Buffy After the Kill

Here we have a statue I had much hope for, the Buffy Throne of the Slayer Maquette. I was and am still a huge fan of anything done by Joss Whedon, including Buffy: The Vampire Slayer so I was very excited to receive this statue. Sideshow produced both a regular ($239.99) and exclusive edition ($249.99) of this maquette. The exclusive includes the scythe weapon Buffy wielded in the seventh and final season. The edition size is 750 for the regular and 400 for the Sideshow exclusive. I will be reviewing the regular edition.

“This is not gonna’ be pretty. We’re talkin’ violence, strong language, adult content.” -Buffy Summers

The Buffy maquette came packaged in three separate pieces: Base, throne and Buffy herself.  I received edition number 286 of 750. Unlike the majority of statues produced, the base does not actually attach to Buffy or the throne. It just simply rests under the statue. Buffy could also be displayed without the base just sitting on her throne. Buffy does attach to the throne by means of a square peg and hole. The base design is excellent. It is large, heavy and gives Buffy and extra two inches of height.

Throne of the Slayer

The throne is hands down my favorite part of this maquette. In fact, I almost feel I should be reviewing this a two individual pieces. The throne resembles something you might find in some sort of medieval dungeon. The front legs of the throne are sculpted as paws with three talons and two skulls adorn the armrest. Demonic looking gargoyles sit atop the throne and a pentagram is placed in the middle of the backrest. A creepy bats head is also carved in front of the cushion.

The sculpting detail of all these features is incredible and really makes the statue stand out amongst the crowd. The throne is also painted perfectly to match the cold, dark tile floored base. It has a paint application that looks similar to old, rusty iron with a slight red patina throughout. Overall, the throne looks fantastic and could almost be a display item by itself.

Pentagram Carving

On the other hand, as much as I liked the throne, I was somewhat disappointed with Buffy. Her body sculpt and paint application are fine. She is sculpted in a laid back pose holding Mr. Pointy (her favorite stake for dusting vamps) wearing a tight dress painted dark red. All of that is fine, but I found some disturbing issues with the head/face.

First, my Buffy seems to require glasses. Yes, she has a lazy eye. Now this doesn’t occur with every piece and is basically just luck of the draw, but Sideshow should really tighten up there quality control. A painting error in a place as noticable as the face really detracts from the statue as a whole. Not only that, but here hair is also dirty. Or at least it looks that way with dark brown highlights placed everywhere in her blonde locks. Maybe this is intentional. Afterall, Buffy does spend most of her nights in graveyards fighting vamps, strange creatures and other  undead things. Not that it looks bad, it just doesn’t look right

Something isn't right...

Her mouth is also a bit weird. It is sculpted as if she is about to speak, so her mouth isn’t fully closed, but isn’t open either. It looks awkward. Those are the major issues I have with this maquette. Unfortunately, all these problems are located in the same general area around her head compounding the issue. More detail and time should have been spent on the face/head, that’s for sure. There was also a slight paint overflow from the cross of her silver necklace onto her chest. This is only minor considering how small this area is.

Skull Armrest

Conclusion

The Throne of the Slayer – Buffy Summers Maquette fell a little short of my expectations. While I absolutely love the throne/base and Buffy’s body sculpt and paint is fine enough, Sideshow really missed the mark with both the sculpt/paint app of her hair and face. The sad thing is these issues could have been easily avoided by just paying as much attention to detail in one small area as they did the rest of the statue. If so this piece would be stunning. Being a huge Buffy fan, I still like this maquette and if your a Buffy fan I expect you will too. If you are not a fan of the show, this is probably a statue to reconsider unless you can see it beforehand and verify it doesn’t have the lazy eye syndrome.

Summary & Scores
Sculpt
Chair and base are excellent, Buffy herself only average.
Paint
Chair/base paint is great, while Buffy's face has some problems.
Likeness
It looks close enough to Buffy, but could be much better if not for the eye/hair screwup.

Overall Score
This is an average of all category scores.

Where to buy:

• Sideshow Collectibles
• Amazon