Review: Brother Vinni Fantasy Miniatures

Back to Fantasy! For today's review I'll have a look at some 28mm Fantasy miniatures by Brother Vinni. First time I'm working on any of his minis.

Brother Vinni is a sculptor from St.Petersburg in Russia. All the minis come cast in resin. It's mostly the usual let's say "40k and WHFB compatible" styles and themes of minis, including topless female not-Catachans and the likes, but also a dediacated Fallout range and lately shieldmaidens labelled as SAGA compatible (just so people don't get confused I suppose).

I received the package within relatively short time after I placed the order.

Question mark digitally added for dramatic purposes

This cardboard box came in a padded bubble mailer. Let's have a look inside!

Wrapped up in some soft plastic bouncy padding sheet stuff the minis are packaged simply in small plastic baggies.

The Models

Having a closer inspection of the miniatures which are the actual objects of this review. It's Don Pedro and Sorceress. It seems like the bodies are all one-piece casts with arms and equipment cast separately.

The casting quality looks great (easily up there and beyond Forgeworld for instance) and barely any mould lines at all. The main effort you'll have with these is cutting the feet off the resin chunks. 

Assembly

Assembly is very straightforward. The bits come with socket connectors, but they don't fit properly (and the holes they are supposed to go into in some cases are cast shut), so I either shaved them down considerably or just cut the connectors off altogether.

Painting

Here you can see the minis all finished. They paint up really well, nothing to complain there. The bases used on these minis are from one of my own resin bases. The same kind I used on the rest of the warband these minis here are an addition to.

Maybe you remember them. These are now to double as a warband for Frostgrave and as such require a wizard's apprentice in the shape of Sorceress. Here's the skeletor-coloured wizard:

Anyway, back to the actual subject of the review. As I said, the minis paint up really nice, the faces look well, there is some very Warhammer-typical iconography on the shield of Don Pedro, all is well. Speaking of him, I have no idea why he's got a sword in that big scabbard he is wearing on his back and another sword in his hand. I considered snipping off the sword from the back scabbard, but wasn't sure if the customer would be okay with that step, so I left it on for now.

Don Pedro's proportions look a little off, mostly in that his shoulders look weirdly wide under a slightly small head. The woodgrain on the back of the shield isn't sculpted, that's just a freehand.

The proportions on Sorceress look spot on. She doesn't have much of a chin, but I kinda like that. Gives her a bit of character.

Size and Cost

Here we got a size comparison shot of the Brother Vinni minis, a Black Tree Design medieval warrior and a Dark Elves warrior. The proportions on the BV minis are a bit more 'realistic' than the classic 28mm fantasy look, but they should mix reasonably well if set up with minis with the same basing and possibly even colour scheme.

In terms of price Brother Vinni minis are very reasonable with pretty much every mini costing €5,00. Shipping is a flat rate of €6,00 all around the world, if your order is €80,00 or more you get free worldwide shipping. Simple, straightforward. Reasonably priced. Delivery time seems to be varying (being sent from Russia and all) between 10 and 30 days. On his website, Vinni points out in several places how much care is taken that shipped parcels arrive safe and sound and that he will send free replacements if a parcel should somehow disappear. In the case of my order the minis were sent off the day after I ordered and arrived three days later.

Verdict

Very good quality, affordable for the category these are, fast service and shipping -no problems what so ever. I have nothing negative to say about these, and I usually like saying negative things. ;-) Some of his other sculpts may show their age or rather that they were earlier works with stiff poses and some bland or questionable faces, but these minis here (slight proportion weirdness on Don Pedro aside) are perfectly fine. Thumbs up, recommanded. Especially if you need Fallout-style miniatures. For this Brother Vinni pretty much is the go-to place. For Fantasy minis, which you can get from many, many places, Vinni is perfectly fine. Personally, I prefer Hasslefree, but at this point it really comes down to preferences in style and depends on the sculpt itself.

I hope that you enjoyed this review, found it interesting, enjoyed the painting and so on. If you have any questions, comments or indeed commission inquiries, feel free to let me know via the comments section, the Battle Brush Studios Facebook page or via e-mail.