Who here doesn’t love imaging a player floating and being eaten by a Gelatinous cube? I definitely have. I love them but I’ve never had one in my collection before. That changes now!
Cube O Snot Miniature Print Data
Layer Height: 0.08 Bed Adhesion: Majority of time used 6mm brim (was still nervous about peeling) Filament: Hatchbox Silver Printed On Prusa i3 MK3s Print Profile: Modified version of Cura 4.6 “Offical_FDG_Cura_ender3_and5miniatures_4mm” from The FatDragonGames website
File Name
Print Time
Estimated Material Used
Misc Notes
Cube O Snot
4 hr 27 min
20g
The skeletons inside the body of this print are really really cool
Where to Find STLs
Dragonlock Miniature store via DrivethroughRPG. Go see the renders on the Fat Dragon Games website (fatdragongames.com)
I do not think in the years of playing tabletop games i’ve had to encounter or made my players encounter a giant slug…. This may have to change. This model is gorgeous in its simplicity. I love the texture on the back of the slug and really look forward to painting. Straight forward print, nice and clean.
Giant Slug Miniature Print Data
Layer Height: 0.08 Bed Adhesion: Skirt Filament: Hatchbox Silver Printed On Prusa i3 MK3s Print Profile: Modified version of Cura 4.6 “Offical_FDG_Cura_ender3_and5miniatures_4mm” from The FatDragonGames website
File Name
Print Time
Estimated Material Used
Misc Notes
Giant Slug
6 hr 58 min
24g
Model came out fantastically. There is some retraction issues at the top but not difficult to file down.The texture on the back came out incredibly.
Where to Find STLs
Dragonlock Miniature store via DrivethroughRPG. Check out the entire collection at fatdragongames.com
What is a Goblinoid anyway? I thought goblinoid is in referring to the humanoid collection of goblins. So i guess these Goblinoids could be Goblins, Hobgoblins or bugbears? I’m probably going to paint these fellas like hobgoblins because I don’t have many to in that collection. As the big cousins of goblins these little dudes are more militant and will be perfect. I really love the capes on the back of these guys and they might start being my practice for layering on capes. I’m honestly really looking forward to painting them.
Goblinoid Miniature Print Data
Layer Height: 0.08 Bed Adhesion: Finally stopped using brims for my prints unless I absolutely have to Filament: Hatchbox Silver Printed On Prusa i3 MK3s Print Profile: Mofied Version of Cura 4.6 “Offical_FDG_Cura_ender3_and5miniatures_4mm” from The FatDragonGames website
File Name
Print Time
Estimated Material Used
Misc Notes
Goblin_01_Spear
2hr 30min
6g
Oops accidentally printed two of these guys. Also for some strange reason the file name is goblin stead of goblinoid. Be careful if you combine print files. Also printed two by accident
Goblinoid_02_Flail
1 hr 58 min
6g
Accidentally printed this one with supports again. The supports absolutely would not remove from below the mini so I reprinted it.
Goblinoid_03_Sword
2 hr 2 min
6g
Mini turned out well. Again some small melting on the tip of the sword. (Man i should really work on tuning that).
Goblinoid_04_AxeA
2 hr 3 min
6g
Came out well. I’m happy with it.
Goblinoid_04_Axe_B
16 min
1g
Axe printed separately. The tip of the handle came off poorly from snapping off support. Haven’t decided how to smooth that out.
Where to Find STLs
Dragonlock Miniature store via DrivethroughRPG. Vendor images are from Fat Dragon Game Website.
This week of miniature painting! Yay I actually got to paint a miniature this week. I was capable working on my miniature pile of shame. This mini painted today was Black Omen’s sculpted bandit from his patreon in 2018 and early 2019. I painted just a tiny portion of this mini over a year ago and it has been sitting in my box for this entire time.
Render of Bandit Models made by BlackOmenCo
I did not keep track of the paint that I used and just wanted to practice. This was also my first paint job after I transferred all my paint into dropper bottles and it was a learning process as each brand of paint had different viscosity. I struggled the most with my bold choice of bright top layer for the vest which is a bright teal/blue. It definitely got away from me and i wish I could have made it a bit better.
Here are some progress shots of me painting!
Overall i’m happy to have another mini under my belt. In a discord i’m in I did mention “practice vs technique”. This is above and beyond practice. I tried to do more layers on objects and am currently pondering the methods of how to effectively use washes and layers at the same time. I need to go find some videos to watch or papers to read. If you see any feel free to pass them forward. I also realized that i’m terrible at painting eyes and this guys eyes are really creepy. At least I tried.
I just need to keep practicing. I have also decided to set a painting challenge for the month of August! Stay tuned.
Below are some photos of the finished mini.
About the Sculptor Black Omen Co This is one of my personal favorite sculptors and one of the first I ever supported on patreon. Black fostered an incredible community through discord and would commonly lead community sculpt alongs on Twitch leading to great participation and assitance.
These bandits are actually ones I specifically requested as there were not many at the time out there.
He is no longer running a patreon but you could follow him on Instagram and see what he is currently working on!
Yet another one of the Fat Dragon Games miniature collections! I’m slowly making my way through this kickstarter and getting posts done. This collection is spiders. Having already had a previous spider version in their miniature collection the rearing option for the spider is new. Overall the model is decent but I am not the happiest with how the legs go into the sockets for the large rearing spider. It took some shaving with my exacto knife to make it fit more cleanly. Also the second spider swarm (more spiders on the base). Felt sloppy to me. Almost all of my prints have come up cleanly but this almost looks like a failed print to me. I am interested to see how these guys will turn out when I paint them.
Spider Miniature Print Data
Layer Height: 0.08 Bed Adhesion: Skirt Filament: Hatchbox Silver Printed On Prusa i3 MK3s Print Profile: Modified version of Cura 4.6 “Offical_FDG_Cura_ender3_and5miniatures_4mm” from The FatDragonGames website
File Name
Print Time
Estimated Material Used
Misc Notes
Giant_Spider Rearing A
3 hr 9 min
8g
Print came out well. Underside of legs were great. Nice detail on legs. There is also a thickened leg version but I did not print that and went with the skinny one.
Giant Spider Rearing B
22min
1g
decent detail but did not get the same level of detail as the main model. Also are the legs for the thickened version? Did not go into A very well.
Giant Spider Rearing C
22 min
1g
Pretty much same statement as above. Could not tell the difference in the legs when I assembled them. Wish there was some call out.
Swarm 1
37 min
1g
My favorite of the two swarms. It came out nicely and looks great.
Swarm 2
36 min
1g
Like mentioned above. This is probably my least favorite print in the entire Fat Dragon Games collection. It looks like a messed up print. I think too many things are trying to happen in a very very little layer height. I’d definitely print more swarm 1 over swarm 2
Where to Find STLs
Dragonlock Miniature store via DrivethroughRPG. You can also find the miniatures in their collection at the Fat Dragon Game Website (fatdragongames.com).
I do not know what it is about turtle miniatures but I absolutely love them. These are some of my absolute favorite from the Fat Dragon Game collection and I love the feel of them. I’ve previously printed the Fat Dragon Game Turdle Fighter collection and love them. I can’t wait paint these guys and find an excuse to have them on my tabletop to play.
Turdle Miniature Print Data
Layer Height: 0.08 Plate Adhesion: Majority of time used 6mm brim with no supports Orientation: Vertical with base flat on bed Filament: Hatchbox Silver Printed On Prusa i3 MK3s Print Profile: Very Modified Version of Cura 4.6 “Offical_FDG_Cura_ender3_and5miniatures_4mm” from The FatDragonGames website
File Name
Print Time
Estimated Material Used
Misc Notes
Turdle_04 (Bow)
1 hr 53 min
5g
Great looking Mini! Very proud of it
Turdle_05 (Staff)
1 hr 51 min
5g
Also a great looking mini, oops staff broke. (Repairs quickly). Could potentially work on bridging of under shell and very slight retraction from staff to body
Turdle_06 A (Axe) Turdle_6 B (Sheild)
1 hr 42 min
5g
I think i’m going to paint the mini before I attach the shield. I absolutely love the bedroll on top of this mini
Where to Find STLs
Dragonlock Miniature store via DrivethroughRPG. Vendor images are from Fat Dragon Game Website.
Special Note: The Oxidation Beast also known as a Rust Monster in Dungeons and Dragons is considered a medium sized monstrosity. If you wish to keep the miniature in a 1″ scale for tabletop gameplay you will have to resize the creature. This model originally has a size of 26.9566 mm x 35.1585 mm x 16.3927 mm. Since the X-axis and Y-axis is greater than 25.4 mm scaling the monster down is more accurate. Reducing to a 71.11% size of its original provides dimensions of 19.1679 mm x 25 mm x 11.6563 mm.
This is on the agenda to do but currently the print data below is for a full sized Oxidation Beast as I forgot to scale it down…. twice.
Oxidation Beast Miniature Print Data
Layer Height: 0.08 Filament: Hatchbox Silver Orientation: Flat with base on bed Printed On Prusa i3 MK3s Print Profile: Cura 4.6 “Offical_FDG_Cura_ender3_and5miniatures_4mm” from The FatDragonGames website
File Name
Print Time
Estimated Material Used
Misc Notes
Oxidation_Beast
1 hr 23 min
3g
Printed twice, accidently forgot to scale down for accurate sizing regarding Dungeons and Dragons stat blocks. I do like the model not having a gab at the base for easier painting.
Where to Find STLs
Dragonlock Miniature store via DrivethroughRPG. Vendor images are from Fat Dragon Game Website.
You know that we really need a Dungeons and Dragons group running when out of the blue my husband (bolded) goes…
“Lets D&D Battle!”
“Whats a D&D Battle?”
“We pick a team of monsters and fight off to the death”
Ok, ok. That really isn’t how it happened nor do I remember exactly how the event started but yet it did. My husband and I drafted each a team of monsters, built a battle map, and fought 3 times.
I got to pull out the dungeon tiles I worked on! Mental note was that I realized that I really need more dungeon floors printed, ahh another project put on the list. My collection of dungeon tiles are predominately city scapes (tavern and sewer) because last campaign I was building for the published Wizards of the Coast campaign “Waterdeep Dragonheist.” Alias I digress…
The rules were simple:
1. Our team of monsters had to have a combined Challenge Rating (CR) of equal to 5 or smaller.
2. We could at a maximum have 6 monsters on our team.
3. Stat blocks used have to be from published 5e Wizards of the Coast Materials.
We picked our teams…
For my team (left image): I picked a Bronze Dragon, Thug, Kenku, Gazer, Orc, and Apprentice Wizard
For husband’s team (right image): He picked 2 short sword Skeletons (using spears on minis), Two Skeleton Archers, a Priest, and a Gargoyle
I even worked on some Stat block cut outs to make it easier to play with so many monsters simultaneously. There goes another project. The papers worked great but i’m going to add them to notecards to be more durable and sortable in the future.
Here are some pictures of the event!
Overall we had a lot of fun. I got my butt kicked with only 1 win out of 3. Moral of the story my group really needed to stick together as they work more cohesively as a group. My husband is even more motivated to cheer me on to make more dungeon tiles so we can have more exciting battles in the future. Putting the tiles away has been a pain in the butt, but im working on a better organizational system! I also feel the need to learn Frostgrave or something to scratch the itch more for a dungeon group since it looks like i’m not going to have one anytime soon. At least it is more time to craft!
Things i’ve learned:
Gargoyles have a lot of health
I hate spiritual weapon
Gazers although cool don’t do a lot of damage
I really like thugs as enemies, especially with allies
Let me know what you guys think. I am happy to label or shout of the sources of any of the tiles or monsters. Have any ideas on things we can play as two people? Help me grow my game knowledge.
I finally did it! I finally transferred all my P3 and Citadel paint to dropper bottles! I’m beyond pumped. In case you do not know, miniature paint brands such as P3 and citadel put paint in containers which are not easy to retrieve paint from to put on my wet palette. For a long time I always though citadel paint bottles you were supposed to directly paint from due to their design with lid collected paint for easy retrieval, but discovered the magic of thinning your paint a bit over a year ago.
The brands of paint I transferred
If you have not done so I highly recommend doing it. I have had a terrible time with Citadel paints drying out and never lasting due to the difficulty of closing the lid completely. P3 paints have always been so hard for me to use out of the bottle. I ended up using a lot of toothpicks to transfer paint to my wet pallet and always wasted so much in the process. Overtime I naturally gravitated to the paints that were already in bottles like Vallejo Model Color and Army Painter. So I finally pulled the trigger to investigate a better solution.
I spent a good deal of time watching YouTube videos on how to transfer and why. Here is a list of a few that I found useful and why.
Take the paint bottle you want to transfer and sit next to a dropper bottle without a lid. Shake paint up well or use a toothpick and stir if it is too separated.
Detach the lid of the paint bottle from the container. Although not required and I personally rarely did so, this helps spilling as the lid could drip while you are pouring.
Check to see how viscous the paint is. If paint is stiff and not much flow go to step 4. If you feel like you can already pour it into the bottle go ahead and do so.
Using the Flow Aid use the plastic eye dropper to transfer approximately 1 mL of material to the paint. If you feel like your hand is too shaky you can pour into the stainless steel funnel listed above. I did not do this and surprisingly found it easy to not spill.
Special Note: I found that my citadel paints were significantly dried out and required approximately 2 mL of flow aid. P3 paint was significantly easier and did not need as much
Special Note Part 2: Sometimes if your paint bottle already has paint coming off the side the paint would flow down the bottle instead of into the dropper bottle. Simply rotate the paint container so the paint will not flow down that path to elevate the issue.
You can absolutely add more flow aid slowly depending on your personal preference of thickness in your paint.
Using the toothpick I would direct paint into the dropper bottle and help scoop out more (think like a spatula but for paint). You can also continue to slowly add more flow aid to your paint. However becareful to not water your paints down too much.
Continue doing so until dropper bottle is full or you are happy with the amount of paint removed from the bottle.
Add a stainless steel ball to the bottle. This is useful to shake up the paint in the future.
Add the dropper and lid to the dropper bottle to close it up.
You can slowly remove the label from the original paint container to the dropper bottle. This was incredibly easy for citadel paints and P3 paints took more patience. This is of course a nice final touch and great for documentation sake in the future.
You are done. Keep repeating the steps and you are good to go!
Overall the process was not difficult but took some time to do. It took me approximately 3 to 4 hours to over 20 bottles but my household was full of distractions. Also I only needed 1 3ml eye dropper but bought a package previously as I use them for creating my own washes.
Now that all my paint is of a uniform size I can work on making a nice paint holder for it too! Next up, organizing my paint.
I hope you found this helpful. If you have anything to add, don’t hesitate to say something in the comments.
This was the week of “Lets do all the projects.” Planning a ton of different things with way too many half written posts than I want to admit. I have been learning and growing seeing how much the 3d community has changed in the year I took off or so. I have been doing a deep dive into 3d printer calibration and fine tuning. In many ways it has made me feel like “how the hell have I been printing for all these years?” Overall it has been super interesting to read all the different perspectives on how to print, how to calibration, what order you should calibrate etc etc etc.
Moral of the Story. Much like and hobby, there are many ways to accomplish your goals.
I event printed for awhile in a 0.15 mm nozzle. I worked on calibration for that for a bit but decided that I wanted to finish my dragonlock project at a 0.4mm nozzle and the castle before I deep dive. Giving myself plenty of projects to paint while the printer is slow going and I can truly focus on mastery for the Perfect Mini.
Projects in Action
3d printed:
Benchy with a 0.15mm nozzle
Calibration cubes different nozzle diameters
My first extruder multiplier cube. note vase printing mode is super cool and I should investigate further.
Painted
I’ve been watching a ton of videos on wood painting effects and am attempting to try a few. So far I’m not a big fan, or I really need to work on my technique. Hoping to do a few more and then posting about it. I’ve also been attempting to hunt down some more variety in my paint for more layering. Some of the things i want to paint i’ll have to do hundreds of times which is why i’m not mixing paints.
Miscellaneous
Oh my husband wanted to have a Battle of the Monsters and we went 1 on 1 with hand drafted monsters for an epic battle with some of my dungeon tiles spontaneously this week. It might be a trend.
Lots and Lots of organization. I’ve been attempting to create specific pages to sort some of my posts long term for easy to navigate information.
I’ve been trying to keep a database of all my paints so I can post the colors more easily on painting posts with a better visual of their tone and also so I have a directory of what I know I have for when I got to the store. I am also compiling a directory of all the paint charts of the various brands so if i’m hunting for a particular tone I can try to know what i’m looking for before I buy it.
I even braved Covid to go to Lowes! In an attempt to help reduce vibration on my prints I went to get a paving stone. TLDR: It didn’t help much.
Due to Calibration and tweaking. I have not worked on the Dragonlock Miniature project.
Well this week is a Wrap. I feel of moderate success but it is exciting to have my husband enjoying the things i’ve made and making it incredibly encouraging to keep working.
