Shroomtober Begins: 13 Mushroom Paper Miniatures Before Halloween

Last October I did Goblintober, my own take on Inktober: a new goblin paper miniature every day, until I ended up with a 31-goblin warband. This summer came Gnomesummer, five pacifist gnomes and two very angry geese defending their woods with walking staffs and kitchen tools.

So I started Shroomtober four days into October – late, obviously – and this post is arriving a week after that, with the first two minis already finished.

The Challenge

13 new paper miniatures before Halloween, all inspired by real mushrooms, together forming a strange little woodland community.

Thirteen, because it suits the season, and because I know myself well enough not to promise another 31-day sprint when I couldn't even start on time. There's no daily schedule this time, just a deadline: all thirteen before Halloween.

And this isn't a warband. Goblintober was an army; Gnomesummer was a village forced to defend itself. Shroomtober is neither. Nobody here is going to war. They're just living in the woods – foraging, carrying things, doing whatever it is mushrooms do when nobody's looking.

No Fixed Roster

I have some ideas about who else might live in this little colony, but I'm also going to discover them as I draw.

That's deliberate. Goblintober had a prompt list for every day of the month, and the list did half the thinking for me. With Gnomesummer I learned to stay longer with each character and let it find its own personality. Shroomtober goes one step further: the real mushroom comes first, its shape suggests who the character is, and the community grows from there.

The one rule I'm keeping: every new mushroom has to have its own silhouette. On the table, at paper-mini scale, the cap does most of the talking. If two Shroomfolk read the same from across the board, one of them needs redrawing.

#1: Amanita Shroomfolk

No armour. No weapons. No trousers. Just a mushroom that somehow grew arms, enormous feet and a smile.

The first one is deliberately plain. A broad red cap with white spots, cream gills underneath, a pale stem that simply carries on down into a body and two very large bare feet. Two dots for eyes, a tiny curve for a mouth, one hand raised in a small wave.

It has no job and nothing in its hands, and that's the point. Before the later minis show what the Shroomfolk do, this one shows what they are: friendly, a bit lumpy, and much more cap than anything else. Everyone who comes after will share the face, the body language and the feet, and change everything else.

And here it is as an actual paper mini: front and back on a 55 mm strip, ready to print, cut, fold and base.

#2: Chanterelle Forager

The second Shroomfolk is the first one with a job. The Chanterelle Forager spends its days wandering the undergrowth, filling a woven basket with berries and greens. The basket is nearly full, and the Forager looks very pleased about it.

The design problem was making it read as a chanterelle and not as "the first one, recoloured orange". So the cap does all the work: wide, wavy and funnel-shaped, flaring up and out instead of doming down, with the gills running all the way down into the stem. The body is taller and thinner than the Amanita's, the feet a little narrower, and the palette swaps red and white for golden yellow and warm orange.

The face, the feet and the friendliness stay exactly the same. Family resemblance.

Same 55 mm strip, same print-cut-fold-base routine. The basket comes along on both sides.

Follow Along

I'll be posting progress here on the blog as the colony grows, with more frequent updates on Instagram at @lostinbrittany, under #Shroomtober.

2/13. Eleven to go. 🍄