November starts in a large note with my first KR|Origin review of the month giving you GollyopTM!
This first large scale figure in the Origin line gets a prototype in the form of a giant who now fights for peace, but used to be the evilest rampaging monster on Tahron.
Details
Name: Gollyop
Subtitle: cyclopean craftsman and guardian
Classification: reptile of uncertain group
Sex: male
Home: Tahron
Era: 520 years before Masq-Lor's time (now renamed Foundation)
Affiliation: Theriom (formerly belonging to the Reptonoid faction)
Rank: lieutenant.
Background
First appearance: KR|Origin #2 - Battle for Tahron: Part I – The journey begins
Brief bio: an odd one-eyed reptilian creature originally from the mountains of southern Tahron, Gollyop was taught to make honest choices in life by his family, in order to gain respect despite his physical abnormality. He trained as an artisan during his boyhood, but was later forced to leave his home after his body had begun growing to an unusual largeness. Frustrated with the treatment he received from his people, Gollyop was recruited to help bolster the Reptonoid ranks after claiming that he belonged to a race of savage giants. In service to Bi-Harr, he aided the reptilian troops in marauding many villages, but was eventually injured on the battlefield when King Tah-Ron was killed. Expelled from the Reptonoid faction because of his unfitness, Gollyop travelled across Tahron to seek help and, ultimately, forgiveness from the mammalian people. As a result, he joined the Therioms, fighting for peace alongside King Khon-Uhr, and using his great strength and know-how to help construct the two multiversal walls. Soon after Khon-Uhr’s death, Gollyop fell during a battle against his former comrades-in-arms, heroically sacrificing his life to protect the walls he had been guarding.
Articulation
Description
Head: he sports a hemispherical, close-fitting brown skull-cap bordered with a number of spikes and worn over a loose dark-blue hood with a single large eye-hole cutout in the centre. On the front, the hood is short enough to expose the wrinkled light-green face partially, including a bit of the broad flat nose and the slightly open mouth, which resembles that of a gorilla and has large sharp canine teeth. On the back, several long rope-like strands of matted black hair emerge from under the hood. The helmet leather straps seemingly run down his cheeks, underneath the hood, and fasten under his chin
Body: Gollyop stands 46 cm (around 18'') tall, only equalling the size of one previous figure in the whole KR universe, which is Tmohrr. His body has been rotationally moulded in a light-green colour and then tinted with a darker green in various areas to give his porous skin more depth. His chest has been sculpted with his neck and shoulders hunched forward, giving him a great menacing ogre-like look. He has a fuzz of black hairs on the back of each hand and on the instep of each foot, as well as long black nails (which are nicely sculpted with lines and chips in them) on his fingers and toes
Wearables: a dark-green leather armour with brown details, two studded metallic dark-green bracelets, two metallic dark-green calf protectors, a spiked metallic dark-green belt and a brown furry loincloth. Some of these components show a nice chain mail texture, e.g., the chest plate that joins the four armour straps, and the parts around the neck, on the calves and on the hips. The amour is a particular highlight and, due to its big size, has tons of little details, including zigzag patterns, braided edges, diamond-shaped studs, buckles (for fastening the ends of the straps), rivets, and an interesting dark-blue eye symbol that looks pretty different from the standard Reptonoid emblem and resembles a more human eye. On the back, the armour bears three mason tools sculpted on (a trowel, a chisel and a hammer... I kinda wish they were removable!) and a loop for storing Gollyop's mace. Finally, each wrist/shin guard is ornamented with a triangular dark-blue gemstone.
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| Gollyop's stylised armour. |
Action feature
The centrepiece of this figure is the head, particularly the eye. It has one of the most proper action features in a KR figure, since it's not simply based on part swapping, but involves an actual change in Gollyop's eye appearance (and, to some extent, in his personality) by turning the skull-cap. The funny thing is that I can't pick a favourite among the three options: the daytime eye (with a slit-like pupil and an amber-yellow iris) has to be respected as Gollyop's standard, in my opinion, but the night-time (with a widened, round black pupil) and evil-days (with a slit-like pupil and a heavily bloodshot iris) eyes are equally exciting.
Additionally, the figure gives us a little more fun in the guise of two alternative rotating eye-drums. The top of Gollyop's head (including the skull-cap and the hood) is removable, allowing us to pop it off and place another drum with three new amusing eyes onto the figure. One drum shows a human-looking green eye with heavy eyeliner and villainous lashes (reminiscent of the main character of Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange), a blank glow-in-the-dark eye that can be painted at will (like with a Daruma doll) and HAL 9000's signature camera eye. The second drum displays Leela's eye (with a blue iris), an unsettling clown-like fiery eye and an empty bony eye socket.
Weapons and accessories
Apart from the two alternate eye-drums, Gollyop comes with his enormous mace. This is basically a long, thick knotty wooden shaft with a heavy head on the end, which is also made of wood and is reinforced with a number of flat greenish slabs of stone. Although beautifully sculpted with gashes and pockmarks from plenty of use, there is a bit of an issue with this weapon on my prototype, as the handle is made of a softer plastic and was a bit warped in the package. I think I straightened it out, but I would have preferred to get this mace in a stiffer plastic.
Overall, Gollyop is one of the nicest large rotocast figures I own and I consider him essential to my KR collection. He received a nicely sculpted figure with a cool bonus feature. Every single part of him is so interesting in terms of detail and I really love how fierce he looks coupled with his bloodshot eye. Plus, his articulation matches the line’s standards. On top of that, from a characterisation standpoint Gollyop is one of my new favourite characters - he used to be a big bad reptilian guy, so he is automatically cool.
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