Wednesday 2 September 2020

Don't Create a Scene - 3D Printed Fantasy Ruins

I've been on the lookout for some terrain to use for Mordheim, Frostgrave and other fantasy skirmish gaming for a little while. I've picked up a few of the GW Osgiliath Ruins kits, but wanted some other bits to supplement them.

Monster hunting in the ruins of Mordheim.

There are quite a few options in the 3D printed market, so I dipped my toe in the water and picked up some relatively low-priced bits from dontcreateascene, a seller on ebay (see some sample images from the ebay listings below).




The ruins were relatively simple pieces, and although the print lines were visible and there were a few loose strands of the printing fibre, they didn't take too much clean up (a little bit of trimming, a wash and a light sanding). I build some damaged floors in my two towers from balsa and coffee stirrers, so that archers can have some nice places to shoot from!


I undercoated everything with Halfords grey primer, then tried out some new budget spray cans for the paintjobs. 

Kobra HP 400ml cans bought for £3.40 each.

I gave each of the ruins a spray with a chocolate brown (Kobra Siena Land), then zenithal sprays of sandstone (Kobra Senape), khaki (Kobra Tortora) and bone (Kobra Desert). After that I brush and foam stippled some random patches of black, dark brown and orange to represent staining and lichen. I then added a wash to help the raised areas stand out more, before adding a few tufts.






All in all I'm very happy with the results. On the tabletop, the print lines are barely visible, and I've gained a significant amount of terrain without significant cost or time outlay. I'll certainly be replicating the painting techniques on my plastic terrain, and plan to look at other 3D printed options on the back of these sets.


14 comments:

  1. Not bad looking pieces at all for 3D printed. I find it hard to get past the lines that printers leave... (And that stuff is a right bugger to sand down)

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    1. Yeah, there's definitely a compromise to be had with the sanding - enough to try and hide the print lines without obscuring detail. Most importantly for me though, was how it looked from 2ft away - I did a test piece and couldn't see the print lines on the tabletop - that was good enough for me!

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  2. Looking good - mind if I ask where the rattle-cans came from?

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    1. Loads of places seem to stock Kobra, including Amazon. The cheapest I found was at Graf City (https://www.graff-city.com/)

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  3. Very nice! Thanks for the painting tutorial!

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    1. Not a problem! I should have dont a step by step really. I'll try to remember next time.

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  4. That's come out well. I'm wary of 3D printed terrain owing to the lines you get in the printing, but I think this looks good. The colours look good: it's easy for stone terrain to look a bit drab, but this doesn't.

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    1. Thanks Toby. It's easy to fall into the trap of painting stone grey and then drybrushing it, but there's loads of colour and texture. There's probably some excellent techniques I don't know about, but I can guarantee that what I did with these was pretty fast and simple!

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  5. Those look bang on to me.

    It will be fun to see the Osgiliath Ruins in a matching colour scheme.

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    1. Cheers cheetor! They're on the to-do list :)

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  6. Well, they look fantastic. The paintjob is strikingly effective!

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    1. Thanks Suber! Glad you think they do the job!

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  7. End results are pretty good and that ebay seller name is certainly a cool wordplay.

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