Its Monday again so let’s cheer up and try to forget with a look at another amazing Miniature Maker! Today we are taking a look at one of the best busts in the business.

Forged Monkey was founded in 2011 by Raffaele Picca. Although he did sculpt some full figures, Raffaele quickly established himself as a creator of some of the best miniature busts in the hobby. After giving everyone a slight heart attack by closing in 2015 Forged Monkey has recently reopened as part of the Fernando Ruiz Miniatures line and the company continues to create the original and fantastic busts they are known for.

Miniature busts fall into pretty standard categories. You’ve got some orcs, soldiers, steam punk girls, elves, and tough looking humans. But strangely the animal kingdom has been left largely untouched. So it’s great to see a company doing such high quality work on this subject.

When looking at these miniatures you can see how important expressions are to Raffaele. The facial expressions are continued through the position of the shoulders and angle of the head. Giving these busts a strong emotion even before painting. Helping the painter to tell the story they want to regardless of their skill level.

You can see from these two busts how movement in the piece changes with the emotion.

At this point I’m sure you can tell that I think highly of this company. But there is a downside to all this awesomeness…the price. Your probably not going to pay less than 25£ for a very small very detailed bust, and some of them can go much higher. For some people that’s too much and it’s completely understandable, but let me tell you what you get for your money.

You’ll get an extremely detailed and beautiful bust…

…and you’ll get some awesome pieces for it that you can use to customize your figure…

… and then you’ll get even more stuff and you’ll begin to panic from the amount of choices and extra pieces…

…and you’ll end up working on something else to give you an excuse to keep thinking about what you want to do…

…or trying to resist buying another copy so you can do multiple versions…

Forged Monkey will always leave you with little gift bits left over for your investment.

Forged Monkey miniatures are expensive and can be frustrating to find due to their tendency to sell out quickly. But I would still suggest taking a serious look at purchasing one. These miniatures keep inspiring me to push my painting skills and that’s important to have when your stuck in the un-fun grind that can be practicing. New pieces have been coming out regularly so check the links below to see what you can add to your table.

To see and purchase older pieces by Forged Monkey click here

To see and purchase newer releases by Forged Monkey click here