As I wrote some time ago, I have started creating a new album for my miniatures photos. However the app I was using for the new photoshoot changed while I was in the progress of doing it, and it kinda has made me lose my footing. White balance is off, focus is different, and I had already shot 1000 photos.
Well here are some miniatures I finished painting during this period, that’s why I didn’t post them back then. Still, I decided to go ahead and proceed with the post, otherwise I might miss it.
They’re Arbiter Miniatures. A barbarian, a female knight, a dwarf berserker, and a re-doing of the skeleton warrior.
They’re printed at 15mm scale (60%) on a BBL@A1mini, 0.2mm nozzle, eSun PLA+HS and 0.06mm layer height.
I don’t know what bug got into me to start this project. It’s been decades since I last played Warhammer Fantasy Battles. I think what took me down this road was mostly nostalgia, supported by my love of the hobby (miniatures painting and gaming), desire to experiment in 15mm and of course the opportunity.
The opportunity that arose from the latest releases of Old Realm Forge. FDM supportless goblins in oldhammer style. Back in the 90’s I was an Orc and Goblins player and had the Warhammer Fantasy Battles 4th edition boxed set which included 32 goblin spearmen and 32 night goblin archers.
I started my project by printing a dozen goblin spearmen by That What Grows from back when I was subscribed to them, and then I subscribed to the Old Realm Forge patreon and within a short period of time I got to work.
I tested print settings, calibrated the printer, tested prints against my existing miniatures to ensure a 60% scale fits well to get my 15mm, and also tried batch printing, single mini printing, print with integrated base or glueing afterwards. The goblin spearmen from That What Grows needed supports as well as the Giggle Shade Goblins from Old Realm Forge. The new models from Old Realm Forge were completely supportless, but they fit nicely with the other figures. I used Brite Minis bases just in case I decided to have a textured base rather than use basing materials like flock (which I did use in the end). It ended up being a lot faster to print the bases separately using a 0.4mm nozzle, and glue the minis to the bases afterwards using UHU Hard Plast. This will be my go-to process for the future.
Overall I printed 84 miniatures. 42 Goblin Spearmen including Command Group (Champion, Standard Bearer and Musician) – 12 of them are That What Grows spearmen, 36 Goblin Archers including Command Group (Champion, Standard Bearer and Musician), Goblin Boss – Big Ears, 5 GiggleShade Goblins with hand weapons and shields.
During the entire process for the paints I used solely Royal Talens Amsterdam Standard series acrylics, and I’ll describe the colour palette I used. I went down the rabbit hole of finding reference pictures to paint the miniatures, as I tried to give it the old vibes. I still have my old warhammer books, so for the spearmen and night goblins I had plenty of details. However finding goblin archers for reference needed some hunting down, as the boxed set included night goblin archers instead, and the Old Real Forge supportless archers are regular goblins. Thankfully squinting a bit into the battle photos of the book, I could see some goblin archers painted. As a history sidenote, goblin archers in plastic were available as part of the Citadel Fantasy Regiments box which was released during Warhammer Fantasy Battles 3rd edition instead, but the photos made it into the 4th edition books as well.
My original plan was to follow my regular flow: sketch prime, basecoat glaze, wash, varnish. However some things didn’t turn out as I expected, so I had to adapt. Everything was done batchwise. I first finished each step (i.e. Green colour) for the entire set, before switching to the next colour. I worked with 6-7 and sometimes 10 minis at a time before continuing with the next group.
Primed Black
For Sketch Priming I used a makeup sponge instead of a brush, and it was so much better, hiding FDM layer lines instead of accentuating them, that I replaced all my drybrushing with sponge drybrushing instead, and it’s going to be my main techniqe going forward. The downside was that I only had a bigger sponge (my order of smaller sponges hadn’t arrived yet) so it left more spots dark, which will also play a role later on.
Sketch Primed
For Base Coating, after a lot of research I ended up using the following colours. – Permanent Green Light for Goblin Skin – Pyrrole Red for Tunics (Reversed with Hoods in some) – Payne’s Grey for Hoods (Reversed with Tunics in some) – Raw Sienna for Leather parts (Belts, Bracers, Boots) – Gold Yellow followed by Primary Yellow for Shafts (Spears and Bows) – Gold Yellow followed by Yellow Ochre for Quivers and Arrows. – Yellow Ochre for Fur in Hats and Drum tops – Titanium White for Horns, Fangs, Buckles – Silver for Spears, Sword and Bow edges, parts of Shields, Helmets and Boots – Bronze for Gongs and Sword Guards – Metallic Black, Metallic Red for parts of Shields – Raw Umber for Ground – Oxide Black for Base Rim
Green basecoatRed basecoatYellow basecoatBrown basecoatBasecoats doneShields detailed
After Base Coating I made my Strong Tone wash, using my DIY recipe which I have done in the past, but also scaled up to double quantities. Somehow the wash turned darker than what I was expecting. I don’t know if it’s the hot weather which caused it to condensate faster or my lack of removing pooling due to batch painting them, if I messed up something in the recipe during scale up, or if the the initial sketch prime was too dark. Perhaps it was a combination of all the above. Whatever the reason, there was only one solution. Old-style painting highlights on top. I had always avoided this in 15mm, but this was a good opportunity to grow as a painter. Still, doing it for 84 figures wasn’t an ideal situation.
Wash applied
For Highlights I did a 3 step highlight. First step was using the same colour as the basecoat. I did the Skins, Tunics, Shafts, Arrows. Then I did second pass for the same, using a lighter colour and smaller area. Vermillon over Pyrrole Red, Yellowish Green over Permanent Green Light. Finally I did a very light sponge drybrush highlight over the entire mini using Permanent Lemon Yellow Light.
Highlights done
Regarding Sealing, I went with Matte Varnishing over the entire miniature, followed by Satin Varnish on metallic parts, before continuing with basing.
Varnish done
For Basing I decided to go mostly with Light Green Flock, and at times, spots of coarse sand (brown or gray), small rocks, and grass tufts.
Basing done
Overall I absolutely love the end result. I set them up for a photoshoot using some terrain (including an oldhammer tower from Doctor Spork!) woods, and a nice fitting mat. I intend to add some wolf riders and squigs, and find a fitting enemy army to fight against. If I don’t have the numbers, I’ll have to do a similar process. For now I’ll do a points calculation for funs.
Warlord
Big Ears, Double Handed Weapon, The Golden Helm of Atrazar, The Axe of Grom, 150 points
Goblin Archer Mob, 36 incl. Boss with Sword of Swift Slaying, Standard Bearer, Musician, Short Bows, 153 points
498.5 points total
Summary
It was a big task, but I absolutely loved it. I loved the Old Realm Forge sculpts, and it’s great to see another sculptor doing FDM sculpts. Really looking forward to seeing what else Old Realm Forge has in store for the future. I learned a lot from this especially considering sponge drybrush, highlights and colour saturation, and hopefully this will help me improve as a miniatures painter. Looking forward to taking it slow now with regards to my hobby painting, to avoid burning. I expected the little gobbos to give some more points values, but overall it was at about 325, and I had to add magic items to reach 500. With a target of 500 points, I can now focus on the exact enemy numbers I need to get to field a battle for fun. Should I start printing some Old Realm Forge dwarves? hmm…
It’s been a while since my last post, as I’ve been busy (and sidetracked) with some projects. One project has to do with re-shooting photos of the entirety of my collection (over 1k figures), uploading and tagging them properly. This is roughly 1/3 done. It’s a chore, but I really love seeing them in better pictures. Still not perfect, but far better than previously. Although the new photos are less forgiving in some cases. When that’s done I’ll make a separate post about it, but I’m not in any rush, as I kinda paused it, working on my second project, that this post is about.
I’m a huge fan of Moonstone. This was a computer game back in the 90s, released in Amiga and PC – I had finished the PC version. I recently bought it again in GOG and played a bit, and the idea stuck with me that I wanted to print a suitable miniature to represent a knight in a similar style. I tried finding a suitable stl model, but while some came close, they were not close enough. Titancraft and Heroforge also didn’t have the model I wanted. I then tried digital kitbashing using some parts I found in thingiverse, but they were using realistic proportions, and also were missing some important details. Then I tried doing a mutation from some existing models, cutting and glueing parts digitally, but that was an absolute mesh, which I abandoned quickly.
Which leads me to the final choice. I decided to spend the time and learn how to sculpt it myself. This was a process that lasted around 2 weeks of intense, learning blender, watching tutorials, and making several attempts, hacking at the problem from different angles. I tried sculpting using MWsculpts tutorial, but that, while easy at the first steps, requires true skill to get a nice clean result towards the end. I then tried using an animated rig using Charmorph and Rigify to have a base character, but that wouldn’t work either for many reasons, the main problem being proportions being way off from Heroic. In the end I learned that I liked the approach of mesh editing and use of subdivision as my core editing, physics and modifiers for most of the part. I also used some parts as a basis to work upon which really sped up my process. Some sculpting here and there, and a lot, I mean a LOT of different iterations and learning. The body was rigged together via parenting parts.
I also tried to make the knight a boolean union instead of separate parts, but I could go as far as 2 parts (surcoat and rest of knight) joined together before the model became non-manifold in my first version. First print was okay, but I found that I wanted a larger sword, as it felt flimsy when printed, so I revised it with a bigger blade and also increased the size of the helmet a tiny bit. It printed better. There were some warnings about floating regions, but it wasn’t really a problem when printed without supports on FDM. I didn’t design a separate base, as there are tons of good free bases to use, and I just used one that I liked. Here it is printed in 18mm scale, and painted in Pyrolle Red (as I realized the Primary Magenta that I used as Red until today, is not actually Red).
I remember playing moonstone on a friend’s computer in highschool. Amiga maybe.
Pretty startling the first time the spear guys spike you and hoist you into the air.
I wanted a Hydra for so long. However the pewter choices were few and far between, and quite expensive, especially considering post-Brexit times. The FDM friendly options for models were also limited, and I just hadn’t gotten to pulling the trigger on them. Then Brite Minis came along, and released one (I’m subscribed to their patreon), so I couldn’t pass up on the opportunity. When my printer freed up, I immediately went to printing and painting it. It’s been a while, but I hadn’t gotten around to posting about it. So, here’s one of the rare monster options for 15mm:
I printed and painted 4 different dragons from Brite Minis, in 4 different colours, so it’s a Green Dragon, a Blue Dragon, a Brown Drake and a Red Chubby Dragon. I wasn’t very happy with how the Army Painter washes behaved. The Green Dragon was acceptable, but the Blue Dragon was almost ruined and I had to go over it and drybrush to cover the wash, so I went back to my DIY days, did some research, and created a nice Sepia wash, using a homemade recipe of acrylic inks, water, PVA, floor polish and some varnish. I used it on the Brown Drake and the Red Chubby dragon, and I love the results.
Green DragonBlue DragonBrown DrakeRed Chubby Dragon
A set of 3 Beastmen, by my favourite 3d supportless miniature artist Brite Minis.
Simple but effective designs, easy to paint. I used earth tones.
Scaled 60% for 15mm. Supportless models from Brite Minis. Printed on a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle. eSun PLA+HS Filament. 0.06mm layer height. High Quality default presets.
Here’s a Goblin Tribe from Fat Dragon Games’ Crypt Classics range. At 60% they fit nicely with my existing Demonworld Goblins. I did a different colour scheme (clothes, skin colour) both to experiment, and also to depict the different goblinoid tribes. This follows the same pattern I did with orcs until now.
They are lovely sculpts, reminding me of old school miniatures. I gave them some night-goblin inspired styles when they had hoods on.
As usual, for 3d printing they are scaled 60% for 15mm. Supportless models from Fat Dragon Games. Printed on a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle. eSun PLA+HS Filament. 0.06mm layer height. High Quality default presets.
Goblin KingGoblin with torchGoblin with rockGoblin with two axes Goblin with battle axe Goblin with sword and shield Goblin with axe and shield Goblin SpearmanGoblin archerGoblin archerGoblin Tribe
Always loved the pig faced orcs concept, but getting these in 15mm was always a problem. Now with 3d printing it’s been solved. Here’s a group of 6 including a pig-helmet pig faced orc, a shaman, archer, spearman, swordsman and maceman. If I had to choose the highlight of the group is my freehand job on the shield markings. Love how they turned out.
Scaled 60% for 15mm. Supportless models from Brite Minis. Printed on a Bambu Labs A1 mini with a 0.2mm nozzle. eSun PLA+HS Filament. 0.06mm layer height. High Quality default presets.
technoalchemist
9:28 pm on March 7, 2026 Permalink
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A shame the pig faced orc concept hasn’t gone much longer. If you ever manage to get someone to print them for you, Warp Miniatures has some very niced pig faced orcs too.
One can never have enough orcs. These are a collection of Brite Minis sculpts, printed in FDM, at 60% for 15mm scale. I went with a darker green skin colour for greater variety to my existing orcs.
Orc shaman Big Orc with axeBig Orc with halberdOrc with sword and shieldOrc with axe and shield Orc with sword and board Orc spearmanOrc archerOrc archer
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