One of my favourite characters in HBO's Game of Thrones is Ser Ilyn Payne, the former Captain of the Guards of Tywin Lannister during the latter's tenure as Hand of the King for Aerys II Targaryen, and now the mute King's Justice (read: Royal executioner) of the Seven Kingdoms. He is played brilliantly by British pub rock legend Wilko Johnson, who on-screen looks like a cross between Abe Vigoda and Boris Karloff, with a touch of Rondo Hatton thrown in! As a brief aside, Mr. Johnson was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2013-- he has defied all predictions, and is still living life to the fullest. God Bless and Godspeed!!
But I digress. . . This is one of the eeriest characters yet seen on the show: silent and with a piercing look that is bone-chilling. And thus, one that screams to be done. . . even if the cha- racter can't! I fully intend to do a large(r)-scale bust of Ser Ilyn; but in the meantime, I thought that I would get a feel for the dynamics of the piece with a finished full-figure maquette.
For my base figure, I decided on Verlinden's 120mm Medieval Headsman (#1611). Unfortunately, pickings are rather slim for this subject, and I did not want to venture into the larger scales (and price tags!) of the gk's. But while Verlinden's take on the subject is somewhat stereotypical and uninspired, it is a superb base for what I have in mind.
The kit is cast in 17 pieces + groundwork. Casting overall is VG+++, with 4 or 5 annoying air bubbles that fortunately are easily identified and quite accessible. Other than that, the quality of the casting is everybody as good as we have come to expect from this manufacturer of late. Proportions are a bit off (short-legged) , but this is an easy enough fix given that I have to re-dress the legs.
I was quite surprised to see that Verlinden has taken to keying most of their parts. This is a dramatic improvement over the take-your-best-shot aligning of flat-on-flat mating surfaces! I can well imagine that this increases production overhead, but kudos to M. Verlinden for doing the right thing!!
That's it for now. Just a quick prologue to a project that I am very much looking forward to. This will be somewhat below filler-project priority, but once the base figure gets pared down and reposed, things should go quickly henceforth.
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