Monumental Prints!

Let’s piggyback on our earlier desert sand paint test and see how we applied the runner-up color scheme to some nifty new tropical forest scatter terrain by Aether Studios!

So, how on earth do we get a color jungle paint scheme from a desert sand scheme attempt? Seems absurd. Well, we’re calling it as a huge win, but even in our latest test, there were new lessons to be learned.

Remember, we tried two paint schemes: one with fancy Reaper paints and another with more affordable craft paints. See how much darker the test tiles are here? You really get that Aztec rain forest vibe, right? That’s because we start with a base coat of Apple Barrel Brown — a dark color on top of flat black primer.

The key, though, is that the two follow-up colors (Apple Barrel Dark Yellow and Vanilla) were applied with the lightest of drybrush strokes. If you get too heavy-handed with those last two steps, you will lose that desired Inca-style feel.

First, let’s share the STLs we used for this jungle paint test. These slick Monument Markers are the fab work of Aether Studios. The set comes with three fun domain marker variations: regular, damaged, and vines.

We had to twist DM Ben’s arm to show these painted pieces because he knows he went too heavy on the last two drybrush steps. However, 3DRPG’s motto is “fail fast, learn fast.” It’s essential to share where we took a bad turn so that others can avoid wasting valuable hobby time by learning from our mistakes.

Also, we added a fourth color step by adding a spotty moss effect. We used Pokorny Paint’s Moss Green. We just did some quick-hit dabs on these 3D prints and love how that effect turned out. It’s not that we hate this paint job, but we know we can do a bit better on the next batch.

For $hit and giggles, we also tried a much smaller 2×2 d20 size, and well, that wasn’t a good call either. Pretty funny, actually, but not something we would do again. Still, we started our paint attempts on these smaller versions, but we are definitely going to 3D-print the original sizes for the Vine STLs.

Now, the question is, how can we use these excellent scatter terrain pieces in our DnD game? We’re not quite ready to build a whole jungle terrain gameboard, but we can do a limited one-shot thanks to our Kinda Sorta Portal series!

As a refresher, DM Ben created a Kinda Sorta Portal for the players to jump back to their home base, regardless of their current coordinates. The only drawback is that the Portal is somewhat unpredictable and doesn’t always direct players where they want to go.

There’s a 30% chance that when the players activate the Kinda Sorta Portal, they’ll temporarily end up in an undisclosed location. So, why not have the group inadvertently vamp into the middle of a dense jungle and between these new mighty monuments?!

The gameboard setup is a snap. Plop down a green gamemat, these sacred monuments, and then a few dense jungle plants (like these from Fantastic Plants & Rocks). DM Ben also plans to add some jungle Jumanji drum sound effects to complete the immersion.

For the miniatures, you can’t go wrong with these intense Tribal Warriors by EC3D Designs. These supportless DnD minis come with and without masks and are from their incredible Depths of Savage Atoll Kickstarter! These slick STLs haven’t been passed to Resident Painter Kimmy Utah, but we plan on passing them to her soon.

We’ll utilize the DnD 5e Tribal Warrior stat block: AC 12, HP 11, +3 att/1d8+1. Most importantly, Pack Tactics gives a warrior advantage on an attack roll against a creature if at least one of the warrior’s allies is within 5 ft. DM Ben plans to surround the group and have numerous spear throwers hidden within the thick vegetation.

A great thread on Reddit has some more suggestions, like adding a Berserker (AC 13, HP 67, +5 attack/1d12+3) to the warrior band. Even better, you could have the tribal warriors run away after a few rounds because they just spotted some wild tigers (AC 12, HP 37, +5 att/1d10+3) getting ready to pounce!

Now, all that’s left to do is update our Kinda Sorta Portal table! We’re trying to get to a d10 random roll sooner rather than later, and we’re getting energized to add two more!

Until next time!