Mustrum Ridcully bust

Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully is my favourite Discworld character. This shouldn't new to people who have been reading this blog a bit longer - there's two character build versions of him, first one posted just days after PTerry's death as the first Discworld character build (There's around 20 so far). I've also built a vignette where Ridcully discovers the bathroom designed by Bloody Mad Johnson in Hogfather. So logical next step was a bust, right? Actually, I've made a ceramic bust of Ridcully in around same size some three years earlier. And this brick version originates from autumn 2016 when I had just moved away from my parents to Tampere. The face and the beard were build at that time, with too small hat brim. Half-completed Ridcully looked down to my two previous apartments from his place on top of a Billy shelf. When I moved together with Pinja in November, one of my new home goals was to get rid of some of my dust-collecting WIP either by breaking them to pieces or, in better alternative, actually finishing them.

Ridcully bust had some bits I was very happy about, especially the eyes and the nose, so giving up didn't feel like an option. I had made some little tweaks on it a year earlier, switching in some 1x1 quarter round tiles with great effect, but otherwise it had been as I left it in 2016. I took it to my building table where it lay for couple of weeks and got pushed over by cats a few times. Then one weekend morning I took it and worked with it couple of days and da-dah, it was finished. It's a large build, and quite heavy, but a very interesting too. I haven't worked in this scale before.

The look of Ridcully is based on Paul Kidby's drawings. He draws very cool beard to Mustrum, a one that is combed away from the face in very round shape, completed with a darker bushy moustache and goatee that reflects his straightforward and non-nonsense personality well. So here the beard itself has no patterns at all - it's just smooth, flat surface with round borders. I think it might wake some controversy. Beards definitely have a patter after all. But in other hand, I didn't have any ideas for rugged and hairy patterns in this scale, and I wanted to avoid sort of visual noise to keep the focus in the facial features and stern expression. The details are concentrated on specific areas - face, waistcoat details and the hand-tied flies stuck in his hat.

The hat is large and heavy, but stays together quite well. Ridcully has his personally designed hat (he doesn't wear the official Archchancellor's hat that keeps talking) with plenty of tricks and gimmicks, and I had to ditch some of them. The hat doesn't turn into a tent, which was always a bit unbelievable; Magic might have been involved. There is neither pistol bow stuck in the band, due to same visual noise issues; I wanted the shape to be clear and simple. But there are the flies, three of them, and they're quite different - one of them looks like a dragonfly and other uses a scorpion as its base. There are two opening drawers though, and they include some stamps, extra hooks and even a very small crystal ball (Ridcully is described having one of those in his hat). The pointy point is somewhat removable to be used as a drinking horn, but I doubt it's waterproof; The edges are just hinged.

There is a slight curve on the brim, as it consists mainly of 1x2 bricks. It's not pure 1x2 bricks curve, as the edged have some longer parts, but it gives some life to the overall build. The organic shape is also used on the shoulders, I'm rather happy with them. The base is black and quite simple, with some girder pieces inside the support the weigh. The waistcoat detail that uses old flag pieces is a nod towards character builds of Ridcully and their red-and-pearl-gold ornamental waistcoats.

This is the first Discworld build for something like one-and-half years. It's quite surprising. I've still big Discworld fan, of course, but somehow I haven't managed to complete any build about it. As a little spoiler, I have a WIP of Death, but I'm an ambitious builder and I'm going to build Binky on the same go, so it might take a while. Before that, I've got three models already photographed. And many more to come.