My first contact with Infamy Miniatures took place at our miniature painting forum, where I saw the model of Henrietta Jekyll. Although the paintjob was impressive (oh, those flasks!), the model didn’t impress me that much. Not that I didn’t like it, not at all. I was just less than impressed.

Imagine how surprised I was when I noticed that Infamy Miniatures decided to send us two of their models for review, so we could see if our opinion remains unchanged after seeing them in person.

Infamy Miniatures is a company, whose flagship product is a range of steampunk models in 32mm scale. The company is actually an one-man-show, but James who runs it managed to get some “big names” to collaborate with him on the project. Thumbs up and respect for managing to achieve it!

Now that we know about the company, we can take a look at the models we received for review.

Infamy Miniatures – first impression

The miniatures are packed in plain white boxes. Nothing fancy or impressive, especially if you compare them to packaging of some more elaborately decorated products like Smart Max‘s Smog miniatures.

The positive thing is that the packaging does its job perfectly. The models are very safe, despite their fragility.

As you can see there are a few layers of foam inside…

 … and models, reference cards and bases are separated and protected by those sheets of foam. Not a single part was damaged in shipping, and I say it again – many elements are pretty thin and fine, and because they’re made of resin, they might be fragile. Despite this fact, everything arrived in perfect condition.

So what do these miniatures look like? How good or how bad are they after a closer inspection? Let us see…

Infamy Miniatures: Sherlock Holmes – review

The first model that immediately caught my attention was Sherlock Holmes. I think everybody is familiar with the character of this famous detective created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I must admit I always liked these stories, and have a pretty soft spot for all things Sherlock Holmes. 😉

What we get is Sherlock Holmes with a steampunk twist, and we must say the “twist” is easily visible. Just take a look at this concept  art. Cool, isn’t it? Sherlock has some kind of an engine or mechanism on his back providing power for various tools and mechanical arms attached to it. Some say the model looks a bit like Inspector Gadget, but to me it was closer to Fabius Bile from the Warhammer 40K universe.

 Now compare the concept art to the actual model. Pretty close, isn’t it?

It is not a very common thing that the miniature manages to capture such likeness to the original concept art, and in case of Infamy Miniatures‘ Sherlock Holmes the miniature is very close to the concept. Yeah, the arms used on this picture are not the same as used on the concept art, but you have a choice which arms to use and which to leave unused. But we’ll talk about it later.

 The official paintjob was done by Arsies, and when you see how finely detailed the model is, you will appreciate the quality of this paintjob.

Now take a look at the detail of the original sculpt (not a casting yet). See how many elements were used to build the mechanical engine on his back?

 And here’s a shot of the sculpt of the character. It shows how much care was taken to represent all the subtle details without resorting to exaggerating and oversizing them too much. But how does it all transfer to a resin copy of this sculpt?

Let’s see…

Infamy Miniatures: Sherlock Holmes unboxed

Here’s what you get in your box. The model consists of many parts: the main body, the engine, the hand, and 6 mechanical arms/tools. This adds up to 9 parts. There’s also a round 30mm round “lipped” base and a reference card with the illustration that I already presented and number of the miniature. You can judge the size of all elements by referring to the grid on the cutting map I used for my photos.

Assembling the model will require some work but you should enjoy it if you like working with multi-part models. The positive thing is that all parts fit together very well. Also you won’t need all 6 arms, as the model is prepared for 4 attachments to the backpack, which allows to customize the model a bit.

You should see it on the close-up pictures that the quality of this casting was very good. The resin used for the model was of excellent quality. I could spot no air bubbles, no casting problems here.

Sherlock Holmes review – a closer look

Take a look at the photos below to see how each part looks from different angles:

To summarize my impressions, let me say that I liked the concept, liked the sculpt and its faithfulness to the original concept, and loved the way it was turned into a miniature. I don’t mind assembling my models, so its multipart character was not a problem for me.

I will also show and write more about the quality below.

Infamy Miniatures: Henrietta Jekyll – review

Henrietta Jekyll was not a “canonical” character to me, but it was this miniature which was my first contact  with Infamy Miniatures, so I was really curious if it looks better or worse than I expected from the internet photos.

The photo I mentioned earlier presented the official paintjob by Derwish. You can see that the attention focus is on the bottles. They look so nice, that they steal the show from the rest of the miniature.

And here’s a photo of an unpainted sculpt by Automaton (Seb Archer). I never pretended I was not a fan of his works, and having seen some miniatures he sculpted for Guild of Harmony, I only expected high quality sculpting. Of course I was not disappointed with the sculpt.

Just like it was with Sherlock, the sculpt is very true to the concept art. I always appreciate seeing that the sculptor managed to capture the personality and character that the concept art presented. Unfortunately many companies tend to release miniatures which are not even remotely resembling respective original concepts. This is not the case with Infamy Miniatures!

Infamy Miniatures: Henrietta Jekyll unboxed

This time we receive a simpler model, which doesn’t make her worse than Sherlock. What I mean by “simpler” is that the model doesn’t require as much work as Sherlock, being only a two-part miniature. The two parts are: the main body and an arm holding the weapon, which is some kind of a flame thrower. There is also a card and a round 30mm “lipped” base (which somehow didn’t make it to the photo).

Again I used the cutting mat to allow you to see the size of this model. The photo doesn’t say too much about the quality and details of the copy I received, so let’s take a closer look from several angles.

Henrietta Jekyll review – a closer look

After seeing the model in person I had to admit that the photos, despite a very good official paintjob, don’t really do the model justice. The model is very good and characterful. Somehow she brings Marie Skłodowska-Curie to my mind. Of course I don’t think the real scientist ever ran around in London with bottles of explosives strapped to her belt and a flamer in her hand, and I can’t even say that she was the inspiration for this model. I only mention the impression I had about the character.

I hope the photos show that the model, while very detailed and finely sculpted, still leaves enough room for the painter’s imagination and skill. The model will surely be enjoyable to paint.

I must also say that the resin used here was of very high quality again, no air bubbles. I even thought the models may be the most flawless models I have ever held in my hands!

Flawless?

But wait, can the picture be all that perfect?
Can it be that these miniatures were the closest to perfection of all the miniatures I had a chance to see?

The answer is… YES and NO.

How?
Let me try to explain:

Take a look at the Sherlock Holmes miniature. The photos here are strong close-ups, so you can see the quality of the sculpt and of the casting I received. They also show the face of Sherlock from several angles, the buttons of his coat (which are pretty subtle, so some attention will be needed to paint them well) and other details.

When you compare the detailing of this resin copy to the original sculpt you will see how well resin captured and copied all the details. The only softness of details occurs only when the original sculpt was also soft in these places.

I could not find a single flaw of this casting. No bubbles, no flash, no mold lines. Of course there are some “sticks” marking the places where resin was injected into the mold, but these are technologically obvious and couldn’t be considered flaws by me.

The model was very good. Probably the cleanest casting I can recall, and I think I’ve seen quite a few already. Just a few days ago I saw another resin model which is at least comparable or maybe better, but it is in a completely different scale and will be described in a separate review.

Was Henrietta cast as well as Sherlock?
Unfortunately not…

Take a look at this photo:

I marked two ends of a mold line. Not that it is very bad, it would be very simple to remove – several straight moves with sand paper or a soft file and you’re done with cleaning it, but there was nothing like that on Sherlock.

Moving on to another angle we also see a problem on the other side:

See what I mean? Another slight roughness.

Of course I would be absolutely happy to receive all my miniatures in this quality and requiring only so much preparation before painting. I am accustomed to miniatures which require some preparations: cleaning flash and mold lines with a scalpel, then moving on to sanding and finally polishing with steel wool or polishing sticks. Here you need to do so much more that the miniatures don’t deserve to be called anything but very good.

But wanting to remain objective and honest, I tried to find ANY flaws. And I hope this makes the review even more valuable.

And here’s the same thing you already saw, but this time from another angle. It also reveals a mold line on her leg, too.

So no, I cannot call the copy of Henrietta Jekyll flawless, but it still is one of the best miniatures, which can be considered perfect after a few moves of a file or scalpel.

Infamy Miniatures provided some of the best quality castings I had pleasure of seeing!

Infamy Miniatures review – final verdict

Now you may wonder what is my final opinion about these models. Well, I must say I was very impressed – both with the concepts, good representation of concepts in 3d miniatures, great detailing, and nearly perfect casting quality.

Now there’s one thing that may discourage you a bit: money.
These models are not cheap. Sherlock Holmes costs 13.99 GBP, and Henrietta Jekyll is priced only 1 GBP lower (ie. at 12.99 GBP). These are not the cheap plastic models some of us may be used to working with. These are high quality models that will be enjoyable for many painters and will surely look nice in display cabinets. Of course they may be used for gaming, but then you need to bear in mind that you’re paying for quality toys.

Now that you know the positive and negative things about the models from Infamy Miniatures I had a chance to review, I would like to recommend these models to you. Manufacturers of good and interesting miniatures need support, so let’s help them!

Thanks to James of Infamy Miniatures for providing the models for this review and good luck with your future releases!

— Mahoń