WHAT THE HECK IS A FLYING GUILLOTINE??

I remember watching old Kung Fu movies when I was a kid, and I was fascinated by this mythical weapon wielded by ancient Chinese imperial assassins called a Flying Guillotine. It's attached to a long chain and it resembles a spinning hat or a bucket with retractable blades hidden on the inside. Like a cowboy roping a horse, the user of the flying guillotine will rope his victim with this weapon; and needless to say, it will cut the victim's head clean off.

My version of the Flying Guillotine is obviously not a literal portrayal. This diorama piece features the Number 6 and Number 3 creature from my Creature Head Collection 1 Series. And the weapon itself, the Flying Guillotine, is also my interpretation of the legend. Below are some work-in-progress pictures.

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According to Wikipedia, "[a flying guillotine] hails from the time of the Yongzheng Emperor during the Qing Dynasty. There are stories and crude drawings detailing their appearance but no clear instructions on their use or production are known to exist. The consensus is that they resembled a hat with a bladed rim with an attached long chain. One alleged way of using it is that, upon enveloping one's head, the blades cleanly decapitate the victim with a pull of the chain. This gives the weapon its English name. However, there is also evidence that the weapon may have been used by being soaked with intense poison that is so powerful it could kill another person "at the sight of a drip of blood", giving it its Chinese name."