Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Greetings, fellow street surveyors! Friday always feels like such a great DnD scatter terrain day. We’re going to showcase some epic city signs to help bring your bustling streets to life. Walk this way!

We’re highlighting two brilliant TTRPG STL creators today. One is an absolute anchor for our beloved DnD hobby, and the other is an up-and-comer in the red-hot scatter terrain category. Our post is all about city signage and how these simple 3D prints can truly immerse your players around the game table.

Before we get into our shiny new 3D-printed models, we want to start by saying you can absolutely make your own street signs with a little hobby elbow grease. Before our glorious printers entered our lives, we would grab a piece of foamcore, make a store sign image on our PC, color print it, glue it together, and slap it on a Hirst Arts rock base.

Side note: We’re using one of these nifty storefront pieces by EC3D Designs in all our showcase pics so you can see all our new signs in a typical gameboard setting. These Building Facades are incredibly handy, and DM Ben uses them all the time in our campaign.

Let’s start with Custom Miniature Maker. They do excellent work, but just don’t quite have the mega-following of some of the larger DnD creators out there… yet. We adore their STLs because they 3D print so gosh darn well. They also do weekly freebie STL for all their e-newsletter subscribers, and that no-cost release is usually pretty swell.

We’ve only colored one of their quaint signs so far, but they’re all winners, especially if you need to drop one down on the table in a hurry. These are from their Goblin Market Bazaar set.

Such an easy paint job, too, right?! We used two simple variations of Green Stuff World browns, lightly drybrushed a little white onto the raised letters, and dabbed on ASP Blood Red onto the raised potion bottle.

If DM Ben has the players in a smaller town and they need a quick re-stock stop, this simple DnD setup would do the trick. Delightful.

Our next three 3D prints come from the brilliant team over at STL Miniatures. They’re just such a great group of guys and gals, with a wonderful community Discord server. Their Kickstarters are legendary, and their monthly Patreon is always loaded with unique and intriguing sets. We’ll call out each corresponding series as we show off these beauties. Resident painter Kimmy Utah gussied up all three of these signs with her usual brilliance.

Let’s start with this charming fishmonger sign from their mega NPCs 2 Kickstarter, which included this Fish Vendor series. What better spot to dish out a new seaside quest than by visiting a local bait shop, right?!

We’re going to utilize this one for our homebrewed NPC, the legendary Ewan McHook. He’s Waterdeep’s best boat builder and is indebted to our adventurers after they rescued his beloved son, Shamus, from the evil Night Hag.

Next up is this wicked good meats sign from, you guessed it, their manly Butcher Set. Like, someone in your party isn’t going to stop to pick up a pound (or two) of bacon to go with dem taters for second dinners before they go back out on the road again?! Sadly, we haven’t created a butcher NPC quite yet, but we’re already one step ahead with this perfect storefront sign.

Lastly, let’s conclude this signum mash-up with an endearing veterinarian sign from, of course, STL Miniatures’ Veterinarian Set. You would think DM Ben would have already prepped this NPC as well, but alas, our campaign hasn’t had this story need quite yet. This shop will come into play sooner rather than later, as at least one of our adventurers is going to adopt a familiar in the near future.

The group already picked up a cat in the caverns underneath the Night Hag’s cabin in the woods, so DM Ben is sure to introduce this quaint healer in Waterdeep soon.

Until next time!