Quad bike fun with Shaun the Sheep and friends
Welcome to the latest edition of Corgi Die-cast Diaries, your regular blog review of all the news, updates and topical stories from the captivating world of Corgi die-cast model collecting.
We have something very special for Die-cast Diaries devotees this time around, as we present a blog take over edition. When it comes to informing our collectors about exciting new models scheduled to be joining the range in the very near future, there’s nothing like engaging the services of a subject devotee to provide those details, and when it comes to all the latest happenings on Mossy Bottom Farm, we have just the man for the job, our very own Head of Marketing David Mather. David usually provides all the imagery for every edition of DCD, so he’s always an integral part of every single edition, but for this edition, he’s written the expert content too. Thanks to him, the only thing I have to do is write this introduction and publish the blog to the website – it must be Christmas!
With our newly tooled Shaun the Sheep models being revealed in the latest September to December 2025 range, David is now in a position to bring you all the woolly details behind this new series of models, including our usual selection of exclusive sample model imagery, the first place outside the Corgi offices that they have been viewed. There’s nothing like a range of models guaranteed to raise a smile, so let’s hand over to David as he invites us to Shape up with Shaun, Corgi style.
All the fun of the Mossy Bottom Farm
Under starters orders – let the farmyard fun begin.
Welcome to the latest edition of CORGI’s Die-Cast Diaries blog, featuring a dedicated special look at a brand-new product that is in development right now, written by a special guest – David Mather, CORGI Head of Marketing.
Shaun the Sheep has become a true staple of the beloved Aardman animation studios, and the company’s widest export around the world. Shaun is a daily staple of CBBC in the UK, but he is also hugely popular in Japan and South Korea as well as Germany. Incredibly, Shaun is thirty years old this year, after making his debut on Christmas Eve 1995 as the breakout star of Wallace and Gromit’s third adventure ‘A Close Shave’.
Over a decade later, Shaun gained his own television series, and has been going strong ever since – the seventh BBC series debuted earlier this year, but Shaun has also found himself on the Big Screen twice (and three times by the end of next year!) as well as in several thirty minute long specials and a separate series of adventures on Netflix.
Each episode of Shaun the Sheep is ordinarily around seven minutes long – bite-sized adventures that feature Shaun and his flock getting in an ever-changing series of mishaps around the yard and fields of Mossy Bottom Farm. All of these scrapes happen in front of the often-panicked sheepdog Bitzer and very much under the nose of the oblivious Farmer.
Lights out at Mossy Bottom – let the mayhem begin!
One of the most memorable adventures in the show occurred in ‘The Big Chase’ in the second series, where Timmy the Lamb, the youngest member of the Flock, made off on the Farmer’s Quadbike around the lanes surrounding the farm with Shaun and the rest of the Sheep in hot pursuit. This one has always stuck in the mind, and when we set up our partnership with Aardman back in 2022 the use of the Quadbike as a Die-Cast product was the first thing we pitched for Shaun the Sheep.
Work on the project began in earnest in 2024, with an agreed design target in mind – this would be a value driven product to hit a specific lower price point, suitable for all ages of fans, that used a common Quadbike tooling featuring different characters riding it. To aid the all-ages appeal we would skew younger on one aspect – the colouring of the bike would change for each character from the original ‘hero’ red as seen on screen, with the three releases each being released as a primary colour to give a basic educational element to the product.
The creation of the CAD itself took in multiple different elements, and in many ways was more involved than one of our collector grade Aviation Archive or Vanguards releases. In those examples we rely on existing CAD from the manufacturer or a dedicated LIDAR scan that we carry out ourselves – in the case of the Shaun Quadbikes, we actually had to do both.
An example of one of the scan data files supplied by Aardman of Shaun. This asset was scanned from one of the original filming puppets.
Existing CAD came in the form of scans supplied by Aardman of the characters themselves. The Aardman asset bank (a wondrous place!) contains LIDAR scanned turnarounds of Shaun, Bitzer and Timmy in both two legged and four legged poses that can be used as the starting point for the design work. The Quadbike itself was a little more involved as no scan data existed, so in close dialogue with Aardman it was decided that the original Quadbike prop would have to have a new dedicated LIDAR scan carried out. A minor wrinkle emerged as it turned out that after so long away from the screen, the Quadbike was already out of the Aardman archive and being used for filming for the seventh series of Shaun the Sheep! So, once it’s new moment on screen had been completed at Aardman’s Aztec West Studio on the outskirts of Bristol, the scan was actioned and we had all the data needed to begin work on the CAD.
The original Quadbike prop at Aardman, ahead of a scanning trip.
One of the major considerations for this release is correctly imbuing the static character models with the correct amount of personality when posed on the bike itself, which led to a good amount of dialogue with the Aardman team until we all arrived on a point where the design would be approved. During the process it emerged that to give the characters their proper due it would be sensible to scale the size of the Quadbike itself up. This would allow us to get more detail into the character figures while making the Bike itself more robust. By the time we’d completed the design work, the Quadbike had increased from a planned size of 800mm to 1200mm, meaning that the product literally sat in the palm of an adult hand and was large enough for small hands to enjoy playing with.
Shaun side by side with our recent Vanguards release of the Ford Fiesta Mk2 XR2, showing the difference in size between these two very different CORGI products.
With CAD completed, the product artwork cells were created, approved and we were finally off to the races with the engineering and then the just arrived pre-production samples of the models. As always, each stage allows us to refine and finesse the design as we go to improve the final product.
The initial Shaun engineering sample – note the ‘transit damage’ on this early prototype, an immediate area of attention for improving the final model.
Let’s take a close look at each character release of this new tooling.
Shaun is the leader of the flock! He is smart, resourceful, as well as being mischievous and his lively personality marks him out from the rest of the sheep living at Mossy Bottom Farm. His maverick nature is forever leading him into tricky situations but despite his recklessness, he has an inherent sense of responsibility and will try to make amends for the chaos he causes.
Timmy is the toddler in the flock. He is an adorable character, usually with his yellow dummy in his mouth and carrying an orange teddy bear. Not quite as innocent as he looks, he has an alarming propensity for getting into dangerous situations. As a result, Timmy’s mum is often close by!
Bitzer is the Farmer’s faithful sheepdog and also a good friend to Shaun. His job is to manage the flock for the Farmer whilst also joining in with the fun and adventures, as long as the Farmer never finds out. He has a tolerant attitude to the sheep’s antics, but is always ready to step in if things get seriously out of hand.
With the pre-production samples finally here it’s been a busy week at CORGI HQ as we use them to get the final models ready. There’s still product packaging to create and have approved by Aardman alongside the refinements to the products themselves.
The aim for these has always been to create something that was Fun with a capital F. The three releases in the Shaun the Sheep range are quite aggressively priced for their size at £21.99 RRP, with a special bundle offer available now on corgi.co.uk. All being well, we’re working to have some stock land before Christmas, so make sure to plonk down a pre-order now if you want to be among the first to get these first ever Shaun the Sheep die-cast models!
A really fun addition to the Corgi range, these robust, hard wearing new models will be the catalyst for many hours of fun once they’re released, but will always look great when put back on the display shelf.
We’re afraid that’s all we have for you this time around, but we’ll be back as usual in two weeks’ time with a further exclusive selection of the latest Corgi die-cast model updates. As ever, you could always drop us a line if you felt moved to do so, to comment on anything blog, collecting or Corgi model related, or even perhaps to suggest a topic you might like to see the team cover in a future edition. As always, our diecastdiaries@corgi.co.uk address is the one to use.
If you can’t wait for the next blog, you will find plenty of Corgi model collecting discussions taking place on our official social media channels, access to which can be obtained by clicking on the respective links at the foot of the Corgi website homepage.
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Thank you for continuing to support your Corgi Die-cast Diaries blog. Our next edition is scheduled for publication on Friday 28th November, and we look forward to seeing you all back here then.
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