darker paint.

On the second image you can see where they have moulded a flat bottom for him – one key feature a real snake doesn’t have. This doesn’t show when viewing him normally, and didn’t really notice it until photographing him to show it off.

From the top:

Yep, that’s definitely a ball python in a ball! Can definitely appreciate the pattern from this angle, and the way they’ve incorporated the colour fade into the head stamp. His head looks a lot like my pet python’s head.

Bottom:

Instead of the coaster depicted in the original promo images, they’ve gone for giving him a flat base and a layer of velvety material to protect your table/vivarium top.

And what’s that?

Another feature that real snakes lack – a logo baked into their side to say who made them. Another feature I didn’t notice until I sent some photos to someone on Discord. Can also get an appreciation of the paintwork up close – there’s some speckling to add texture and detail to the scales.

Overall, I’m really pleased with him. He was pricey, but you do get a lot of detail and accuracy to the real thing. He’s a handful in size – so you could think of him as a juvenile or a ~1/2 scale adult. There’s a good amount of weight to the figure – I’d say heavier than a python of this size would be. Would recommend to someone who has the budget for a realistic-looking snake model.

And for those who want to see what the cork base looks like, here’s the one I got with a hognose I haven’t reviewed yet:

He covers up pretty much the whole design, pretty much only leaving the outer circle. So I can see why they ultimately chose not to include the cork base. The hognose only takes up the centre so you can read the outer text. I put the hognose in an acrylic case with the other two snake models I reviewed and it wasn’t big enough to accommodate this base, so I could sit him on it if I want to.