There are some people who paint their Space Marines the colours Games Workshop recommends; there are people who paint them whatever colours they like; and then there are people who make their own Space Marines out of teeth.
This quote is paraphrased from someone known only as ‘Walrus’, but it describes the Fringe community perfectly. Fringe is a collective of alternative miniature makers — people who make their own games and sculpt their own Warhammer-like miniatures from scratch — who often host small meet-ups in the shadows of bigger conventions.
This past weekend, I attended one such meeting. Salute is primarily an historical wargaming convention, but has become progressively weirder as years have gone on. Fantasy miniatures have crept in, as has science fiction. But little is as weird as the Fringe Fest that runs alongside it. I knew that before attending, but I didn’t expect my Warhammer conversion to pick up first prize in the perverse painting competition.
On The Fringe Of The Hobby
Before we get to my surprise victory, let’s talk about Fringe Fest itself. What do you even do at an alternative Warhammer convention hosted in a pub under the arches of a train line? Some people spend the day kitbashing, hunting through boxes of miniatures and parts in order to create some kind of monstrosity, though no one made the sorts of things you’d expect.
From mixed media seminars hosted by sculptors and artists to ‘Skaventide’ hacks of Mordheim, there was something for you no matter what aspect of the hobby you enjoy. I started off proceedings by catching up with friends while watching a round of Games Workshop’s crunchiest game, Inquisitor, play out in front of me, understanding little but enjoying it nonetheless.
As the day progressed, I played an early demo of Fae, a beautiful game with figures made from forest flora and rules like a mashup of Malifaux and Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game. I also waved my magic wand in the direction of Aetherpunk28, a game that imagines wizards are given shotguns because magic is a rapidly-depleting fossil fuel. I had great fun, but am gutted to have missed out on trying Hæmorrhage and Space Gitz. I bought some bits from amateur casters, grabbed some zines made by cool folk, and drank some stout. Then I revealed my bad cavalry. Everything degenerated from there, really.
Ortolan And Turnips: Taste Sensation
“I bring my molars down and through my bird’s rib cage with a wet crunch and am rewarded with a scalding hot rush of burning fat and guts down my throat. Rarely have pain and delight combined so well. I’m giddily uncomfortable, breathing in short, controlled gasps as I continue slowly – ever so slowly – to chew.
“With every bite, as the thin bones and layers of fat, meat, skin, and organs compact in on themselves, there are sublime dribbles of varied and wondrous ancient flavors: figs, Armagnac, dark flesh slightly infused with the salty taste of my own blood as my mouth is pricked by the sharp bones. As I swallow, I draw in the head and beak, which, until now, have been hanging from my lips, and blithely crush the skull.”
Those are the words of the late Anthony Bourdain in his book Medium Raw. I’m a big fan of his writing and TV shows, but no description has ever stuck so vividly in my mind as that of eating Ortolan. It’s a dish where a poor bird is drowned in armagnac before being cooked and eaten whole. As a vegetarian, the whole concept disgusts me. As a food lover, it intrigues me. If only it wasn’t illegal in the EU.
This is all relevant, I promise. Because when I saw Fringe’s kitbashing and painting competition had the theme ‘bad cavalry’, I knew exactly what to do. I had to get this twisted dish out of my mind and onto a 50mm base.
There’s another reason my mind immediately flitted to f*cked up French cuisine. Turnips. I still haven’t written about Turnip28 yet, but my force for this alt-historical wargame is based around French foods. Who better to lead them into battle than Lord Ortolan, a hideous Toff devouring his own avian steed, spraying blood and organs across the battlefield as he shouts orders to his beleaguered troops?
The Ortolan itself is a repurposed garden ornament I picked up in a charity shop (that’s a thrift store for those of you across the pond) for a couple of quid (bucks). I used a portion of my precious stock of Green Stuff to sculpt peeling skin flaps, an exposed spine, and a rudimentary saddle, before attaching a pair of legs and torso from the Age of Sigmar Tahlia Vedra kit. However, I had something special planned for the rider’s head.
Hiding My Sins From God
There’s one other aspect of Ortolan I haven’t mentioned. Diners usually wear a towel over their heads when devouring the poor bird, skull and all, in order to preserve the aromas and/or hide their sins from God. This would be the sadistic cherry on top of my gluttonous cake.
There’s just one problem: I’ve never sculpted cloth before. I trialled a messy mix of masking tape and superglue for Lord Ortolan’s long coat, but it stuck to my fingers more than the mini and the final effect didn’t have enough texture. For the all-important towel, I opted for kitchen roll soaked in Mod Podge (it’s basically PVA with additives). Almost papier maché-like in application, it was malleable to shape into the impression of an arm shovelling pieces of still-beating bird heart into a devouring maw, and dried solid while preserving some texture.
It’s Time For Total War: Warhammer 40K
Creative Assembly has done wonders with Total War: Warhammer. Now it’s time to take its skills to the 41st millennium.
Satisfied with the towel and the assumed body beneath it, I moved onto the gore. I needed blood and stringy flesh in the bird’s gaping wound, but I was all out of UHU glue, my go-to material for such grisly details. After some internet research, I cut thin strips of plastic from a blister pack I had lying around, and built up globules using my old friend Mr Podge to make it look natural. The disgusting paint job came thanks to brown and purple underpainting and a heavy layer of Blood for the Blood God on top.
With the mount painted to match the Ortolan’s natural markings and its rider to match the rest of my Turnip28 army, I was ready to enter the competition. I didn’t expect to win. Honestly, I didn’t even expect to place, especially not in the painting category. I thought I had an outside chance of a bronze in the kitbashing, but the judges were sufficiently impressed by both concept and execution to award me first place, and a coveted golden acorn, in the painting category.
The other entries were phenomenal. I was particularly impressed by a hollowed out fish with legs that was either made of, or perfectly simulated the finish of, ceramic; some freakish long-legged abominations; and a toy horse undergoing a Thing-esque transformation to reveal a bloody foetus at its centre. The latter deservedly won the overall prize for kitbashing and painting combined, but I was honoured to be recognised among such incredible entries.
The idea had been percolating for some time, but I wasn’t building this because I needed it for my Warhammer army. It wasn’t for work, nor because it’s a shiny new release. What I especially enjoyed was the process of building something specifically for a competition. I made this for art’s sake. I made this to learn new techniques. I made this to show a group of the most creative people I know what I bring to the table, and they looked me in the eye and said, “yeah, that’s pretty cool.”
That’s what the Fringe experience is, ultimately, all about. Learning from each other, being inspired by each other, creating for the sake of creating, and feeling simultaneously amazed and disgusted at these glimpses inside your friends’ twisted minds. Nobody made a Space Marine out of teeth this time around, but there was a cavalry unit in which horse and rider both had molars instead of heads. That’s got to count for something, right?
