Curse of the Werewhale

Despite how preposterous they seem (or perhaps because of it), werewhales enjoy quite a bit of popularity in fiction, art, and even heavy metal music.

The graphic novel The Curse of the Werewhale from Artgasm Studios includes four stories about werewhales. I particularly like Gugliotti's artwork for the story Arriuk Auminal.

Cover art by Chris Gugliotti

Werewhales also are mentioned in the Wereworld series of YA novels by Curtis Jobling.

Pop culture aside, these creatures also exist in real-world mythology. The self-proclaimed world expert on "whale-ish lycanthropy" is Lyonel Perabo, who's master's thesis about pre-modern Fennoscandian literature (available as a pdf from Skemman) includes a section on Sámi werewhales.

The creatures mentioned in the thesis are typical of real-world mythological were-creatures, in that they take on a full animal appearance, as opposed to the typical modern depiction of a creature that is halfway between man and beast.

I don't think that there are any miniatures of werewhales being made at this time, but WizKids produces the HeroClix Giganto (Avengers Infinity #G007), which would be a great representation of a modern-style werewhale.

This version of Giganto is green, which seems a bit odd for a whale, but perhaps it is a relative of the troll werewhale that is mentioned in Perabo's thesis.

The figure stands at a bit over 3½" tall, which would be over 21' tall in 1/72 scale. This would be approximately the size of the Giganto that appeared in Fantastic Four #149 as opposed to the much larger original beast from Fantastic Four #4 (who was killed with a nuclear bomb).

Take that comrade!

I haven't been writing much lately because the cold weather this last couple of months has put me into a state of hibernation. However, I plan to start posting more regularly again when the temperature starts to warm up around here.

Undead Leviathan

I recently purchased a miniature of the Undead Leviathan from Warploque Miniatures. The figure is not currently in their online catalog, but if you send them an e-mail, it seems that they are more than happy to cast one up for you.

There is a pirate ship wreck that can be mounted on the whale's back, but I opted not to buy it since I was only interested in the whale.

The model comes in 5 pieces, and is cast in a light gray resin. The fit of the pieces is excellent, and I did not find it necessary to do any clean-up on the model at all.

The Warploque undead whale is very reminiscent of Keith Thompson's cover art for the Expeditious Retreat Press module A Magical Society—Aggressive Ecology: The Undead Leviathan, though each is its own beast.

Scaling out to just over 40' in length at 1/72, I felt that the resin model was somewhat undersized for a leviathan, so I wanted to make it a bit longer.

I cut out a section from a whale skeleton that was used as a promotional toy from Burger King, and grafted it onto the Undead Leviathan.

I had to carve the vertebrae to make them better defined and match with those of the resin model, but it took less than 10 minutes to do so.

Kneadatite, plastic sprue, and J-B Weld was used to add gobbets of decaying flesh onto the bones.

The additional length messes up the whale's proportions, but that is the price for having a whale that is 50' long as opposed to 40' long.

In the belly of the Whale

Tales of fearsome and deadly whales abound in literature. The white whale of Melville's novel Moby Dick was inspired in part by accounts of the albino sperm whale Mocha Dick, who earned a reputation for fighting back against whaling vessels that tried to attack him.

However, I doubt that the typical modern gamer views the whale as something they would fight in an encounter even though general stats for whales were included in published D&D material.

For my part, whale miniatures (or toys rather) are interesting for purposes of visualizing relative size.

The most commonly encountered toys are those produced by Safari Ltd. The toys are made of solid PVC, and are fairly heavy. The three that I own include a sperm whale, humpback whale, and killer whale.

The sperm whale is about 8" long, which scales out to 48' in length, and can represent a juvenile male, or a large adult female.

The humpback whale is about 7" long, which scales out to about 42' in length, which is about mid-range for this type of whale.

The killer whale is actually a calf, but it can pass for a small female in 1/72 scale.

The other toy whales that I own are made by Larami Corp. These toys are made of vinyl, and are hollow with a very obvious weld line along the midsection of the whale.

These toys are all fairly close to 1/72 scale. I'm not sure how many other whales are in this set, but there is at least a fin whale, which I do not own.

The blue whale is 13½" long, which scales out to 81' in length, and is on the far low end of size for adult males.

What I really would like to find is a model representing a large adult female (closer to 100' in length), but have had no luck so far.

The sperm whale is about 11" long, which scales out to 66' in length, which is the size of a fairly large male.

If I had another one of these, I'd probably paint it white, but since these Larami whales don't seem to be too common, I hesitate to do any modification of them.

The bowhead whale is 10⅜" long, which scales out to 62¼' in length, representing a specimen toward the upper range in size.

The humpback whale is 9¼" long, scaling out to 55½' in length, which is somewhat over the maximum recorded length for this type of whale.

The gray whale is 8¼" long, scaling out to 49½' in length, which is the maximum recorded length for this type of whale.

Size comparison shots of the various whales.

Larami whales

Larami and Safari Ltd. whales

Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!