Fear the Web, Not the Spider

Spiders are a staple monster in our beloved Dungeons and Dragons universe. It’s not a matter of if you run into any creepy crawlies, but when. DMs need the right scatter terrain to frame these sorta scary scenes so let’s see what our 3D printer can do for thee.

DM Ben loves to tease a potential upcoming DnD scene to his players and get that gamer adrenaline flowing. Hence, he places significant weight on having a robust scatter terrain library. So, when he got his hands on a MyMiniFactory.com holiday coupon code, he added today’s featured set in a New York minute!

The set is titled “Spiders Attack” and is by the talented team at Tiny Furniture. We’re going to split the set into two featured posts, but most of the pieces will get the spotlight today. We’ve sent their sturdy STLs to our 3D printers many times and can’t recommend them enough. Their monthly Patreon is also a steal at $8 per month.

Let’s begin with the classic webbed body, certainly made iconic by that brilliant scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, where poor Frodo gets spun up by the monstrous spider, Shelob, in the Pass of Cirith Ungol. DMs love to create similiar iconic movie scenes in their own campaigns, as that immersion evokes such strong nostalgia feels.

DM will use some handy Sticky Tack to hang these from trees or the roof of a cave. Be sure to always keep some of this material in your Dungeon Master kit, as the uses are endless.

Next, we have this twisted body amongst victims long gone by, and it’s especially spooky. We made two of these 3D prints. DM Ben uses a simple paint scheme for all things web.

• Flat Black Prime | Slapchop Base.
• Webs: ASP Holy White.
• Exposed Skin: ASP Barbarian Flesh.
• Skulls: Citadel Contrast Skeleton Horde.
• Skeleton Edging: Citadel Screaming Skull
• Black Wash over the whole piece.
• Come back around with a very light drybrush.

Piece of cake, right?! Once again, it feels so good for a novice painter like DM Ben to have a comfortable paint scheme for a particular STL type that he can immediately go to as needed. Anxiety is replaced by confidence.

Lastly, we have these various spider egg piles, and we love the feel of these, too! We’ve been using this handy paint trick lately, where we ask Google, “What [insert brand here] paints do you suggest for coloring spider egg 3D prints?” The results won’t always be perfect, but the instant suggestions have helped steer us in an initial direction. We experience much less starting-painter paralysis with this research technique. Pulling up reference images in Google is also really helpful.

We’re especially fond of the Green Stuff World paint line, so we used that hobby brand in our search sentence from above, and Google suggested we try three paints: Rotten Green, Olivegrove Green, and Kraken Green. Traditional spider eggs are usually a mix of white, tan, and brown, but that’s a snooze city combination in the fantasy world.

We loved all three suggestions; however, if we had to choose one, we would likely select the darkest green. We also washed these with black and did a soft white drybrush dusting. We’ll share the specific Green Stuff World egg colors in the follow-up post.

Until next time!