Most tabletop ruins you come across lean on resin for crisp stonework, so a set pulled off a plain desktop FDM printer is a refreshing change of pace. iPaintSmallThings prints a Forgotten Towns collection of fantasy ruins in black filament at a 0.14 mm layer height through a 0.4 mm nozzle, and the whole set is fabricated without supports, with thick bridges switched on in the slicer. Getting ruin geometry through FDM that way, straight onto a Mordheim board, is the kind of result that makes the usual resin argument look shaky.
The finishing sequence is thorough. A zenithal prime starts with gray automotive primer sprayed at a 45-degree angle, then white paint straight down from above. Stonework gets airbrushed tints of red and light blue, and wall sections are built up with a stippled sepia and white mix for a stucco effect. Wooden beams and boards are coated in heavily thinned burnt umber with a broad flat brush, while roof shingles carry patches of red, blue, and yellow. Metal accents receive a jet exhaust color, weathered with stippled rust paint.
The step that stands out to me is the finisher: a very heavy pass of parchment paint applied with a large utility brush. Per the maker, that heavy drybrush unifies the separate elements and accentuates the details, and on ruined masonry that heavy-handed approach reads as mortar and dust rather than a shortcut. A strong tone wash is then airbrushed into shadows, crevices, and lower foundations to show grime.
One open point: it is not stated how those thick, support-free bridges actually came off the printer, and no fixes or failures are mentioned anywhere. Credit where due, the maker also thanks the designer of the models and a paint company for supplying the acrylics, and describes the pieces as suited to Mordheim, Frostgrave, Sunrot, Turnip28, Age of Sigmar, and more.
Project by iPaintSmallThings. Watch it on their YouTube channel: