Get out your D20s and roll for initiaive!
I have trouble rolling dice so I decided to get a cool dice tower to help me. Why not customize it? This tutorial will walk you through the process of creating a custom skull dice tower for all your dice rolling needs.
I am going to make a traditional skull that looks like it’s been laying in a dark cave for some time. First, we’ll prime and then we’ll get to the painting! This includes the undercoat, main colors, details, and then the clear topcoat or sealant. And finally, my favorite but optional part, the add-on finishing touches!
Prepping your skull is creating a blank slate to work with. 3D printed items can be rough, have a lot of marks and lines from the printing process. You want smooth surfaces that you can prime and paint. With the piece I’m working with it has already been cleaned and is ready for sanding. I don’t have a 3D printer so I got my skull off of Etsy. (I accidentally got a mini skull, but this whole process will work exactly the same no matter what size you get. Always fully read the description, pictures can be deceiving!)
Time to sand!
The blank I got came with some imperfections that I can sand out with a little time and attention to detail. There are just a few rough spots I want to address more aggressively and others I just want to lightly sand.
You can get all those spots cleared up!
Anytime you sand something you need to clean it off. Tack cloths are amazing and work really well, and then a nice rinse of water if it’s plastic. Once it’s ‘bone dry’ I applied a light coat of primer. Afterwards it was even more smooth. Spray primer is the best way to get an even cover! Remember that you will be putting layers of paint on the skull as well so the primer does not need to be really thick.
Now it’s time to move on to the next step. Painting! There are a few options for types of paints you can use. Spray paint works great for full coverage, brush painting is better if you’re doing multiple colors and details. You can use paints specifically sold for models, which can be more expensive, or just some nice acrylic paint. Any brush paint you use will need to be thinned slightly so that it isn’t too thick. (I have used enamel paints in the past as well but I find acrylic so much easier to work with, so I’m not going to get into it.) For brushes you’re going to need a wide range, some really small brushes for details and bigger for less details and dry brushing.
I’m going to start with a traditional looking skull paint job. You always work general to specific, so the first thing you do is put on a base coat that covers the primer. For this I am going to brush paint the skull first a very slightly yellow tinted white, or ‘bone white’ if you will. Then I will paint the base and rocks a medium gray.
Don’t forget to pay attention to mistakes, oops!
Now that I have the base colors I want, I can add details. This is probably the part where you will do the most fine-tuning. Details include but are not limited to: Depth, like shadow and highlights. Accents, like detail brushing and outlining cracks. Aging, like adding varied discoloration. Making the rocks stand out from the ground beneath them. You can go super detailed or only slightly so like I did on this one, both options are great!
Now we get to put on some finishing touches! This part is optional, if you’re happy with the paint job and don’t want to go further that is 100% great too. If you still are going to continue this tutorial you will need some supplies. This is where some creativity and vision comes in, I’m going to show you what I think is great but you might have other ideas and other materials you want to use. (One idea is if you’re making a treasure cave, little coins, tiny gems, or shiny metallic trinkets.) I gathered different types of moss, stones, and terrain texture for mine, plus glue of course. (I’ll be using my favorite, hot glue, and then some glue for terrain!)
I’m going to start with stones and terrain texture, then finish with some green and brown moss. I want my skull to look like it’s been forgotten over time and undisturbed.
I hot glue on some stones on the base, you can then also paint the stones or leave them with a natural look. (If you can’t find stones you like, you can shape some clay and use it as your stones. These would need to be painted.)
Terrain texture is a bit different, hot glue is actually wrong for this. You can learn a bit about terrain in my Truffula Tree Tutorial if you wish, but I’ll explain a good technique now. You can take brush on glue like matte modpodge or school glue in a thin layer and sprinkle small pinches on the terrain grass powder. You can also get spray terrain glue and do the same thing. The effect I’m going for is that it’s been there so long that this really fine moss has grown over the skull and stones around it. So, I put a very thin layer on small spots on the skull itself and a bit of a heavier layer in spots around the stones.
I finally add the moss to several spots, not overdoing it! You can add as much or as little as you’d like. It’s also perfect for hiding any imperfections, glue that may be showing, or mistakes you’ve made. Just put a small dab of hot glue and stick the moss down. (Be careful, it burns!) If you don’t want to work with hot glue there are other options that will be quite strong but take a long time to dry. E6000 glue is my go to if I can’t use hot glue, I highly recommend it.
Once you’re done painting the skull and base, you are going to want to use a clear top coat to seal in your hard work. You can use glossy paint to give it a bit of shine or matte paint to make it a flat color. I’ve found clear acrylic paint sealer spray is ideal for this.
I almost forgot the very bottom of the base but I went with black!
Now you an amazing and unique skull for your next D&D session! Or, a gift for a D&D enthusiast in your life. They are also just cool display someplace too.
Roll those dice:
You can use these techniques to customize other types of dice towers, 3D prints, or miniatures of all sorts, there are many possibilities!
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