Today we will talk about a product from a very unique company. Today’s miniature for review is the Wizard of Agni, from the catalogue of Ben Komets Miniatures.
Pretty much everyone who is a bit active on the miniature painting community knows about Ben Komets. He became very well known because of his video tutorials, but also for being a very prolific painter who has won many awards worldwide, and at the same time, for being a very friendly person. While he launched his very succesful Patreon to support his video tutorials, he started his own miniature seal, Ben Komets miniatures. The company has only two references in the market at the moment. In a way, this suggests to us Ben is not going to produce anything for the sake of maintaining a release calendar. It seems he wants to produce only what he feels really encouraged to. This is a feeling we confirm when we take a look in detail at the piece we want to focus on today.
WIZARD OF AGNI REVIEW
The package we received comes with lots of goodies, for starters.
There’s a postcard depicting the concept art for this miniature, a high quality sticker with the title of the miniature in black and gold, and then an additional card with the names of the artists who created the product. Of course the most important of all is the little wooden box which has the title of this creation engraved on top.
If we take a look up close we can see that the engraving is actually very cool. It looks like a print but then it becomes like golden or rusty in some points. There is true attention to detail in this packaging. It’s almost magical.
We open the box and before we start digging into its contents, we suddenly realize a weird thing. It’s very subtle, but still noticeable. A strange scent is released in the air. The box comes with some kind of fragrance! If the idea was to transport us to the back room where the Wizard of Agni brews his strange potions and magic, we are definitely there now.
Under some paper wrapping in black (we realize the colour is also not random, probably another trick of the Wizard to lure us into his trap) we finally find the treasure. The Wizard of Agni bust pieces! Despite being quite a simple bust, there is a lot of detail in little things, like the Wizard’s hat, or the ears of the monkey, that for manufacturing reasons come in separate pieces. Overall, 10 pieces: the body, the head, two arms, and the rest are details like the small hat, the monkey’s ear, the arm with the monkey’s smoking pipe, or the magical fire from the spell.
Now we can take a closer look at each part of the bust.
The bust is sculpted by Lucas Pina, on his second collaboration with Ben Komets for the company, based on the concept art by Felideus. The very personal and unique style of Lucas is evident on all the pieces of the bust. It is quite remarkable how the bust is very true to the concept art, but still very clearly a miniature from Lucas.
The cast is very neat, we don’t see any mold lines or resin excesses. We do observe however that all the pieces come a bit dirty, with tiny particles of resin all over the surface. This is nothing than cannot be solved with proper cleaning, but it’s very obvious in the photos and makes the copy look quite rough.
There’s two things we really love about this bust. The hands are one of them, being so expressive and how they suggest that the Wizard is casting some kind of spell. It will be very interesting to play with them and the magic he is casting, for very appealing OSL (Object Source Lighting) effects. The other thing we love is the monkey. As you know, we love the addition of small animals in miniatures. This is of course no exception, and it’s the perfect sidekick to the Wizard of Agni.
CONCLUSIONS
Ben Komets has a great taste in miniatures and this bust is the result of a great collaboration between his ideas, what we wants to see in miniatures and the great sculptor that is Lucas Pina. The great attention to detail in the packaging makes this bust the one of its kind, something very unique and original.
PROS
- The experience provided with the packaging, great attention to detail and a delight for the senses.
- Lucas Pina’s seal of quality for the sculpture.
- Of course, we don’t forget: there’s a monkey!
CONS
- The only con we can think of is the cleaning required on the copy at first just because of all that resin dust covering the miniature.
Here you can find the links to the catalogue of Ben Komets Miniatures and to the store where you can purchase the Wizard of Agni. And also a link to Ben Komet’s famous Patreon, just in case you want to support him with his videos!
