"Faked" box pics

[Little Jo]

Today I bought the 4347 and 4348 sets from the new animal clinic series.

Looking closer to the front pic of the 4347 box's front pic and its content (or the back of the box), I noticed that the front box doesn't display exactly the content but a mirrored one (cf. the opening of the guinea pig cave on the front and on the box's back which actually displays the real content, or the order of stripes sequence on the womens shirt: looking from the front the real figure has in the middle an orange and yellow stripe).
So first thought was, this might be a mistake (although I do not think, that in times of digital photography they still take slides where the orientation could be mixed up ... but maybe I'm wrong) so they mixed up the orientation -- ok, might happen.

But looking closer on the 4348 box's front it gave me evidence that there must be real "calculation" behind how the photo on the box actually is displayed: the boy and the girl together with the cats and accessories standing next to them are displayed correctly; the cat tree (don't know if this is named in English like this direct German translation)  is mirrored, also the orange and the both black cats on/in the tree but not the white one on the cat tree which is displayed correctly ...

I always thought that the box's front and back are photos of an actual scenery setup, but now came to the conclusion that all seems to be electronically be mixed up and and arranged in that way that it fits best into a "well-balanced" arrangement of items, no matter if this couldn't be setup in reality or not ... 

[Martin Milner]

Cat Tree is quite correct!

I just did a quick survey of a couple of dozen boxes, and a few have the thin white aura as seen round the cat tree and the lady on 4348 - this would seem to indicate the figures which were not in position at the time the picture was taken. A few have lines or motion indicated which of course was also not happening at the time.

It seems that the box art has not merely deteriorated from the lively and imaginative dioramas that we've been treated to lately, but has gone a step further to not even depicting an actual possible set up.

Much as I hate to see people (incluiding me) moaning about the deterioration in the direction Playmobil is taking, this does seem to be another facet of their laziness in producing new sets.

[Richard]

Hello, Martin ... 

It seems that the box art has not merely deteriorated from the lively and imaginative dioramas that we've been treated to lately, but has gone a step further to not even depicting an actual possible set up.

Much as I hate to see people (incluiding me) moaning about the deterioration in the direction Playmobil is taking, this does seem to be another facet of their laziness in producing new sets.

This is the "stuff" that you should also be writing over at What's Wrong With Playmobil? ...

All the best,
Richard

[Sylvia]

I find this use of 'mirror imaging' annoying too. I would have thought that accuracy and consistency were more important than aesthetics, but then maybe I'm just very picky.

I'm sure I've seen it on other box pics but can't recall immediately which ones. Usually it's an unsymmetrical hairpiece which immediately gives it away.

Worse still is when they show a figure on the box photo wearing one style of hairpiece and then swap it completely. This is what happened in the Bakery set #4410. Compare the box pic with the actual figure. Thankfully, this kind of substitution doesn't happen very often.

[Sir Gareth]

Playmobil use a lot of mirrored images for the U.S. pals boxes.

Most figures look the same until you get to  4548 Captain peg leg when the patch over his eye goes from right to left creating a new figure.

The obvious reason for this is if the figure on the original specials box stood on the left it had to be swapped to the right to allow for the yellow flash on the pals boxes showing name and number.

One of the most interesting boxes is the dark Knight 4517, he was just moved to the right of the box for the pals set but his axe got in the way of the yellow flash so they flipped the axe up.

[playmofire]

Today I bought the 4347 and 4348 , also the orange and the both black cats on/in the tree but

I always thought that the box's front and back are photos of an actual scenery setup, but now came to the conclusion that all seems to be electronically be mixed up and and arranged in that way that it fits best into a "well-balanced" arrangement of items, no matter if this couldn't be setup in reality or not ... 

At one time, what you saw in the catalogues and the dioramas was just as it had been photographed.  For quite some years, however, Photoshop has been used.  I seem to remember reading about this in a link from Playmoboard, maybe to the site of the people who do the catalogues setups.