Today’s featured STLs were two longstanding paint bucketlist items, as DM Ben was eager (yet nervous) to add these two animal types to his novice notebook. We had a painful time sourcing one of ’em, but perseverance pays off!

This first whipper snapper is a Dire Turtle and the maniacal work of Dragon Trappers Lodge. This monster on the hardshell is from their Journey Through The Direlands series. We got him as a free download by checking their weekly Free Friday mini releases. Just make sure you’re signed up for their e-newsletter so you don’t miss future freebies. These no-cost STLs can sometimes fly under the radar.

DM Ben was all over trying to bring this bad boy biter to life because he had such great success with his earlier Grakyura monsters! Building off previous satisfied paint projects has been huge for him. He keeps a detailed notebook and often references our little ol’ DnD blog here.

Such simple steps:

• Prime Flat Black | Slapchop Base.
• Lower Body: ASP Rigor Mortis + FAN Dark Tone Wash.
• Shell: GSW Angel Green + (optional) light White drybrush.
• Eyes: ASP Blood Red.
• Tongue: ASP Princess Pink.

Can’t get much simpler than that. With solid results and a boatload of new confidence, DM Ben will be applying the lessons learned from these miniatures to some upright turtle warrior minis! DM Ben’s age 54 eyes and sausage fingers can struggle with smaller minis, but he’s still gotta give ’em the ol UW-Whitewater college try.

With turtles and crabs securely broken out in DM Ben’s novice painter step-by-step notebook, he wanted to try some horses next! Thankfully, mz4250 has some slick free download options, including this wicked good Draft Horse. Longtime 3DRPG readers already know we have a bit of a wagon obsession, so it was time to ensure we could paint the mighty beasts who get tasked with actually pulling ’em!

DM Ben bit his lip and decided to take the color leap here by researching several suggested equestrian paint schemes on Google and YouTube. This zoomed-in image probably looks pretty messy, but trust us when we say that these look more than fine using the Arm’s Length Rule. And DM Ben definitely kept listening to Crash Davis by saying to himself over and over again, “Don’t think, just paint.”

Here were his steps:

• Prime Flat Black | Slapchop Base.
• Body: Layer on WAR Monster Brown + Soft Tone Wash
• Mane: Drybrush FAN Oak Brown.
• Reigns: ASP Grim Black.
• Saddle: Citadel Contrast Space Wolves Grey.
• Hoofs: Black + Citadel Pallid Wych Flesh.

He did a couple of layers of that Monster Brown to make it a bit darker, but it’s really stunning how the FAN Soft Tone Wash brings the coat to life. He also tried the Draft Horse’s mane in different shades of brown and black just to compare them.

Speaking of color comparisons, this is a perfect example of how we once again used a failed print to test different looks before DM Ben felt he had a winning formula. Our initial 3D print went a little south due to poor support placement, but we hate waste, so we set those aside for future stress-free color experimentation.

When doing TTRPG animals of any kind, basing becomes an important step. A great miniature base also helps hide many imperfections in the model itself. For our newly commissioned Draft Horse, a nature-style base with plenty of grass tufts looks solid. And for our Dire Turtle, a nice shallow water-esque mini base, as if the creature is coming off a beach or marsh, looks quite good.

So, are these two new DnD miniatures perfect? Nah – not even close. However, they’re darn fun to incorporate into our game. They’ll also push us to try and color some similiar animals as we strive to improve from 3D print to 3D print!

Until next time!

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Sometimes a Dungeon Master has a new storyline pop into his head, but he delays crafting it because there’s no clear opening to insert that arc into the ongoing TTRPG campaign. So, instead, the idea lingers and lingers some more until he/she can’t take it any longer! Welp, that’s exactly what happened to DM Ben, and here’s how we approached what happened next!

Longtime 3DRPG readers probably know where we’re going through here, but let’s briefly catch you up. The High Forest is a big part of our ongoing DnD campaign. The group has had many travels and homebrewed exploits within its heavy canopy. DM Ben created two warring factions: (1) Shady Tree & his Angry Acorns and (2) a competing Miffed Mushroom contingent. He even teased the leader of the Miffed Mushroom clan, Tibarious Trunk, in a recent bump-in encounter! The seeds were firmly planted! He’s been dying to develop a Hatfield–McCoy rivalry and force his players to pick a side!

Well, lo and behold, in our last DnD Sesh, DM Ben brought that homebrewed storyline dream front and center when he had several Angry Acorns come to the aid of the party during a nasty Goblin ambush! Not that the group needed it, though, thanks to two fierce fireballs by the party’s magic users.

Still, DM Ben knew this was his chance to insert his desired Mushroom Alley map point into the campaign. The dust settled on the goblin battle, and the guys really wanted to know why the Angry Acorns came to their aid. DM Ben created an acorn lieutenant named Shelby (as well as a lunatic, bloodthirsty acorn called Harry). Shelby knew the party hadn’t picked a side, so he did a brilliant job convincing the players the acorn alliance was their best bet (even though the mushrooms are more ruthless and larger in number).

That new truce-pact was exactly what DM Ben wanted to have happen because now he can have a hair-raising mushroom encounter when the players return to the vast High Forest! Basically, the players will have a fierce encounter with the mushrooms within their own borders. Tibarious will enter the fray at some point and call for a ceasefire. He will then explain how insanely disappointed he is that the group sided with those untrustworthy acorns! So, today we’re going to start building this new Mushroom Alley encounter, as it’s gonna be a biggy!

Let’s start with some initial mushroom scatter. We’re nearly positive this mushroom cluster on the left is by Printable Scenery and was from their slick The Gloaming Swamps and Wilderness Kickstarter. They actually have all their amazing mushroom STLs in this nifty website bundle, and we highly recommend you gobble it up.

Resident painter Kimmy Utah has been our go-to colorist for nearly all our mushroom terrain and miniatures. We can’t wait to show you more of them! DM Ben is going to do his patented terrain-for-minis-swap when the encounter timing is just right.

That other miniature from the pic above is by Dragon Trappers Lodge and is their amazing Myconid Sovereign mini. It’s from their epic Mushroom Bayou series. We’ve bought most of this three-part series and will certainly be showcasing more completed minis from it as time moves on.

Again, Kimmy Utah’s paintbrush was all over this TTRPG miniature, and we’re really thrilled that she did them in lots of different colors! DM Ben is going to start by having this one sprout from the ground in the blink of an eye and greet the players. This mini represents one of their “knowledge trees” while also serving as a lookout in Mushroom Alley. He’e goes by the name Hymeno and is a Spore Keeper of their sacred lands.

He will spring up and stop the party dead in their tracks with a “Who dares enter Mushroom Alley uninvited. State your name and your case, or you won’t like what happens next!” Our office game group has named themselves The Contractors, and when they explain who they are, the Spore Keeper will instantly know who they are, as their new acorn alliance traveled the vines fast. He will demand they break their truce with the Angry Acorns or pay a hefty toll (100 gp) to pass unharmed.

Now, the group could talk their way through the encounter with a series of persuasion and charisma checks, but if things take a nasty turn, Hymeno will suddenly rip off several smaller mushrooms from his body and create some fierce soldiers for his side! And the minis that are going to be used for those menacing monsters are these Deathcap Hydras by Printed Encounter! These nasty chompers are a free download, and the sculpt is wicked good!

We 3D-printed a small group of these un-fungi and shipped them off to Kimmy Utah to paint. She knows that whenever we send her duplicates of a miniature, she should paint them a little differently so we can better identify them at a glance as monster 1, monster 2, etc. Boy howdy, did she absolutely crush these guys! We’ve had these front and center in a display case for some time now. We just love ’em!

DM Ben adores things with a lot of attacks because it can be way easier to balance a fight when a monster can attack more than one enemy in a single round (especially when there are six players in our party).

In terms of some DnD 5e stats, the Myconid Deathcap is pretty solid. Our three-headed warriors have an AC 15 and 90 HP. To better fit our wonderful new miniatures, we’re just going to tweak the following:

• Change the multi-attack to three bite attacks.
• Change the damage type to piercing.
• Give them immunity to stun (cause they’re a plant).
• Each time they do 30 points to one monster, one of its heads falls off.
• The to-hit bonus for each bite attack is upped to +7 (since we have a sixth-level party).
• Damage is also revised to 2d8+3.
• Their long necks give them a reach of 10.
• They can fire a deathcap spore or slumner spore once per round as a bonus action.

Hymeno, the Spore Keeper, is a non-combatant here. The instant he takes damage, he drops these Death Caps and crumbles back into the earth. Pretty fun, right? You could use all these guys in one of our Wilderness Trek Wandering Monster table rolls, too!

Until next time!

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We’re especially digging this post because we’re piggybacking off a previously featured STL, but with a brand-new paint job. That’s especially exciting because it means DM Ben’s confidence in trying new color combinations is growing. Last month, we saw an alternate scheme for the tundra version where someone made them much more Ewok-esque. We thought that this brown-bear scheme was so darn fun that we just had to give it a whirl!

The progression of this 3D-printed creature clan is especially impressive:

• First, we started with a free sample download (from the set).
• Next, colored them in the default tundra style.
• Now, we downloaded the full set and applied an alternate paint scheme.

It’s a feel-good confirmation for 3D print creators: whenever you offer a portion of your prints as free downloads, you can attract new, loyal customers. And for hobbyists, always be sure to sign up for those e-newsletters, as creators reward ongoing subscribers more than you realize.

We placed our new, brown-fur paint scheme next to the original ice-cap theme so you could see how the two paint approaches compare. We don’t run many cold-climate DnD campaigns, so we were energized to put these cuddly warriors in a more frequent forest setting. Plus, if you didn’t love Ewoks from The Empire Strikes Back, well then, we’re very worried about you. Seriously, seek help.

It had been a while since our original run of these mighty warriors, so we didn’t even remember that we’d upped their default STL size to better fill a traditional d20 square. We’re not huge fans of smaller minis because, well, there are lots of older eyes at our game table, and they are naturally tougher to paint.

Still, no big deal, as various-sized miniatures are a good thing to break up that over-the-top table uniformity trap. No one wants everything to look exactly the same. Variety is the spice of life.

We did our usual Google search trick, where we simply asked, “What Army Painter Fanatic paints could I use to paint a brown bear miniature?” AI results are so good these days that it will return several step-by-step options, each with the exact paints and brushstrokes to try. This thought-starter technique has energized a novice painter like DM Ben by immediately breaking the pesky paint paralysis of not knowing where to start.

Our Google search revealed two paint schemes, which was perfect because we had six of these miniatures to paint, and minor color variations would be a welcome sight. You can see they are all following the same style, but some browns are darker than others.

Here are the paints and steps we used to create our protective forest spirits:

• Prime Flat Black | Slapchop Base.
• Base Coat: ASP Hardened Leather.
• Highlights P1: drybrush FAN Banshee Brown.
• Highlights P2: drybrush FAN Mocca Skin.
• Shadows: Drybrush Black under the arms and undercarriage.
• Wash: FAN Strong Tone.
• Eyes: ASP Blood Red.
• Lips/Skin/Hands/Feet: FAN Barbarian Flesh + Sepia Wash. .
• Teeth: GSW Skull Linen Dip + FAN Soft Tone Wash.
• Weapon: GSW Skeleton Brown + Black Wash.
• Weapon Edge: ASP Broadsword Silver.
• Base: Clear.

Achieving different shades of brown depends on your base coat and the two drybrush highlight colors you choose. Meaning you could go the darkest with a FAN Brigandine Brown base layer and add drybrush highlights with FAN Oak Brown and FAN Dryad Brown. Or, for a mid-tone, try FAN Fur Brown as the base with FAN Bootstrap Brown and FAN Leather Brown for highlights.

A little blending of your colors also improves the overall DnD 3D-printed miniature here, especially when going from their foreheads to their moptops. Our favorite paint scheme was the darkest fur color, centered on ASP Hardened Leather (a classic fur shade). You can really see that one pop in the pic above where we stuck with the default smaller STL size. The variations were all swell too, and if something is too light, you just circle back on your drybrush color and washes. Either way, you’ve got a bunch of choices!

Until next time!

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We’re on a bit of a 3D-print-and-paint sealife kick, as we’ve learned a fun, new wet basing technique for our miniatures. We’ve also been building up our pirate roster, so the need for some aquatic enemies is growing. Let’s see what new enemy claw combatants just joined our library!

We’ll start with this pesky Giant Crab by The Dragon Trappers Lodge. This snappy lil’ fella is from their Dungeon Classics December Patreon release. We really don’t like tiny minis as they’re such a pain to paint, and it’s not like our older gamer eyes are doing us any favors at the game table. Hence, we bumped up this STL to a full d20 square to give him a little girth.

The trickier part was securing these bodies to their bases, as there wasn’t much surface area to apply the Loctite Super Glue Gel to their tiny, narrow legs. Thankfully, there are enough legs to go around, so the glue dried ok. Still, we’re a little concerned about these bases popping off, but that’s the way the 3D-print crumbles sometimes.

We started with a larger miniature and then decided the smaller ones above would be a humorous “momma bear and cubs” scenario. This Crab Demon is by mz4250 and once again, is a free download. This monster is much larger and covers a 2×2 d20 square area.

DM Ben was the colorist for all 3 of these 3D-printed monster miniatures and enjoyed painting them over the holiday break. All the paint steps were very reasonable for his novice skill level and he wanted to do more of the water-effect basing.

Here are the very easy steps:

• Prime Flat Black | Slap Chop.
• Body & Claws: layer on ASP Nuclear Sunrise.
• Claws Touch-up: spot apply ASP Grim Black.
• Base 1: Apply a heavy drybrush layer of Burnt Umber.
• Base 2: Go back over with a lighter drybrush of ASP Forest Sprite.
• Base 3: Dab a few spots of ASP Tidal Wave.
• Base 4: Flock some sand spots.
• Base 5: Finish with a layer of AKI’s Water Gel Effect (the best).

For the smaller crabs, we put Citadel Contrast Snakebite Leather on their soft-shell backs and lightly dusted them with white so the markings showed up.

Again, that water effect is tough to see on our pics, but trust us when we say that it looks so fr@ckin’ good! We always get really jazzed when we can add a tried-and-true new painting technique to our arsenal. It allows us to gain even more confidence going into the next painting sesh.

We have plenty of use-case options here, including: creating a beach encounter (if they rest near one), adding them to a future pirate scenario, or even using one of them in a Find Familiar spell. They could even be a fun, unique spell component side mission quest, handed out by one of the town shopkeepers, like Rishardo Montalwand from Castco.

For the monster stats, we’re going to use the Giant Crab 5e stats: AC 15, HP 13, +3 att/1d6+1 bludgeoning damage, grapple DC 11. For the momma, we’ll go with the Huge Crab 5e stats: AC 15, HP 161, +9 att/4d10+5 bludgeoning damage, grapple DC 14.

Until next time!

The post Nobody Likes a Crab appeared first on 3DRPG.

While we’ve never really met a TTRPG miniature we didn’t like, we always enjoy those mysterious ones that seem to be following us as we travel to our next mission point in our DnD adventures. We think these peculiar little creatures certainly fit that curiosity bill.

Our inspiration today comes from the beloved Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and those adorbs Ewoks on Endor. We especially liked the initial scene when Leia first encounters the feisty Wicket after a tumble off her speeder bike. We’re really into outdoor forest encounters, so when we grabbed today’s featured STL file, we knew a homebrewed encounter was almost certainly on the horizon.

We originally found this cuddly but mighty Snow Spirit miniature by Dragon Trapper’s Lodge during their 2024 12 Days of Christmas promotion. They did one free DnD mini a day for 12 days, and it was heavenly. Really hoping they do it again this year! Be sure to watch their Instagram for upcoming announcement details.

We didn’t even initially realize that there are five different creatures in the Frosthearth Lodge set, so we’ll ultimately be using a Black Friday code to snatch them up at 60% off.

DM Ben volunteered to try these out as he wanted to test drive a new fur paint scheme tutorial he watched on YouTube. Rob Paints Board Game Miniatures did a polar bear tutorial, and he was itching to try it out. We rarely nail professional painter guides, but they always give us a fantastic starting point, while removing some of that initial “color picking” anxiety.

We also increased the STL size slightly here so that these new spy guy miniatures occupy a full d20 square. And we thought that a more neutral, clear base gave us the most flexibility in encounters.

Here are the painting steps DM Ben used:

• Prime Flat White.
• Fur P1: Layer on GSW Skull Linen Dipping Ink.
• Fur P2: Drybrush FAN Ice Yellow.
• Fur P3: Drybrush ASP Battleship Grey.
• Fur P4: Highlights with FAN Marine Mist.
• Eyes: ASP Plasmatic Bolt.
• Hands, Feet & Flesh: FAN Barbarian Flesh + Sepia Wash.
• Teeth: GSW Skull Linen Dip + FAN Soft Tone Wash.
• Tongue: FAN Moonstone Skin.
• Weapon: ASP Darkwood + ASP Broadsword Silver for tip.
• Undercarriage: Drybrush of GSW Opulence Black.

Shockingly, ol’ YouTuber Rob sorta sours on GSW Dipping Inks, which is crazy to novice painters like us because we have found them to be particularly awesome and the perfect complement to Army Painter Speedpaints and Citadel Contrast Paints. Of course, to each his own.

Winter, snow, and ice encounters are rather rare for us and our two DnD Campaigns. With so many other more common TTRPG environments like caverns, dungeons, deserts, villages, and even Hovertrains, it’s just low on our task lists. Hence, we didn’t want polar bear white per se, and instead, opted for a dirtier white fur so we can use them in multiple settings.

Now, there isn’t a Snow Spirit DnD 5e monster stat block, but DM Ben plans on reskinning a beefed-up Kobold, Bugbear, or Dwarf, all of which are excellent starting points.

We lost a few spear bottoms during all the printing and painting brew-ha, but oh well, we think a smaller spear still works here. Throwing away 3D prints because of some inadvertent snappage never sits well with us, so we either try to save them or donate them to our local game store for others to bring them back to life!

Lastly, there’s nothing to say these fury creatures are the enemy. These mysterious furballs could come to the party’s rescue in a mismatched fight! DM Ben is planning to introduce them midway through a forest battle that isn’t going the party’s way, and then give each player a stat card so they get to control one.

These smiling fellas would also be prime candidates for our Kinda, Sorta, Portal encounter series or even a one-shot Christmas game with the fam!

Until next time!

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Today we’re talkin’ about those odd-ball monsters that illicit the endorphin-releasin’ response of, “What the heck is that thing?!” DM Ben lives for those moments at the game table. The trick about wild and wacky enemies is you gotta really think the encounter through, so the actual fight is just as memorable as the 3D-printed mini.

Our STL is by the dastardly crew over at The Dragon Trapper’s Lodge. Not sure what those guys are drinking over there, but their creativity knows no limits. They came up with this frenzied, arm-swinging, Elvis-lip-curling monster and dubbed him The Grabbler. Like, we even adore the name! We rushed to get it on our resin printer. They do a free download every Friday, so you really, really should follow them on Instagram so you never miss one.

We may have printed it quickly, but the poor fella sat in our pile of shame for far too long. DM Ben wanted to paint him, as he literally has no eyes, but he kept resisting the weekend urge because he was so nervous about trying a skin tone. Still, he got some inspiration from YouTuber Miniature Hobbyist, so he decided to stop whining about it and do something!

You wouldn’t believe how many layers of paint are on this guy. DM Ben kept going back over it because he felt he either colored the body too light or too dark. Like, he was way overthinking it. #learnings

Welp, in the end, he decided darker was better. It’s not like these sorta lunatic monsters are super hygienic. They constantly wander around, looking to get into a tussle with some unsuspecting adventurers, and probably don’t rinse off afterwards. Grime wins out here, and we think we went in the right direction.

Any TTRPG Dungeon Master will wholeheartedly admit they are attracted to multi-attack monsters, especially when their players are at higher levels. If you think about it, if there’s just one or two monsters on the table, a party of five adventurers can be pretty devastating, especially if they get a vicious Stun effect in there.

Our Grabbler has six arms, and that’s gonna give it seven total heavy-handed whallops to its enemies (when you add in its bite). Now we’re talkin’, right?! Two similar official D&D Monsters that possess that same sort of whirling derby of attacks could be the Marilith (seven attacks but more weapon-focused) or the Glabrezu (four attacks but of the punching and grappling variety). We’re going to use the Glabrezu for our reskinning here.

You might recall our previous Gorilla Grouping post, which included a DnD Girallon. Its 5e stats are a bit lower than those of the Glabrezu, which is why we’re still going with the stronger set of stats here:

• AC 17 | HP: 157
• Resistances: cold, fire, lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, & slashing from nonmagical attacks.
• Seven total attacks: six arms and one bite.
• Attacks: +9 to hit/2d10+5 damage.

Still, you could opt for the Girallon’s stats for a lower-level adventuring party and the Glabrezu for higher levels. Also, don’t forget to add this one as a replacement row on either of our free Wandering Monster Tables: Wilderness Trek or Dungeon Delve.

Until next time.

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