Almost ten years ago I bought a Wood elf GW army and never got round to doing much with it. Over time it grew with bits and bobs until finally this week I decided to sit down and paint an army… Well that’s where the fun(gi) began. Having picked up a FDM 3D printer I fell in love with some mushroom themed terrain packs I found and decided to print some off and use them for basing. The elves would be from a mushroom forest… and then it got worse as I picked up a resin printer and started to hunt for mushroom themed models to print…
I decided to paint it to a quick and dirty tabletop standard. I suffer from being a perfectionist with model painting and I wanted to get this army painted by Christmas so I decided on a “good looking together” standard instead of worrying about every thick highlight or wonky shadow. The first troop of archers is finished except the basing and were the test bed for that standard.
The mage is designed to look like he has arms reaching out from behind him in some kind of evil spell. I had originally envisioned making a twilight kin army when making him but he works just as well with a mushroom theme. Mushroom magic probably has lots of evil arms in it too.
The mushroom bugs are going to be used as panthers. They’re a bit difficult to print but I really like the idea of mushroom bugs attacking along with the elves.
Other planned units are some mushroom forest shamblers and 2 different kind of giant mushroom men. I want to paint an army that looks cool in a group shot so I’m trying to make it have a bit of variety. The problem is printing so much stuff before I’ve finished what I have on the table already. There is a box of Oathmark light infantry ready to be made into forest guard for example…
The bases are something I designed and work with magnets to make the whole army modular. That way I can split units into troops, regiments or even hordes if need be. The magnets go through the base making transport easy with a baking tray.
Looking great. I have a fondness for mushrooms myself, and my goblin army has a good few of them. i’m loving the Midnight blue flyagarics and matching cloaks
I love the mushroom theme it looks great!
I like the blue and white speckles; my Wiltfather has a few purple/blue/white mushrooms on him too!
Super excited to see your Forest Shamblers.
Great stuff, way to put the printer to work. In related news, I’m 20 models away from finishing my Sylvan Herd army (mostly verdant units with some Herd friends), but in the time I’ve been painting it I got a 3D printer (resin) and discovered the HUGE number of awesome myconid sculpts out there that I probably would have used instead If you happen to be looking for big and bigger mushroom monsters or eevil treemen, I can happily point you towards some
I have a lot of these already but damn these treemen are cool. They remind me a lot of the dark souls 2 giants. If I had known they existed I might not have ended up on the mushroom theme. I was looking for good treemen for ages and could only find cartoony ones .
The spuds I’m using for my forest shamblers. Printing them at different sizes to add some variety to the units. I have two bases of them ready to prime and take photos of some time this week. I want to finish the Dryad unit first then move on to painting those.
The first half of the dryads are done. They’re pretty fast and fun to paint. Ended up going with a more bushy theme around the head around, it made the mushrooms stand out more and I liked the idea of them pretending to be bushes then jumping out and ganking people. My test elves base doesn’t match the ones I painted up yesterday (think I added black to that ones wash) so I’m going to build up the bases a bit to hide the ground some more. Shouldn’t be too hard considering how many little bits and bobs the theme has in it.
The shamblers come in 2 sizes, the bigger ones have printing issues. I’m still learning and some of them cracked. I should of printed them whole instead of hollowed out but hey I’m new at this so every lesson is useful. Depending on how they are in the morning I may print off some more large ones. The little ones are great though! They remind me of critters and I like the idea of being surged as a guy shouting “hey there’s lunch!” so they charge off towards it.
The giant’s arm didn’t come out right but I sort of like it broken off that way. Gives him more personality. I didn’t realize until I was puttying him that he looks like a penis… He just does, there’s no way round it. But he’s there now and he will make a good tree herder no matter how phallic he is. (I do enjoy a good pun and I assure he will get some made about him as he… bullies people in combat).
Spiders again some random print issues here and there (first thins I ever printed) but it turns out it’s quite useful to have some spare spider legs. The smaller mushroom spiders had legs problems but the rest was fine. One of the bigger spiders had great legs but had cracked so I delegged him and donated his legs to the spiders looking like they’re coming out of the ground. They’re a big awkward but I like that, I tried to make the dryads posed awkwardly but they all become a big wooden mess on the base so you can’t really see that. I think the spiders were designed to print on a FDM printer so doing them in resin is a big awkward, but I don’t want layer lines on them so I’ll have to deal with it. I know it technically should be 7 models on a base for legality but if that becomes an issue I’ll glue googly eyes on the mushrooms and claim it’s another mushroom mimic…
I designed a decal for the oathmark elf shields. I was doodling and it came together. Need to figure out how I use decal paper with my printer that has a tray loader…
If you happen to be looking for big and bigger mushroom monsters or eevil treemen, I can happily point you towards some 
