Review: Brother Vinni's Ragnar and Eyebot

I had to put in an order with Brother Vinni when I first saw this wonderful figure!

The figure is called Ragnar and is obviously based on Ragnar Lothbrok as played by Travis Fimmel in the brilliant History Channel drama Vikings. I picked him up in order to add another interesting leader to my various Viking forces for SAGA, Dux Brit and others. The head sculpt in particular is fantastic and is a great representation of the actor. Also of note is the raven on the chest of his horn armour - this is the clothing he wears in the TV series and the Raven sigil was connected to the sons of the historical Ragnar Lothbrok.

 The kit came in several pieces - the body, head and legs as one piece as shown here, then each arm with axe and shield attached, plus a sheathed sword. Everything was very nicely cast with barely any moldlines to clean up. I did end up replacing the axe, shield and sheathed sword for ones from the Gripping Beast kits as I tend to worry about resin weapons snapping - I could quite easily have just used the original ones as the cast was crisp. 

Here he is based up - I used a 30mm round base and added some cork sheet on top as rocks. Size-wise, he fits very nicely alongside the rest of my Gripping Beast plastics and metals. 

I would very much suggest that you buy this figure if you're a fan of the series or if you're in the market for an interesting new Viking warlord!

I also picked up a figure from the Nuclear Sandbox line to add to my Post-Apocalyptic figures - the Eyebot. These were the pieces that arrived - again, another lovely and crisp cast.

One thing that I would say about the miniature is that it was larger than I was expecting - I suppose that's just the way some things need to be when it comes to transporting something from a computer game into 28mm - at scale I would guess that it would be around a quarter of the size or less, so it may be a positive that it's larger. 

I ended up using a round Warhammer 40000 base with a coin glued to the bottom for weight, then once again a piece of cork on top. I then used some straight wire to use as a flying stand - I drilled into the bottom of the eyebot and into the cork to pin it into position. I also added a canine skull to the base as it seemed to fit the theme.  

Regarding the multitude of aerials shown here, I was very glad that I'd recently invested in a set of multiple sizes of micro drill bits. I have everything from 0.1mm to 2mm for projects like this. I used some pictures of ED-E from Fallout: New Vegas and found the various spots on the model that needed an aerial. One of these in the centre at the back is a paperclip, whilst the others are actually bristles from a nylon-bristled sweeping brush. The final stage with the figure was to take some tomato puree tube metal and make a couple of metal plates for the figure to give it a "lived in" feel like ED-E.

As with the Ragnar miniature, I would very much recommend that you check out the Eyebot from Brother Vinni. I'm based in the UK, whilst Brother Vinni is located in Russia, yet the figures arrived within a week of ordering - that's pretty top-notch service! Give them a look - their Fallout range is fantastic and I'll be most certainly picking up more stuff from them in the future (after the 6MMRPC!)