Its October!

Not only is it Whisper Season, but its also time for one of our oldest and most re-released Creatures: the Gourd Ghouls. While the Gourd Ghouls weren’t the first ever Menagerie Creatures to become Whispers, they were the first Whisper Creature to have a storyline and a re-occurring infection each year.

As the story goes, the Whisper infection first infiltrated the Menagerie through our crop of Ghoul Gourds in 2017. As part of our October Faerie Research Boxes, we had a Gourd Ghoul, info sheets, and a packet of seeds. One infected seed spread Whisper Spore through the crops resulting in infected Gourds that continued to grow back season after season. We don’t know where the spore originated, or why it was in one of our seed packets, but now that its here, we can expect a portion of our creatures to be infected every year.

This year will be no different; I have 3 Gourd Ghouls in-progress right now, and I have a feeling one of them will be infected…

Additionally, we will be holding a special Club Exclusive release in the private shop on October 17th. This release will include the three Ghoul Gourds, and five hand-sculpted, one-of-a-kind, never before released Ghoul Gourd sprouts. I’ll post the concept designs for the sprouts later today, but they are going to be based on the little gourd in this sketch from 2017:

Until I get the concept sketches up, please enjoy a little tour of the Gourd Ghouls through the ages!

The first Gourd Ghouls from 2016. These guys were sculpted individually in polymerclay over a foil and wire armature, used glass eyes, and were painted with acrylics.

The second iteration of the Gourd Ghouls in 2017. These are the ones that were cast in resin from an original sculpture and went home in the Faerie Research Boxes that year. (I don’t think the sculpted teeth worked as well as the polymerclay teeth).

The third version of the Gourd Ghouls happened in 2018. That was a really difficult fall for us, even though we wouldn’t be displaced by the Woolsey fire until the first week of November. Because things were so busy, I release miniature versions of the Gourd Ghouls sculpted out of polymerclay. This was the first time I added candles to the design. I love sculpting candles!

In 2019, the Gourd Ghouls as we know them today were finally born. I sculpted two types of bodies, cast them in urethane resin from molds, and used polymerclay to make the teeth which are attached individually to the resin cast sculpture. This was also the first year that we had a full-blown Whisper infection pass through the Gourd Ghouls!

Last year, 2020, I kept the same molds (which I will be using again this year!), but I added candles (using apoxie sculpt) again for the first time in a few years. This year, I think we will have a mix of all the designs- whisper, candles, and just good old orange pumpkin gourds.

What do you think? Do you have a favorite Ghoul Gourd design from the long list or choices??

-Stefani