For this one, I originally decided to pass on the preorder, being very undecided which variant I wanted and the price. However, I saw some photos from Wonfes Shanghai and changed my mind – so I ordered the last one in stock of the “Isys” variant. They did three versions –

Blue Prey (Unlimited):

Keraha (limited to 20):

And the one I ordered, Isys (limited to 20):

The limited variants were CN¥2,280 to preorder and Blue Prey was ¥1,980. I couldn’t resist the shininess of Isys, so into my cart it went.

Continue reading “Tooth Fairy Studio – Feathered Viper – Iysis” →

For the more budget-conscious snake figure collector, I now present the Blue Baron’s Racer (philodryas baroni) by Animal Planet. This figure was CN¥428 and is the second figure in their “Realistic Nature Series”. Most of Animal Planet’s figures have a chibi quality, so this is a line of reptiles with realistic proportions.

As they’re a company that mass-produces, we get a pretty retail box:

The company name gets translated a few different ways so you may also see “Animal Heavenly Body” and “Animal Nebula”, but it will always be the same logo. It’s a very solid box, and we have some product photos so we know what we’re getting. The lid slides off, but due to the sturdiness of the cardboard it forms a strong vacuum seal so takes some effort and time to open. They do provide a couple of small cut-outs to grab the inner of the box, but they don’t give a huge amount of purchase.

Continue reading “Animal Planet – Blue Baron’s Racer” →

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” (last I checked PU resin didn’t have any bones or organs), 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…

Continue reading “Snake Gorge – Ball Python (normal morph)” →