Miniature Factory Psycho Killers

It is not very often that I buy resin cast figures and it is even rarer that I buy figures from France. But when I saw these three figures from French company Miniature Factory I had to have them. These are just sublime sculpts!

 Miniature Factory is a small company run by Jacques-Alexandre Gillois. The figures vary in height, as you can see from the two photos above. I'll start with the female of the group, Daisy. Daisy is described on their website thus "among the rare visitors still sane enough to describe their visit to the locals, most mention meeting an attractive, promiscuous young woman. Shortly after this part the tone of the narrative slips without transition from bucolic to plain gross. The rest of the tale, vague and filled with gruesome violence, is of little documentary interest." Hmm, maybe to you, but not me! I want all the gory details! Daisy is clearly a deranged psychopathic murderer. Viewed from the front she is a picture of ravishing beauty with more than just a hint of naughtiness. Note how her cut off denim hot pants are partially unbuttoned. Note the sweet smile and seductive eyes. Note the big flower in her hair. How sweet! Then look behind her and note the short sword (it's far too big to call a knife) in her hand! This incredibly beautiful sculpt stands 33mm tall and comes in three parts - main body, ponytail and sword and right hand. I recommend gluing the ponytail in place first before the hand and sword.

 In the centre of the group is Ned. The MF website hilariously describes him thus "when he was little, Ned was already tall. His gifts for outdoor activities compensated for his feeble-mindedness, and under the attentive ferule of his elder siblings, Ned became a man, strong and sure of himself, proud of his values and quick to anger. In other words, a dickhead!" Ned is a lot taller than Daisy at 37mm from sole of feet to top of hat. He is a two-piece casting, with the hands and pitchfork a separate piece. They were glued in place very easily thanks to small pegs on the hands slotting into holes at the wrists. He is very muscular and I painted him with bronzed flesh to show he is an outdoors type. Note that he has a few sticks of dynamite tucked into his right hip pocket. That's all you need - a dickhead with dynamite!

Finally, we come to the main reason I bought these figures - an impressive looking brute with the most awesome chainsaw I have ever seen. Eat your heart out Games Workshop and your puny chainswords! This mechanical wonder is surely the king of chainsaws! He is called Uncle Meat and the website has this to say about him, "in the beginning Meat had another name. A real name, one his mom had given him. Then he lost his job at the slaughterhouse. Back home, he put to use his butcher craft to feed the family. The game in the Marsh, being not so co-operative, you had to be inventive to teach predators which species was the endangered one. The kids named him that way, because every time he came back home, there was always meat for dinner." His background sounds remarkably similar to that of Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. Meat stands an impressive 45mm tall, which some may well criticise for being far too tall. Not me. I think his size works in his favour. He is clearly meant to be larger than life, so why not take that phrase literally? He comes in four parts - body, legs and arms along with his head, the bottle sticking out of his apron pocket and of course, the chainsaw with hands attached. Oddly, he came with no base . The other two had slottatabs under their feet and I fitted them to 25mm diameter slottabases rather than the 30mm diameter slottabases with the horrible curved sides that came with them and which I dislike intensely. Meat comes with no slottatab and stands very well without one. I glued him to a straight sided 30mm diameter slottabase. The severed head on his base is a spare one from the Wargames Factory plastic zombies set. However, I didn't just want a head neatly severed at the neck. That was too boring and too neat. So I added part of the victim's shoulder out of modelling putty to show he had been decapitated at an angle. The last thing I did to Meat was to paint on the gore. Naturally I used Tamiya Clear Red, but I used a really old brush, whose bristles had hardened and stipled the TCR on. It has worked a treat! Meat is among my all time favourite miniatures!

I absolutely love these figures. I can now see why some collectors prefer resin to metal. Resin holds detail a lot better than metal and these three are incredibly detailed and just so beautifully sculpted. Sadly, such perfection comes at a price and these beauties are not cheap. Daisy costs 9 Euros, Ned costs 12 Euros and Meat costs 15 Euros. I've included the web address of Miniature Factory in the sidebar to the left under My Favourite Websites. The size of these figures and their high prices may put a lot of you off from buying them, which is fair enough. I have no regrets at all in buying them and adding them to my collection of psychopathic killers. Just imagine a battle between these and Wargames Foundry's the Viscera Family! Now imagine being caught in the middle of such a battle!