What's good for the goose

During the Middle Ages, there was a belief that certain types of geese emerged fully grown from driftwood through spontaneous generation (with goose barnacles being some sort of embryonic form).

This legend was propagated without any sort of critical evaluation in natural history texts by scholars like Gerald of Wales in a manner similar to the Google AI.

British Library Royal MS 13 B VIII

While this myth was challenged by Frederick II in his treatise On the Art of Hunting With Birds, it wasn't really until the 18th century when it became fully discredited.

Biblioteca Vaticana Pal. lat. 1071 f. 14v

In 1/72 scale plastic, I think the only live goose may be from the Linear-B Roman Market set, but I was hoping to find some options from HO scale manufacturers.

Busch makes two sets of geese (wild and domestic) that are repaints of the same models, but they look more like ducks to me. Faller has a set of Hens, Ducks and Geese, and Woodland Scenics has a set of Geese & Chickens. I don't have any of these sets because they are rather pricey.

The geese that I do have are from Preiser, Noch, and Merten.

The Preiser set is of Ducks, Geese & Swans (14167). Even for HO scale, the swans look tiny, giving me reservations about the size of the geese.

Based on the size of the birds, I identified a total of four geese in two poses (one hissing, one swimming), however it is very possible that I miscategorized some of the geese as ducks.

The Merten sets include Geese and Ducks on Land (724), and Geese and Ducks Swimming (736). I think that both sets are now available from Preiser.

The figures come attached to sprues (at least for the original Merten releases), so there is the risk of damage or loss during removal unless you have a deft hand at working with such tiny parts.

Based on body size and neck length, I identified six geese in each set. I think that there is one duplicated pose in each set, but I'm not 100% sure. Again, there is the possibility that a couple of the birds I thought were white ducks are actually geese.

The Noch set is of Chickens & Geese (15772).

There are eight geese in the Noch set; four standing (three poses), two flying (two poses), and two swimming (one duplicated pose).

Looking at all the geese together, the Preiser bird look small. The Merten goose is larger, its body close in size to the Noch goose, but its neck is shorter, while the Noch goose is the largest.

Preiser, Merten, Noch standing

Meanwhile, for the swimming poses, the Prsiser goose is very small, while the Merten goose appears larger than the Noch goose.

Preiser, Merten, Noch swimming

I wish there were S scale options to compare with, but out of all the models, I think the Noch geese are probably the closest to being compatible for use with 1/72 scale figures.

It's been a while since I've seen a goose in real life, but when I think of how big they should be, images like these come to mind.

To Pastures New, James Guthrie, 1883

The Goose Girl, Stanley Royle, 1921

Die Gänsemagd, Paul Hey, 1939

Motocycles Comiot,
Theophile Steinlen, 1899

In any event, most adventurers probably don't give geese a second thought when it comes to danger, but players of Where Winds Meet consider them creatures that should not be triffled with.

Victory and defeat are unpredictable in the Jianghu.

However, perceptions may have changed with the introduction of the Goose Hydra in 5th edition D&D. The monster is derived from the MTG card The Goose Mother, where it is classified as a Bird Hydra.

Google AI claims that the Goose Hydra originates from 3D printed models created by various people in recent years, but monsters such as the Deep Goose existed ten years ago. There are likely even older incarnations.

My own model was created from splicing together the heads of a gaggle of geese from a bag of plastic farm animals that I believe are bootleg versions of Britains figures.

I gave the monster five heads, since it provided the most streamlined look while preserving the integrity of the individual necks for each head.

To Heal or Not to Heal

The Rabbit of Caerbannog

Killer rabbits have been part of popular culture since the Rabbit of Caerbannog was introduced to audiences in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. However, long before the film, foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodents were illustrated in the marginalia of medieval manuscripts as a darkly amusing inversion of roles between the hunter and the hunted.

Look... that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!

For gaming, the Rabbit of Caerbannog led to the creation of the Vorpal Bunny in Wizardry, and has been statted up by countless DMs for use in D&D.

The first place I checked for 1/72 compatible rabbits, was with manufacturers of HO scale model train accessories. I found a rabbit hutch made by Preiser (28099) that included several rabbits in brown and white plastic.

I broke open the hutch to get the rabbits out, but they actually turned out to be accurately scaled at 1/87, so appear very small next to 1/72 scale figures. Next, I decided to search OO scale accessories, and found candidates from Dart Castings and Langley.

The Preiser rabbits come in three poses. The ones in white plastic are hard to see in the picture, but they are about half the size of the OO scale rabbits. The next three rabbits come from the Langley Wild Animals set (F146), and the final two rabbits (or rabbit and hare) are from the Dart Wildlife Selection set (A31). Dart also has a standalone set of rabbits (A6), but the image on the website is not particularly clear, so I could not determine if the pose matches either of the ones in the comparison photo, or if it is something entirely different.

None of the rabbits were in the particular pose I wanted, I so decided to just sculpt one on my own. The ears were made with flattened staples that were shaped with a file and then attached to the head. The head is a separate piece since I was thinking about casting some more of them up.

With the left over Kneadatite, I decided to sculpt one more rabbit that would fit with the killer rabbit theme. Or more explicitly, I decided to sculpt the mask/head of Frank the Rabbit from the film Donnie Darko.

The original sculpt came out too much like a human skull, so I built up the maxilla to protrude out  a bit more. New teeth will be added at a later time.

Richard Kelly (the film's writer/director) says that Frank was influenced by the rabbits of Watership Down. Personally, outside of the Black Rabbit of Inlé or perhaps General Woundwort, Frank's image is about the last one I would come up with with respect to envisioning the rabbits of Watership Down.