Goblin

Origin and myth

The goblin is the small, ugly, mischievous spirit of European folklore, and its name is older than any fixed image. A 12th-century Latin chronicle from Évreux in Normandy mentions a demon called Gobelinus haunting the district, and the Old French gobelin passed into English by the 14th century. Related words - kobold in German, kobalos in ancient Greek, meaning a rogue or trickster - suggest a very old family of household and mine spirits.

In folklore the goblin is defined by behaviour rather than shape: it hides in cellars and mines, sours milk, tangles horses' manes, knocks in the dark, steals small objects and delights in frightening people. Miners in Cornwall and Germany blamed knocking spirits for cave-ins and left them food. The Scottish and northern English tradition split goblins into the friendlier hobgoblin, a hearth spirit like Robin Goodfellow in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the truly malicious kind. Christina Rossetti's poem Goblin Market (1862) fixed the image of animal-faced goblin merchants in Victorian minds, and George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin (1872) gave them an underground kingdom, hard heads and soft feet - details that fantasy authors borrowed for a century afterwards.

Appearance

A goblin is a child-sized humanoid, 0.9–1.3 m tall, with a disproportionately large head, long pointed ears, a hooked or flat nose, wide mouth with sharp uneven teeth and large eyes. The body is thin and wiry, with long arms, knobbly joints and oversized hands and feet. Skin is traditionally described as greenish, grey or earth-brown; modern art leans green.

For a sculptor, exaggeration is the point: the head should be about a third of the body height, the ears longer than the face, the fingers long enough to look grasping. Clothing is scavenged - rags, a stolen boot, a pot for a helmet, a belt of trophies. Weapons are crude: a knife, a sharpened stick, a sling, a stolen sword too big for its owner.

In modern fantasy

Goblins are the universal low-level enemy of fantasy: the first monster in most tabletop RPG campaigns, the standard raider in Warhammer, Warcraft and countless video games, and a tribal culture of their own in later editions of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. Tolkien used the word interchangeably with orc. Modern goblins are often comic - cowardly, greedy, obsessed with fire and loot - but the folkloric core, a sneaky small thing in the dark, still drives every version.

3D printing notes

Goblins are small, which makes scale the first decision. At 28–32 mm a goblin is only 18–22 mm tall, and resin is essential for the ears, teeth and fingers. Print in batches - a horde of ten fits on one build plate - tilted 20–30° with light supports under the chin, ears, weapon and elbows. Pointed ears are the classic breakage point; leave them a little thicker than realism suggests.

At 75 mm a goblin becomes a character piece and can be printed in FDM if the ears are oriented upward and the weapon is separate; resin still wins on the face. A 150 mm goblin is a fun oddity - a big head with all the detail of a bust - and can be printed hollow in resin as a single piece with a plug in the base.

Goblins suit multi-pose sets: crouching, sneaking, looting, running. A print-in-place articulated goblin at 75 mm is feasible because the limbs are simple and the joints can hide in rags.

Painting and display

Green skin with a dark green or brown wash, then a yellow-green dry-brush on the nose, ears and knuckles is the classic look. A grey-skinned cave goblin with pale, near-white eyes looks more sinister. Rags take muted browns and reds so the skin stays the focus. Teeth and nails in bone white with a sepia wash. For a horde, vary the skin between two or three shades so the group reads as individuals.

Base ideas: cave floor with mushrooms, mine timbers, a cellar with a stolen cheese. A small warm LED in a lantern held by a goblin scout is a lovely single-figure effect.

Related creatures

Goblins share the underground world of folklore with the giants they serve or steal from: the Ogre and the Norse Troll. As household tricksters they are cousins of the Greek Satyr, and in Slavic tales the cottage of Baba Yaga is where such small creatures keep company.

Want a goblin horde for your campaign or a single character goblin at display scale, printed and painted? Ask Fantasy Lab 3D for a custom print.