Which Wood Did He Go?

We’ve got a delightful painter’s post for everyone today as we continue to explore the phenomenal Green Stuff World Dipping Inks line. Skip those pesky bottle toppers and try our process for a change of pace. We think you’ll be a fan.

Color picking paralysis is a real thing in our DnD hobbyist painting community. One’s 3D-print pile of shame just gets bigger and bigger simply because you’re too afraid to try new colors. Instead, you make some excuses, and a whole weekend goes by with nothing ready for the game table. DM Ben can truly relate to this dreadful scenario, and today, we’ll show you how 2025 was a turning point for him with just a few simple tips and tricks.

No color gets more traction in your paint collection than wood (and stone). Those browns are in nearly every 3D print, and many of them greatly rely on picking the right tone of wood. Consequently, we’re always trying new manufacturers and their take on this critical TTRPG color choice. An opportunity to present how we tackle these new color tests recently fell right in our lap.

Our campaign has an upcoming Dungeon Crawl within the free Acquisitions Incorporated D&D Beyond 5e module. This room romp is at a location called Tresendar Manor. Ongoing readers will recall that we actually built out the entire gameboard room by room. Today, we’re going to focus on The Crypt and how we improved some of the previous scatter terrain selections, since the players haven’t gotten to this point in the adventure quite yet.

As you can see in the final room layout above, the coffin scatter terrain is just a big mishmash of pieces. The scatter is just too different. One belongs in a castle, the other in a desert tomb, and so on. That synergy really bugged us, and since we had a little more time to prepare for this encounter, we fired up our 3D printer and got to work!

The creative team at Infinite Dimension Games has a slew of fabulously themed scatter sets, and this Coffin Workshop Furniture Set is no exception. We instantly thought of using it, but time wasn’t on our side the first room-build go-around. DM Ben prefers to get an encounter prepped in some form and only circle back to it if there’s extra time to do so between sessions.

Miniature Hobbyist is one of our absolute favorite how-to YouTubers. He puts a lot of effort into his TTRPG videos, calls out every product he uses, is extremely encouraging, and is just an all-around solid dude. Even better, he’s all in on Citadel Contrast Paints, Army Painter Speedpaints, and Green Stuff World Dipping Inks. All products that are meant to help the average hobbyist painter (like DM Ben) produce better pieces.

Miniature Hobbyist is based in the UK, and Green Stuff World is headquartered in Spain, so their Dipping Inks are more expensive here in the States. However, we really wanted to try their paints because the artist often intermixes them into his kick-arse paint tutorial videos. The GSW website and customer service team are excellent. We’ve had several website orders delivered here to sunny Chandler, AZ, and have had zero issues. They even eat the silly tariffs and charge a reasonable flat shipping rate. Can’t ask for more than that.

Now that you have all the background details for today’s DnD post, let’s talk test paints and share our approach to removing that color-picking anxiety we all dread. It starts with a primary color theme, in this case, that’s wood. We’ll grab several small, inconsequential 3D prints from our overflowing inventory, prime them flat black, and then apply a Slapchop base while going heavier on the last white step.  We also keep a painting journal notebook and log our tests for easy future reference (…this little ol’ blog is a lifesaver, too).

Our first GSW Dipping Ink test was Swamp Brown. We definitely see how this color got its name. It’s a lighter tone of brown and would definitely fit in that wet, murky wood setting. Not bad here, but not what we had in mind for our new Crypt coffins.

Next up is GSW Skeleton Brown. Good golly, Miss Molly, do we love this shade of wood! We can’t wait to try it on a future cart project…did we mention we’re obsessed with DnD wagons here at 3DRPG? Again, solid wood color here, but a smidge too dark for our coffin cluster vision.

Lastly, we tried GSW Sepia Vetus. No idea what that label means, but the Dipping Ink box clearly called it out as another shade of brown. Boy howdy, were they right. This is the softer tone of wood we wanted – something that gave off a cheap, working stiff (pun intended) sorta vibe.

Here’s a great shot of that Sepia Vetus applied to all three coffin clusters by Infinite Dimensions Games. You can see how the caskets appear rushed and were likely built in bulk. That’s more the move we want here. Our original scatter terrain picks looked more like boxes for dignitaries and fallen warriors. These newly colored container stacks give the impression that someone was preparing for a large number of casualties in a short amount of time.

See how anxiety-free and easy this simple process was?! Not only do you get to add a couple more pieces to your pull pile (as long as you liked all three color experiments), but you also get to give each color a brief, stress-free test drive. Yes, you can use those paint bottle caps, but we just don’t think seeing a brown color on a tiny goblin head is as useful. We need to see the color tests on relatable 3D prints!

Until next time!