After you’ve 3D printed all of the dungeon tiles and walls that you need for your next game session, the next step is to paint them so that they look like actual terrain. If you’ve never painted dungeon tiles before, it can seem like a complicated task, but that doesn’t have to be the case. In this article I’ll explain a simple method that you can use to paint your 3D printed dungeon tiles.
You can follow this method with any kind of craft paint, be it cheap or expensive, and you can adapt it for any color scheme that you want. For this article I’ll show you how to paint 3 basic color schemes. You can copy them exactly or try out different combinations of colors to create your own unique look for your dungeon tiles.
To get started, let’s go over the materials you’ll need. It’s not really that much, but there are some essential items that you might need to acquire if you don’t have them on hand.
Materials
Spray primer
Craft paints
Paint brushes
Wet Palette (Optional but highly recommended)
The Method
This method of painting dungeon tiles basically boils down to 4 steps. Step 1 is to pick a base color for your tiles and walls, and that will usually be the color of primer that you use. For step 2 you choose 2 or 3 other colors that look good with your base color, to add some variety to the bricks or stones. Step 3 is to add a highlight layer over the whole thing. Step 4 is to finish everything with a layer of clear coat just to protect the paint.
An important note before we get into it, I highly recommend that you print all of your tiles and walls before you start painting. Especially if you plan on mixing paints to get some of your colors, it’s much easier to get a consistent paint job on all of your pieces if you paint them all at once. If you print a few pieces and paint them first, then wait a few days before the rest of them are ready to paint, then you might forget exactly how you mixed your paints the first time.
Unless you keep track of exactly what amounts of each paint you used, it’s usually easier to just paint them all at the same time. If you don’t have enough time to go through all of the steps for all of your pieces, then you might want to just do one step a day, as long as you finish that step for all your dungeon tiles.
Preparation: Making A Wet Palette
If you’re going to paint with acrylic paints, then there’s a method you can use to make your paints stay fresh for much longer. Acrylic paints tend to dry out very quickly. Simply take a flat plastic container, preferably with a lid, and place a damp paper towel inside. Then put a layer of parchment paper over the top. Once the parchment paper has absorbed a bit of the water, you’re ready to put your paint in just like a normal palette.
This is called a wet palette, and it’s very useful for painting with acrylic paints. Without it, you might have about an hour or two before your paint becomes hard and dry. With a wet palette, especially one with a lid, your paint can stay wet and ready to use for a whole day. This makes it so that you don’t have to finish painting in one sitting. You can paint for a bit, then take a break, and when you come back your paint will still be fresh. It really helps to save paint.
With all of that said, let’s get into the actual painting.
Step 1: Priming the Base Color
Part of what makes this method of painting so easy is that your primer can usually act as the base color for your dungeon tiles. For the 3 example pieces that I painted, I used brown, gray, and white as the base colors. The brown is used for more of a sandstone or brown stone type paint job, but it can also work well for caverns or dirt caves. The gray works well for a classic stone appearance, and the white is good for the ice cave look that I was going for.
You can easily find gray, brown, and white spray primers in stores. If you can’t get your hands on a certain color of primer, then you could print your dungeon tiles in a color of filament that matches your base color. In my case, I didn’t have white primer but I did have a lot of white filament, so I decided to leave it unprimed for the ice cave version of the tiles.
Normally I recommend that you always prime any 3D printed pieces first before you paint them, because it helps the paint to stick better to the plastic. This will make your paint job last longer and be more durable. However, I realize that some people don’t have a lot of time, and sometimes certain colors are unavailable in stores, so as an example I’ll show you that you can paint with craft paints directly on to your 3D printed dungeon tiles.
Spraying on the primer is a simple enough task by itself, so I won’t go into too much detail in this article. Just make sure to go over your dungeon tiles in multiple thin coats. Also, try to paint your pieces at different angles so that you get the primer in all of the nooks and crannies of the walls and floor tiles. It helps to use a color of filament that contrasts with your primer so that you can see where the primer has covered and where it hasn’t.
Once you’ve primed your dungeon tiles fully, let them dry for at least 24 hours, but ideally you should let them sit for about 5 days. That might seem like way too long, but if you read the fine print on your spray paint can, most of them will say that for plastic, maximum adhesion is achieved after letting it dry for about 5 days.
Step 2: Painting the Secondary Colors
Once your primer is dry, you’re ready to start painting on the secondary colors. These are usually 2 or 3 colors that are similar to, or complement, your base color. For my gray walls I use a darker gray and a brownish color. For the brown walls, I use a dark brown and a lighter sandy color. Finally, for the ice walls, I use a gray and a blue color. You can use similar colors to these, or you can come up with your own combinations to suit your vision of how you want your terrain to look.
Normally dungeon tiles are painted to have a natural appearance, so the colors are earth tones for stone walls, and shades of gray and blue for ice. There’s nothing to say that you can’t use other colors though. In a fantasy setting, the terrain can look however you want. You can have purple and yellow bricks in the walls and it could still make sense in the context of your story.
What ever colors you choose, the painting method is fairly simple. Just pick a few bricks or stones in the wall and paint them with one of the secondary colors. Then you paint a few more with the other secondary color. Which bricks you choose to paint, and how many, is completely up to you. Don’t forget to paint a few of the stones on the top, otherwise the top row will look very monochromatic when you put your pieces together.
Painting The Floors
Painting the floor tiles is normally a bit easier than the walls because each square is much bigger than a brick in the wall, so there’s less need for detail. I usually just pick one secondary color that contrasts with the base color, and then brush it over most of the top of the floor tiles, leaving the nooks and crannies as the base color. Alternatively you could paint the secondary color into the nooks and crannies, leaving the top of the tiles as the base color. It doesn’t really matter as long you achieve some sort of variation or contrast.
Step 3: Adding The Highlights
This is a very easy step, but it adds a lot of detail and will really make your 3D printed dungeon tiles look much more realistic and believable. All you have to do is take your highlight color and apply it with a dry-brush technique over the entire surface of your wall and floor tiles. This will make it so that it only catches the edges and high points of your tiles.
By using the same color to highlight every part of the tiles, it brings all of the different colors together. It also adds another layer of depth and detail. As you can see in the picture above, the pieces look much more detailed and realistic after the highlights have been applied.
If you don’t know how to do dry-brushing, don’t worry, it’s actually very simple. Make sure that your brush is dry before you do this, because this technique won’t work with a wet brush or sponge. All you do is take your brush or painting sponge and apply a little bit of paint to it. Then you dry most of the paint off on a paper towel or something, so that barely any paint is left on the brush. After that you can brush it over the surface of your dungeon tiles and walls, and the small amount of paint on the brush should only stick to the highest points of the piece.
With 3D printed dungeon tiles, there’s bound to be some layer lines. I recommend that you paint along the layer lines instead of against them, or the paint might make the lines more obvious. If you paint with the grain, the paint should get in between the layer lines better, making them less obvious.
Optional Step: Painting in Details
If you want to, now’s the time to add a few little details. Maybe you want your dungeon tiles to look like they have some moss growing in places, or maybe some vines. All you have to do is take some dark green paint and apply it sparingly to a few areas. This will add a subtle amount of detail that can make a big difference in the overall appearance of your dungeon tiles.
Here’s a short list of details you might want to add, including the 2 mentioned above:
- Moss
- Vines
- Blood stains
- Fungus
- Lichens
- Metallic elements like chains or coins
- Footprints
The list can go on and on.
Step 4: Clear Coats
Once you’re satisfied with your paint job, it’s a good idea to cover it in a clear coat to protect all of your hard work. While they probably won’t see a ton of wear and tear, they will probably scrape against each other as you move game pieces across them, as well as when you stack them up for storage. There’s also the possibility that you’ll drop them at some point. A good clear coat can minimize any of that damage.
Clear coats usually come in a matte, satin, or gloss finish. For stone and dirt dungeon tiles you’ll probably want to use a matte finish, unless you want them to look like very smooth and polished stones. In that case a satin or gloss clear coat might work better. For my ice tiles I used gloss, because ice is shiny.
When you apply the clear coat, make sure to do it in very light coats. If you apply too much at once, it can start to form droplets that are very obvious and it won’t look very good. The best way to get a nice even finish is to go over it with a light spray, and check after each pass to make sure that it’s not building up too much.