Collection Review: CollectA Bowhead Whale

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Figure Brand: CollectA

Figure Name(s): Bowhead Whale (88652)

Sex: Male

Name: Beauford

Year Made: 2014

Observations/Thoughts:
For the first review of 2024 I’ll have a look at a new and favourite model of mine: the CollectA Bowhead Whale.
I called this CollectA Bowhead Whale ‘Beauford’ after a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, and west of Canada's Arctic islands. The sea is named after Irish hydrographer, creator of the Beaufort cipher and the Beaufort scale: Sir Francis Beaufort.
I found this name fitting for him as he is an animal that lives in such a freezing sea. I plan to collect more whales and originally planned to name them all after artic seas, then realised as there isn’t so many artic seas, I’ll inevitably run out of artic sea names for my growing whale’s collection! Whales in general are my favourite ever animals so they need fitting and very noble names.
Beauford is a CollectA Bowhead whale, in my opinion Collecta have done wonderfully with him, I know whales are easier to sculpt than other animals as they are mostly smooth and mostly have a long, tapered shape with nothing much too them, but even so I find they have done him justice- he’s sculpted so sleek and yet so incredibly hefty. I love everything about him and he’s one of the largest animals in my collection- as a bowhead whale he should be!
He's sculpted to balance up on his jaw and chest area with his tail lifted and lower half risen in a slight diving pose. His mouth is also partially open, showing his tongue and even the baleen are added in- great to dee the detail in those!
What I also notice about his stance is the tail isn’t straight but is twisted slightly over to the left, a cool detail!
There isn’t much to say about Beauford’s coat pattern, because well, as a whale it's just his overall skin markings. His body is mostly shiny black with white triangle on his lower jaw and a slight ring of white grey on the underside at the base of his tail, though it’s not a bright white, it has a gradient towards a dusky grey. He also has a row of pretty black dots all along the rim of his lower jaw, it's lovely detail as they have a really soft, dusky look to them.
He’s a great looking whale, a great size and scale and tremendously hefty, yet sleek. He would make for a dramatic model on a shelf all on his own. I like the slightly unusual species he is, yes, Bowhead whales aren’t THAT rare in the toy model world, but it’s usually humpbacks, blue, sperm and orca whales made and sculpted more commonly. He’s a great addition to anyone with an interest in marine life.

Rating: 5/5

Thanks Widukind! :)

A great model of a great species

Yes it is, thanks Kikimalou!

Defintely a great model. I think you could use Antarctic seas too.

Yes Roger, there's not so many I actually like so I prefer to include explorers too