Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

The Skyless Realms was a kickstarter for some .stl-files that funded recently and delivered just a couple weeks ago. The theme was buildings, scatter terrain and miniatures of several kinds that would typically found in the Underdark setting for D&D. Centered around spider-worshipping Dark Elves, there are a bunch of classic cave and dungeon monsters, Deep Gnomes, Gray Dwarves, lizardfolk and the obligatory tentacle-faced horrors that want to suck out your brains. A whole lot of stuff!

Now, I have a two year old cheapo flashforge finder FDM-printer that only uses PLA material. It is great for terrain and buildings, but not so great for miniatures because of the unsightly print lines and such.

However… the print lines are really not all that bad, especially when seen on the table and not in extreme close-up as in the photos.

And I even printed these at the “normal” settings which have a .18mm layer height  and not the “hyper” settings which has a .08mm layer height.

Each of the smaller myconids took less than an hour to print, and the Behemoth about four hours in a single piece.

The “Hook Clacker”, which would be the D&D Hook Horror. 48mm integral base, printed in a single piece, with supports.

I drybrushed this a lot, which really brings out all the printlines!

I find that my printer leaves a “fur” of fine, hair-like strings when printing rounded details. Trying to take this fur off the old fashioned way with knives, files or scrapers is contraindicated as it is a really annoying chore to do and the results are less than optimal.

But then a blast of inspiration hit me: KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Now I burn the fur off by rapidly flicking a lighter’s flame over the model in short, controlled bursts.

Outdoors, as the resulting fumes and smell are not welcome indoors.

PLA has a relatively low melting point, so this needs to be done quickly and carefully so the other details are not affected. It literally takes less than a second to clear off the offending fur-material.

The three Myconids. 25mm integral bases. The one in the middle is in two pieces (the toadstool cap), the others are single piece prints.

The Myconid Behemoth. Also a single piece print. The “eyes” are actually bits of the supports that I chose to leave on, as they gave it an interesting face. I expect the crown of toadstools might be meant to be eyes on stalks.

48mm integral base.