I need to buy the perfect gift for a D&D master. He's printing his own figurines and painting them so it has to be something else. What do y'all suggest please?
As someone who prints and paints my own figures, supplies can be nice. Resin or other materials for the printer, though you need to know what kind of printer. Paint brushes are good, too. Really good quality brushes can run like $20 and up. Expensive if you’re buying a lot of them, but actually not a bad price point for a gift. I’d advise super small ones, smallest you can find at a good art supply store. Also paints. A couple paint pots are great. If I already have the color, cool, now I’ve got more for when I run out. If I don’t have the color, cool, now I’ve got a new color.
Or of course, something else if he’s one of those weirdos who has a hobby other than D&D.
Resin - especially niche resin. Personally, I'm finding it hard to justify buying clear resin for ghosts (and other invisible or see-through monsters), fire effects, etc. That makes it perfect for a gift, because then they don't have to justify it! Just make sure it's appropriate. Filament for FDM printers have a a similar logic - make sure you know what kind of printer they have and what materials they use, getting clear resin would be great for me, but if I already had some, it'd be a waste.
STLs. There is always room in a printers heart for good STLs. Myminifactory is a brilliant website that sells them (the set up is similar to Amazon where mmf handles the transactions, but there's lots of vendors that use mmf as an intermediary). If you do go with MMF, consider a month's "Tribes" subscription - often, for the price of three STLs or so, you can get a month's sub that provides 60 or more STLs. Again though, you need to know what they have - if they have tons of skeletons, then a bunch of skeleton STLs might not be as appreciated.
You can ask what they need. For example of they're lacking a safety mask...that can mean a lot.
For painting:
Paintbrushes are always handy. Make sure they're ones for painting minis - I've been given ones for painting pictures which aren't anywhere small enough. They're being used for drybrushing so not wasted...but I felt bad because they were high quality ones and I can only use them for stuff I'd only use old and tatty brushes for, normally.
Containers for water. I use takeaway sauce pots for the water, but an actual one would be nice. If you wanted to splash out, there's a kind that's battery operated and refreshed the water you clean the brush with out of a reservoir. I've not used it, but thought it was neat. Again, hard to justify buying for yourself...but great as a present.
Specialist paints, particularly technical ones. You'll have to find out what they have (and use) to know what would be useful, but it's a pretty cool gift if you get it right.
I don't know what they're called, but there's a board that's quite rough. The idea is that you use it when drybrushing to get the amount of paint on the brush to an appropriate level (normally I use kitchen towel, but that absorbs the water and produces an inferior effect).
If you want to splash out, there's things like airbrushes.
Paint racks.
A lamp.
For a DM, there are things like D&S books, dice (although they're a bit impersonal and bland unless you splash out), initiative tracker, a nice DM screen, a sub to DDB, or game mats etc. I know he prints stuff, but often terrain is awkward to do, you could get some terrain printed? There's D&D paraphernalia - my wife got me a keychain that says "when the dungeon master smiles, it's already too late" and a t-shirt that says "awesome dads raid dungeons and slay dragons". Just nice stuff that brings a smile.
If any of that interests you and you want some more details, I'm happy to discuss what could be some good options for your budget etc. You'll need to know what they lack though, so you'll need to talk with them as well.
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Hiya,
I need to buy the perfect gift for a D&D master. He's printing his own figurines and painting them so it has to be something else. What do y'all suggest please?
As someone who prints and paints my own figures, supplies can be nice. Resin or other materials for the printer, though you need to know what kind of printer.
Paint brushes are good, too. Really good quality brushes can run like $20 and up. Expensive if you’re buying a lot of them, but actually not a bad price point for a gift. I’d advise super small ones, smallest you can find at a good art supply store. Also paints. A couple paint pots are great. If I already have the color, cool, now I’ve got more for when I run out. If I don’t have the color, cool, now I’ve got a new color.
Or of course, something else if he’s one of those weirdos who has a hobby other than D&D.
Thank you great ideas much appreciated. Never would have thought of paintbrushes
As a forever DM, offer to run a one shot for them as a gift. Let them be a player for a change. =]
Also as someone who prints his own minis:
For painting:
For a DM, there are things like D&S books, dice (although they're a bit impersonal and bland unless you splash out), initiative tracker, a nice DM screen, a sub to DDB, or game mats etc. I know he prints stuff, but often terrain is awkward to do, you could get some terrain printed? There's D&D paraphernalia - my wife got me a keychain that says "when the dungeon master smiles, it's already too late" and a t-shirt that says "awesome dads raid dungeons and slay dragons". Just nice stuff that brings a smile.
If any of that interests you and you want some more details, I'm happy to discuss what could be some good options for your budget etc. You'll need to know what they lack though, so you'll need to talk with them as well.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.