Has anyone seen those "Face of the Predator" models?

I was discussing this on another site - it doesn't matter where - and I keep running up against the idea that they're rather poignant, but I just find them far too stark in their symbolism, frankly. It's vaguely unsettling.

I'm talking about that line of models from Heyenslaw Collectables, the Face of the Predator? If you don't know, they're these really rather detailed little models, high quality, showing primitive peoples fighting off predatory animals? There's a salarian facing down a Jawswinger, two humans wielding spears at one of those lion things (a cave lion, I'm told, though I didn't know you had those things in caves), an elcor bellowing (or something) at a creature called a Darkscreamer, and two volus throwing rocks at some big flippered thing. That's the first wave.

I mean, I get it, I think. We all want reminders that we've been here before. That the primal part of us that recognises that we're vulnerable to bigger, tougher, hungrier things can be overcome by courage and intelligence and information. There's a pride in that, I think. It's the first maturity, and we just made it through the second, right? So I get the appeal. We stood up to the threat and we survived. But, I don't know, reducing it to something so primal just feels wrong, you know?

I mean we've come so far; is that still just what we are? Am I the only one creeped out by it, I mean just a little?

Don't say I'm overreacting. I'm not saying this is serious, it's just preying on my mind a bit and I need to clear it.

Yeah, you are. To me at least.

In some ways it'd be better if we were all back in those historical periods. Tuckanka would be much nicer had we not blown the place up, and the reapers wouldn't have ever attacked anyone because they didn't attack things that weren't spacefaring for whatever reason.

I mean, I prefer having tech, it's the reason I can communicate to someone on the citadel from omega, and also why I can go from omega to the citadel to punch the dude in the face, but it'd be nice to just go out and kill something with a spear for once.

Dude... they're just like overpriced models (seriously look at the turian one thing costs way more than its worth :|) I don't think they are any deeper than that.

Well, okay maybe I can concede a little that some of them for some species (which will be unnamed) probably show off that inner savagery more than others.

Just a little.

I want a quarian one too when they come out

I actually liked the Salarian figurine.

We pride ourselves on our science, our technology, our advancement. But even we came from humble beginnings, used strength as well as intellect to survive. I always thought that was important to remember.

But really, it's just a figurine after all. If it has a meaning or feeling to you, it's because you're attaching one to it.

Like Pyjak, I also look forward to the next wave of figures.

I didn’t know about those models but now I’m looking for the second set and the asari in fact. I wonder what predator of Thessia they have chosen. Maybe a striped Lexugon? It would be a change to display a scene that’s set in or near water. Hearties would be cool too (extinct avian creatures).

But I can’t really follow your concern, Bitterskin. Isn’t it just simple scenes of struggle for survival? I mean, where is the bad thing in depicting what our ancestors had to face now and then to just keep going or to protect their prey from rivaling creatures? Museums are full of these scenes. Or used to be, what's left of them on Thessia anyway.
Sadly enough it also shows how many of these creatures don’t exist anymore today for whatever reason.

They're just one of those things older aged people with cheap taste buy up so they can decorate their otherwise bleak living spaces.

Like those portrait paintings of stoic salarian infants that were all the rage a few months ago until people started assuming that they were cursed after all those gas leaks in places with them hung up somewhere.

God knows what drives these people to buy this crap, but the creators must be making bank off it. You're looking too deeply into it.

I haven't seen the models - images yes, but not in person, I'm not sure if that'd change how they come across. I get what you mean - yes and no, kind of. I had a similar reaction to seeing 'Survival' by Rana Perris when her bronze collection toured on Illium a couple of decades ago. The image of the mother having given her life to protect her children is a moving testament to her love and strength of will (especially since it was a freakin' avanx that she'd fought), but at the same time the sculpture of their two bodies twisted around one another, all torn - remarkable work at that scale of course, but harrowing to reflect on. I suppose that's a further extension of the notion, death and the brutality of survival in the wild in fact, rather than in potentia in the case of these models showing the initial face-off, but I might feel similarly.

That said, I can see the other side too. I don't really feel that it's a depressing thought that we're 'just' animals vying for survival, I've never really taken to the view that sapience elevates us into a whole separate category of life, that association with our primal pasts is somehow a diminishing of our potential. We came from where we came from, and we'll always carry that with us - reflecting that there's still a primal creature inside me, that the 'evolved' being I am isn't separate from that, doesn't bother me really. There are times I think about it and rather enjoy the idea.

I'd love a drell-themed one for the altar-images of the hunt are powerful. That is totally my excuse.

Well excuse me if we can't all enjoy the aesthetic spectacle of living out of an air car.

I'm actually a little dissapointed with the end result, they're really more figurines than anything. Pre-built, pre-painted, very different from the sort of model I prefer to work with.

Not that it's a bad product... I'm sure there's a market for that sort of thing (if the response here is any indication), you really don't know what people are going to flock to.

Has the asari design been revealed yet?

Oh, I absolutely love these! I was so surprised and delighted to see this thread on here of all places. I would have posted in here earlier, but I had still been waiting for the last model I ordered to arrive. Ah, now, here...One moment. Yes! Here is the link.

The link leads to a video set in some clean, white room. The camera is facing a desk, upon which are all of the released "Face of the Predator" models: The salarian, the humans, the elcor, and the volus, all of them lined up neatly.

"Hello! Yes, hello, hello there, yes, these are the wonderful little models that I have, oh, aren't they just remarkable?" The voice sounds broken or horribly garbled through some audio mishap, but all that can be seen of the speaker are their black-gloves and occasionally their black-coated wrist or white-shirted waist. "Ah, wait, let me move the camera a bit so you can really see; the photos online are quite nice, but they really don't do the models justice. Perhaps this video doesn't either, but in case you don't feel like buying these, here you are."

The camera gets closer to the models and moves around them slowly, making sure to showcase every view and angle. "As you can see, the craftsmanship is superb. You can see each and every little spot on the heads of the salarians, you can see that there aren't too many wrinkles on the humans to be a distraction, but just enough to help. And yet, the creatures they fight are so much more abstract. Look, for example, at the cave lion."

The camera zooms in on the creature the humans are fighting. The video stays at a high quality.

"There's enough to make it recognizable as a creature, perhaps one with malicious intent. And yet, there's so much that it isn't. It looks more like a..." A pause, then a snap. "A twisted mass of shadows, leaping forward from the ground at its prey. The basic shape of the lion is maintained, as you can see through the obvious limbs, its open mouth full of sharp points, it's tail. And yet, the creature itself is nothing more than some gray, perhaps black, liquid-like mass. It isn't some clear, detailed creature like the humans are. It's an abstract, near-featureless example of a savage, horrifying enemy.

And I think that is symbolism of some sort. That while our enemies may change form and may never be one certain thing, we, the sapient species as a whole, always have the constant of a primal nature within us. No matter how far the civilization advances, we - as in society as a whole - will remain in heart these savage, wild beasts that were our ancestors, even when having fought against an enemy as grand as the Reapers.

Annnnnnnd that's it for no -"

The video stops abruptly.

The prices of the models are a little steep, true, but certainly worth it for anyone interested. The next wave will include asari, quarians, and turians, I hear! A bit of trouble with the hanar and drell models, some political stuff going on in the works regarding history and culture and the connection between the two creatures and such and such. If you had to choose between just a hanar or drell model for the next line, which would you be more interested in?


Well, I suppose that the advertisement and specific descriptions of the "models" could have gone a bit better. Yes, "figurine" is the better term for it. I will remember that.


People buy it for a love of the strange and remarkable in this chaotic, fascinating galaxy.

And oh hush, cheap taste is hardly what i'd use to describe an appreciation for well-made ideas and their presentation through the arts.

You're all overthinking this way too much.

Of course they are, they're over analyzing shoddy decorations that go for a dozen a chit.

The idea that people make these for art, let alone deliver a message or some sort of meaning through them makes me laugh.

lol fuck you

Yeah they are over analyzing these things. But they aren't "cheap, shoddy decorations" you can just litter around your hovel.