Train Tuesday Part 91: Don’t Pet the “Animals”

We haven’t done a Forgotten Rails nature beautification project in a while, and found the perfect free 3D print to add another “animal” to your Hovertrain window viewing pleasure.

Hovertrains need clear routes, and sadly, that requires some intense deforestation while adversely affecting the environment (sound familiar?). So, Waterdeep’s Omin Dran decided to insert some robotic animals along the most popular rail lines so passengers could ooh and ah about the scenery. Get some free PR buzz going, ya know?

In an earlier post, we showed off a couple of his initial inventions: The Collector (to remove all those fallen foes) and the “Moo-vers” for all those farm vibes. Well, Omin loved the wind-up cow prototypes so much, he asked the Realm’s Gnome Tinkerers to create some more scenic “animals.” The cows are positioned in such a way that their wind-up heads aren’t visible. And the Collector works all night to remove corpses for stress-free day travelers.

So, that brings us to today’s post! We’re utilizing yet another free download courtesy of the mighty mz4250, who is a true legend in our 3D-printing space.  This mini is dubbed a Clockwork Tiger, but we understandably always mix it up with a panther (which will be obvious when you see our paint job below).

No big whoop here as mz4250 doesn’t appear to have a Clockwork Panther (yet). His free library is so insane, though, so don’t fact-check us on this one. 😉

DM Ben colored this one up using our trusty Army Painter Speedpaints and in hindsight, could have done a orange-ish head with some black stripes, but we like where this 3D-print netted out. I don’t think any of our players would demand a recount and critically exclaim, “But that’s a tiger and not a panther.”

The goal here was just to make our mechanical beast like shiny and polished. Here are the paint steps we used:

• Flat Black Primer.
• Slapchop base.
• Armor Elements: ASP Enchanted Steel.
• Body & tail: ASP Polished Silver.
• Head: ASP Gravelord Gray.

We’ve printed a few more of those bolt and gear beasts, so we’re jazzed to show you additional wonky wildlife.

The Gravelord Gray is one of our favorite colors in the Army Painter Speedpaint line. This jade-ish rock color looks especially good on a white primer. We think this darker color contrasts exceptionally well with the rest of the metallic-colored body.

Besides the humorous in-game descriptions from within our Hovertrains, DM Ben thinks there are some fun one-shot side missions here as it’s a given some of these beasts will malfunction and require deactivation and capture for repairs.

Until next time!