Irregular Choice: Dinosaur Heel Comparison

So it turns out I didn't have a long wait for my Irregular Choice Family Reunion order as it arrived yesterday (Saturday), almost 24 hours after ordering. DPD said they didn't have many parcels that day so took some extra, I suspect he wanted rid of the box that was the size of a house!  Either way, I'm delighted.  I've had a quick try on, but I've been really sore and knackered this weekend, so I want to properly look and try them all next week. I wasn't disappointed with anything though!  I did immediately find the dinosaurs easier to walk on, so grabbed my old pair and it became apparent there's been a couple of big adjustments to aid this.

I took these photos quickly, so they're not great, but it gives you a good idea. The first, quite major thing is that on the original Roarsum (the black floral) there was a right and left heel. The dino is posed with one arm raised slightly higher than the other, so looking at the heels from the back, it goes "up, down, down, up" across the pair. The new Jurassotops boots (white and blue) have the same pose, but also the same heel on both feet. So when looking at those arms from the back it goes "down, up, down, up".
What difference does this make? Well when you're walking, each step lifts your foot up past the other one and given that the dino arms are already at different heights to one another, the risk of clashing, lessens. They naturally pass each other by at different heights, whereas before they were at a level with each other where both of the bits sticking out most, met and clashed.   However there's something else. You might recall the original R2D2 heels being really quite difficult to walk on. I'm an experienced heel wearer and they do really make my feet and legs ache and it's difficult to power your feet to take steps. However the second release of the same heel, felt much more comfortable and easier to walk on. The heels appeared the same, but upon closer inspection one was placed further towards the instep and the other further towards the back of the shoe. It was a minute detail, so it was quite extraordinary the difference it made. There's a similar scenario here, though likely for a different reason.
The Roarsum heel (the top part of his head that starts to meet the sole) sits almost directly under the back end of the shoe. The dinosaur head therefore, sticks out from the back quite considerably. On the side by side below, you'll see the top of it's head and all of it's nose sticking out. On the new shoe, the head starts quite far back from the back of the shoe. In that same photo, you can just see the tip of the dinosaur nose sticking out and none of the top of it's head. The spine of the dino still runs down the instep, so there's no change there, but it feels like the boot is better proportioned to encompass that large heel. I also feel like either the back end of the boot is angled differently, there's a bigger chunk or different angle removed from the top of the dino head where it meets the sole or the head is angled slightly differently. I feel like his head is tilted downwards ever so slightly more, but it may just look like that from the other adjustments. Their noses are pretty much touching at the same height when the old and new boots face each other, so I'm more inclined to think it is a different cut taken from the back of his head.Anyway these adjustments are helpful in that the dinosaur feels more contained to the parameters of the shoe, whereas in the older style there were a lot of body parts sticking out to worry about scraping against other things or the other heel.
I walked briefly in both pairs and have to say the originals aren't as bad as I remember (it's been a long time since I tried them on). I thought I had to stand with my legs wide apart, but I don't. However when I walk, my instinct was to kick my foot out so it wouldn't clash with the other one and no matter how many times I told myself it probably wouldn't, I couldn't help but widen my gait. The newer ones, I didn't have that same fear and actually I tried those on before the old ones and before I noted the heel differences, so I don't know why my brain didn't fear a clash. I hope this was helpful.