Farm Vibes

As the late great John Denver once said, “Life on the farm is kinda laid back,” but you certainly can’t kick it like a country boy without the right animal scatter terrain, right?! No worries. We’re up for the 3D-printing challenge.

The good news is Milestone Heroes shares our field of dreams and rustled up some scatter terrain for our printing pleasure. Let’s take a look at one of the pieces we finished over the recent holiday break.

This set was released in February 2024, and naturally, we 3D-printed the whole wonderful thing. However, today, we’ll focus on the most prominent piece: the Animal Stalls (but the Chicken Coup is a close second). The insanely talented Milestone Heroes crew prides themselves on support-free pieces that come out beautifully in FDM. That dedication and focus is a real boon for folks who don’t have the luxury of doing both 3D print formats.

This nifty DnD Farm STL has so much going for it: it’s a single piece, easy to paint, stuffed with detail, and certain to be a conversation piece the first time the players see you drop this beauty down on the game table.

Even better, we already have the perfect fit for this DnD Animal Stall Scatter Terrain in our work campaign. Who can forget our local Water Deep farmer, Huckle Riverstone?! Infamous for his “Pumpkins that ain’t pumpkins” army of mimics and magnificent secret topsoil, ol’ Huckle’s farm needed a little more character to go along with his “charming” personality.

Resident painter Kimmy Utah is knee-deep in miniatures (and all those impossible eyes), so novice painter DM Ben decided to take a stab at coloring this rickety structure. He has solid color schemes for many of the model elements: ASP Dark Wood for the barrels, ASP Enchanted Steel for the metals, a three-step Craft Paint wood scheme for the rest of the structure, Burnt Umber for the ground, and Citadel’s Skeleton Hoard for the mushrooms.

DM Ben has always hesitated to paint building terrain because he hasn’t found an easy-to-use roof color scheme. Well, that all changed when fellow gamer Keith suggested we try Liquitex Basics Primary Blue. You’re the best, Ray! DM Ben just applied a base layer of the blue and then did some subsequent dry brushing of white, black, a little more blue, and finally, a brown wash. Many farm structures are dirty and always seem like they’re gonna fall over, so that was the vibe he was shooting for here.

We especially dig the mushroom detail throughout the print, as DM Ben wants to do another round of Huckle’s twisted mimic creations. Everyone in Waterdeep wants to steal his precious topsoil, so he’s grown a mimic army to keep folks out of his farm bitness. That one-shot was such a huge hit with our players that we think a “mushrooms that ain’t mushrooms” would be an epic sequel.

Some flocking was used throughout for finishing touches. However, we’ll circle back and sprinkle a little moss and leaf scatter on the roof to add to the weathered look. Flock is always such a great (and easy) last step to a newly painted scatter terrain piece.

The animal stalls are so slick. The model even has openings from the bottom so one can sneak a brush in from underneath to color up the muddy earth. We really tried to get a picture of the partial floor here, but to no avail. The rendering above actually gives you the best image.

Lastly, our 3D-print universe is full of all sorts of fun animals you can use for these stalls. We especially like EC3D Designs’ pigs and STL Miniatures’ cows. And if you want to be extra fancy, you could print the Livestock Hovertrain car by Aether Studios to get that valuable livestock to market.

Until next time!