Durgin Paint Forge: Gallant Knights of Moss Hill

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Kit Focus: Gallant Knights of Moss Hill

It is not every day that one gets to launch an entirely new range!
Fortunately, the Knights of Moss Hill are proving to be an immensely entertaining project to develop, and I must admit I am still getting properly acquainted with these lunatic, lance-waving, bounding cavaliers in order to squeeze every last drop of potential from them. In the meantime, I am delighted to present this very first release: the Gallant Knights.

It seemed only logical to begin with what might best be described as the archetype of this new faction, the standard by which to set your expectations, and the compass by which to navigate its aesthetic, character, and peculiar brand of martial nonsense. The Gallant Knights are the very essence of the Knights of Moss Hill, and they waste no time in making their ambitions perfectly clear: ramshackle, picturesque, and heroic cavaliers in relentless pursuit of glory.

This range thrives on two natures at once, opposite and yet strangely inseparable: a paradox that is, in the finest and most traditional sense, profoundly Goblin. On the one hand, there is a strong current of comedy and fairy-tale absurdity, enough to test even the most generous suspension of disbelief (after all, can one truly be expected to accept that a Goblin might possess a moustache splendid enough to inspire envy in a Dwarf?!)

And yet, on the other hand, there is something genuinely unsettling about them, because if you take these wiry little creatures in armour for mere caricatures, then you are making a very serious mistake indeed.

The Knights of Moss Hill, you see, believe in what they do with tremendous sincerity.
For them, the line between passion and fanaticism is not so much thin as carelessly sketched in pencil and then enthusiastically ignored. Such has been their way ever since Mossarion I—the future King of Moss Hill—discovered, inside an old chest, a battered copy of Le Morte Darthur. This was, by any reasonable standard, an improbable revelation, but revelations rarely concern themselves with reason. That ancient and bewildering book proved to be a true epiphany, one that would shape the fate of the Goblin who found it, and quite possibly that of a great many other adventurers thereafter.

From this obscure and venerable text, Mossarion I forged his own personal scripture: the Code, a vast and ever-growing tome containing not only everything he managed to understand from the original work (bearing in mind, of course, that we are still talking about a Goblin) but also his innermost convictions regarding the very nature of Glory and Destiny.

It was from the Code that King Mossarion I set forth to found his ancestral realm and, in doing so, laid the first stones of his own legend. Before long, many adventurers chose to follow the self-proclaimed King of Moss Hill, casting aside their ordinary lives to become heroes of legend themselves. Thus were born the Knights of Moss Hill: a wandering and picturesque court of fanatical knights, squires, and peasants (because someone, after all, must attend to the less chivalric matters) green-skinned and dangerous as the marshes they have claimed as their ancestral home.

This first taste of Moss Hill already gives you a generous number of modelling options to play with.
It is, of course, only the beginning: this kit will not merely be joined by other complementary releases, but will also be expanded in the near future with new components and additional options. This faction is designed to grow, to widen, and to provide you with everything you need to explore every curious and glorious facet of Moss Hill. And you, dear Patrons, will have the privilege of watching that evolution unfold from the front row, comfortably seated and, ideally, properly pampered.

For this first kit, I chose to focus on the great pillars of the concept: lances, shields, knights, and enormous swamp toads. I spent months gathering references and reworking them in search of something that felt truly original, and I must say I am very pleased with the result.

The most difficult part? Why, the prototype for the basic helmet, of course.

Before I could even begin thinking about decorations and finer details, I had to solve a rather troublesome design problem: finding a silhouette that would be instantly recognisable, unmistakably knightly, and—most importantly—realistically capable of containing my Goblins, whose ears and noses are not what one would call modest.

I discarded quite a number of variations before arriving at the one I now consider the best possible solution. It is recognisable, it preserves the silhouette of my Goblins (ears included!) it is clean and simple enough in its design, and, perhaps most importantly, it is very clearly a knight’s helmet rather than an unfortunate metal incident.

Once the structural problem had been solved, the obvious question became how to make it aesthetically distinctive. Here too I tried to follow a fairly strict set of guidelines: I wanted a visual element that felt unmistakably chivalric, could be stylised with relative ease, and would reinforce the unique identity of the Knights of Moss Hill. This was not especially simple, partly because I am not a professional illustrator (and my technical limitations are therefore alive and well) and partly because the danger of cluttering the design with confusing or unnecessary details was very real indeed.

In the end, I chose to reinterpret the classic idea of the heraldic crest (first requirement: recognisability) in the form of absurd little stuffed dolls, which gave me a design that was both easy to stylise (second requirement achieve!) and visually original (third requirement!), and by that point one begins to feel one has earned a sit down.

In the specific case of the Gallant Knights, who may well be glorious cavaliers and Goblins of honour but still occupy the lower rungs of Moss Hill’s chivalric hierarchy (those of you willing to wait another couple of months will see considerably more flamboyant varieties of knight) I decided to keep their heraldry relatively simple. After all, their road to glory is only just beginning!

I started with a basic heraldic doll in the unmistakable shape of a toad, and from there created several variants inspired by classic heraldic beasts: the pegasus, unicorn, dragon, and griffin. The idea is that every Gallant Knight begins with some version, simple or elaborate, of the most iconic heraldic animal of the faction—the toad, naturally!—and that some of them, in their desire to stand out, choose to embellish it into something grander and more glorious. Because, after all, even legends must make a proper visual impression.

The greatest challenge, of course, was knowing when to stop.
When one is developing something new, something never properly explored before, it is only natural (or at least it always happens to me) for ideas to multiply as the work goes on, rather in the manner of mushrooms after rain. And so, all at once, it becomes surprisingly difficult to separate what one would like to include in the kit from what one can realistically produce without launching oneself headfirst into delays, budgetary ruin, or both.

Even this very morning, while preparing the renders for this article, I found new ideas creeping in as I assembled the various parts in Blender: alternative bits, regrettably discarded bits, postponed bits, and the occasional notion that arrives far too late and then has the indecency to seem excellent!

That said, I think this kit already offers a very satisfying range of options in terms of posing and assembly. You have the highly dynamic charging pose for the knights, the more traditional and versatile static “portrait” pose, and even a more narrative variant (one I would very much like to develop further in the future, perhaps with a knight caught in the middle of a well-earned nap) in which the Giant Toad itself takes a little rest between one heroic bound and the next.

In any case, I hope you will have great fun assembling your own personal armoured hero.

There are plenty of little details I do not wish to spoil just yet, and which I hope you will come to appreciate as you assemble and paint these models.
One day, perhaps, I shall explain why these Goblins have developed such a remarkable obsession with garlic—but until then, if you believe you have guessed the reason, do make yourselves heard in the comments section.

For the moment, however, I think I have written quite enough, and that, as history teaches us, is often the first sign that one has written too much.

My heartfelt thanks go to all of you who support my mad projects and allow me to pursue them with a dangerously cheerful lack of restraint. This range is already proving even more exciting and inspiring than I had expected, and I cannot wait to explore it further.

The next release, you ask? Well now…have you ever seen a knight without a careful squire?

Spread the word across every realm: the Knights of Moss Hill are on the march, and they welcome volunteers of every sort, provided they possess a proper love of gold, glory, heavily garlic-laden bruschetta, and that glorious mossy scent which fills the nostrils when one crosses a swamp and begins, against all reason, to enjoy it.

Download now this kit:

Become a Knight!

Quelle: Durgin Paint Forge bei Patreon