
| Universe |
Literature / Film |
| Contents |
40 figures |
| Poses |
10 |
| Height |
24 mm |
| |
|
Werewolves is another concept with deep roots in folklore, and the idea of people changing into wolves goes back to ancient times, particularly in Europe. The particular characteristics of such creatures varied enormously between cultures and over the years, but in the modern era, thanks to books and films, the concept is usually that of a man who is normal by day, but turns into a werewolf in moonlight. This appears to be the idea modelled here, because several of these figures have shreds of clothing still on their body, suggesting that the original human form has expanded somewhat on becoming a wolf. The anatomy here is wolf-ish, with the obvious exception that almost all of them are bipedal, so again these creatures are not so much wolves as a mix of human and wolf - were they to become pure wolves then there would be little scope for interesting stories. There is a good variety of poses, none of which are wolf-like, but all would fit well into any of the many films made on the subject, so would seem to be a good selection.
Naturally we have thus far ignored the final two figures in our pictures, a woman and a man. The man, with the large hat and long coat, looks to be Abraham Van Helsing, a fictional character first created in the novel 'Dracula', but later morphed into a sort of vampire slayer and monster hunter, so presumably here he is hunting werewolves. He holds a small and fairly crude crossbow, and has a heroic pose as you might see on a movie poster. Although entirely human, he would be difficult to place in any sort of historical diorama, unless it was of someone making a vampire film. The woman to his right wears modern, skin-tight clothes, and holds what we must assume is a long sword, though it is crudely done here. As for identification, we would suggest that this might be Anna Valerious, a character that seems to come from the film Van Helsing (2004), which we have not seen, but which also appears to have provided the look for the van Helsing figure.
Since these are mythical creatures, it is hard to be too precise about accuracy, but these figures pretty much look the part to us. The human figures are fair in terms of proportions etc, given that they are fantasy characters, but not particularly elegant to look at, and a noticeable amount of flash on all seams does not help the appearance of human or werewolf. Some of the bases are also far from flat, which makes standing them much more difficult, and the two humans plus the last werewolf in our top row have such small bases as to make it almost impossible to keep them upright.