Miniature Monday: Chips & Bear

Greetings, Monday worker bees! We gamed, we laughed, we slept, and then we dragged our butts to the office (or crawled to our remote keyboard). Let’s soften the blow with some new, fun miniatures. Walk this way.

On the brighter side, this is a shorter holiday week, and hopefully your boss is giving you this Friday off in recognition of the upcoming Fourth of July weekend. That means you guys should have some time to 3D-print today’s two featured miniatures and get some paint on ’em in time for a three-day weekend of glorious gaming!

So, we’ve really been going out of our way in 2026 to make it the year of the NPC to ensure DM Ben has all the tools he needs to:

• Add passengers to our Hovertrains and ships.
• Meet new quirky characters in taverns and towns.
• Slip in new villains or arch-rivals.
• Hand out new side missions or help in revealing new clues.
• Liven up an otherwise basic encounter cut scene.

If you have a nice box of DnD miniatures and corresponding personas to reach for during a TTRPG sesh, your prep stress level really takes a dip. And if you’re a player, why not make all sorts of potential minis for future character-building sessions?

So, let’s start with this jittery lil’ fella by Loot Studios. Their talented team dubbed him Lewis Hamston, and he’s from their Planet of the Beasts set. During slicing, we just upped his default size to fill a full d20 square, because we prefer our table miniatures as large as possible rather than categorical racial sizes.

Sunrise Sven was chief colorist on both our miniatures today, and we loved his approach here. He kept the paint bottle selection simple and really nailed all the subtle details that come with this fun STL. Can’t you practically hear him just going to town on that oversized nut?!

Our second featured mini comes to the tireless STL Miniatures team. Several moons back, they released a wild Beekeepers Set and our first inclination was, how do we integrate these freakin’ amazing sculpts into our game? Well, the easiest way is to start by making some fresh NPCs and then circle back on the applicable scatter when you know an encounter is truly looming. We always like to get the miniatures done first, though, so we can at least drop the NPC itself down on the table.

Sunrise Sven certainly didn’t disappoint here either, and his shading techniques were on full display. He also did some killer blending and edging to help bring this hungry bear traveler to life! We often ogle at this mini in our display case, and it just warms our souls every time we see him.

Here’s a quick shot of the back of each of our new NPCs just so you can see all the cool details. The Hamster’s attire is such a hoot. We also love all those creases in our bear’s big cloak!

Alrighty, all that’s left to do is create a little backstory for each of these guys.

• Colorful Name: Barry Honeymane
• Character Race: Bear
• Class: Black Market Dealer
• Possible Scenario: Hop rides on various modes of transportation to sell banned wares.
• Painted Miniature: STL Miniatures
• Potential Stats: try MonsterShuffler.com

• Colorful Name: Chips
• Character Race: Hamster
• Class: Rogue partner
• Possible Scenario: He sneaks the illegal wares past security checkpoints.
• Painted Miniature: Loot Studios
• Potential Stats: try MonsterShuffler.com

So, DM Ben plans to slip these in during one of the party’s next public transportation scenarios to inject a little fun and mystery into an otherwise ho-hum event. Someone in the group might notice these two guys doing a very discreet transaction and wonder what on earth is going on. This is when Chips & Bear will introduce themselves and their smuggling services.

Bear Honeymane will joke, “The guards rarely check all my honey jars, so if you need something smuggled in or out, we’re just the duo to do it!”

Until next time!