Knights and Turnips

 One knight, one Frenchman.

I hope that I have not misled any readers with my occasional references to roots and kitbashing. Really, honest, I just bought kits of medieval and Napoleonic figures to paint two and then call it a day.

There are some doubts about this fellow. His gauntlets, for one, look more glove-like on the palm than metallic, but I trusted my gut during painting and left them shiny. His arms are also posed oddly, mostly due to an unsureness of how to approach the positioning of the shoulder-shields. In the end it makes him more friendly looking than combative, which is perfectly fine to me. Hello to you too, Sir Knight.

The highlights were done in two ways, taking inspiration from Just Add Water's article on painting medievals. This meant a drybrush for the mail, and a layering for the plate. I used Leadbelcher, then Ironbreaker, then Runefang Steel. This was all then cleaned up with an overall wash of extremely-thinned Black Templar and some interior cleanup with the new and inferior Nuln Oil formula, which seems to do very little despite being advertised as going into cracks better. I quite like how the effect came out on the forward leg, and if I do more figures like this I will definitely repeat it. I may, however, need a smaller drybrush to handle mail. The one I used for some of the Afghan tribesmen is too large to get into the small mail in-between the arm plating.

As for the gold and leather, I do not remember my exact recipe. They were done in the traditional manner, with blacklining on the leather., I think the more exaggerated effect of blacklining, which works great on figures like the British Redcoats and the Frenchman, does less well against a base of metal. To avoid dealing with flocking I repurposed an Afghanistan base, imagine it as Malta or Anatolia instead, though I am unsure how far South this style of plate could have been seen. I could have stood to practice some weathering on this shiny metal, but I decided it would be easier to do so on the next figures.

Hang on a moment, next figures?

Perhaps some mild lies have been propagated across the internet. Really, it is business as usual.

Here is the first Turnip28 fodder, of hopefully many. I am not going to post a painting recipe yet, as I am still experimenting, but I will say that assembly was inspired by the guide in the Swollen Maglette magazine. I only followed it for the first figure, but there were a few pieces of advice which I would have been slow to pick up on my own if ever. Consider this fellow a tutorial level, after which I take the training wheels off and let the twisted creativity flow.

I remember reading in an interview that the game was inspired by a desire to play with Napoleonic figures without having to paint the things. Having done so myself, I wholeheartedly agree with the notion. This figure took me two days of about an hour and a half each day, which while slow is leagues better than the full week required of the Frenchman. And the Frenchman required hours of research, and a grounding in terminology! All this one required was for me to print out the Maglette's tutorial section and look up a colour wheel. The wheel, in a preview of my technique, was used to dull down the figure in an initial wash by washing each colour individually with its opposite. I think it worked really quite well, and I am proud of having worked it out.

So proud, in fact, that I went out and made another. In even faster time too! This one I innovated on in what I think is a bit of a failed experiment. Somehow, in my efforts to brighten the figure a little, I have made it even darker. Still, is hardly contrasts overmuch with the other one. Being able to mess around with technique and recipie in media res is liberating compared to the Colonials project, where I feel obligated to paint each figure to roughly the same standard to keep a sense of cohesion. It seems the overall theme of making Turnip28 figures is a liberation from previous miniature shackles. I might even try for an oil wash at some point!

The weaselly little pose of this figure is very amusing to me. I have mentioned this before, but I find awful figures and things charming. Not awful like an atrocity, mind, but awful like a cave-dwelling mutant with a club or a pile of scrap that beeps and trundles around. This is part of why I am pursuing a Turnip28 army instead of one for Trench Crusade, which leans a little too self-serious for my personal tastes. Turnips are expected to slip face first into the mud with slide-whistle effects, and I admire that design philosophy.

As is inevitable, I had already been theorizing as to the background of my force well before putting paint to plastic. In this case, I think my force will be led by a barrel. Not just any barrel, but a barrel containing the pickling body of a tactical genius! It worked for Horatio Nelson after all, until someone drank him. The Toffs of Cist might consider it a sort of immortality, even if your flunkies can only interpret your orders through knocking and burbling. And there is always the risk of getting mistaken for another barrel. It is entirely possible my regiment has been following imaginary orders coming from a cask of fossilized biscuits for years now. I would be surprised if someone else has not already done this concept, but I hope nonetheless to put a personalized enough spin on it.

First, however, Fodder. Lots of them. Ten more are already curing as I type this, being easy to assemble when you only have to care about the largest of mold lines.

To finish off, enjoy size comparisons between the horrid rootmen and their progenitors. In the next Turnip post I might discuss more about how their forefathers influence their own apperance.

They have no idea what to make of each other.