Painting and Caring for PLA Terrain

Most of the terrain we produce ships in PLA, and most of it eventually meets a paintbrush. PLA takes paint well, lasts for years on a gaming table, and has a couple of genuine weaknesses you should know about before you leave it in a summer car. Here is the full care guide, including the honest parts.

Before you prime: wash and inspect

Printed terrain arrives clean by most standards, but a quick rinse or a wipe with isopropyl alcohol removes handling oils and any dust from finishing, and paint sticks noticeably better for it. Let pieces dry fully. While you are handling everything, check thin details like railings and antennae, because if anything is going to need a dab of super glue in the piece's lifetime, it is those, and gluing before painting hides the repair forever.

Priming PLA

PLA needs primer, paint straight onto bare plastic will rub off at contact points within a few game nights. Any primer sold for plastic models works. Rattle cans are the fast option for terrain-sized pieces, with one caution: apply several light passes rather than one heavy coat. Heavy solvent-rich coats can pool in recesses and soften fine surface detail, and light passes avoid it entirely. Brush-on and airbrush primers are gentler still and worth it for pieces with delicate faces.

One PLA-specific note: skip any technique involving heat. Some painters like forcing primer to cure in sunlight or near a heater, and PLA is the wrong material for that, for reasons covered below.

Paints: almost everything works

Every water-based acrylic hobby paint works on primed PLA, which covers essentially every miniature paint range sold. Terrain is also the perfect place for cheap craft store acrylics, which cover large surfaces for pennies once a proper primer is underneath. Contrast-style one-coat paints work well over a light primer and are the fastest route to a finished board we know. Oils and enamels work over a sealed acrylic base coat if you are a weathering enthusiast.

About layer lines, honestly: they exist. On sculpted, textured surfaces like rubble, brick, and rock, printing texture disappears completely under primer and a wash. On large smooth panels you can find lines if you look for them at close range. If a piece is destined for display rather than the game table, a pass of filler primer and a light sand before colour removes them. For table use, nobody has ever noticed mid-game.

Making it last: varnish

Terrain gets grabbed by dry-handed gamers hundreds of times a year, which is rougher treatment than any display miniature sees. A matte varnish coat after painting is the single biggest durability upgrade available, it protects edges and contact points where wear shows first. Spray matte varnish is fine, applied in the same light passes as primer.

Storage and transport: heat is the enemy

Here is the honest limitation of PLA: it softens at temperatures a parked car reaches on a sunny day. Left on a dashboard or in a hot trunk for an afternoon, a PLA tower can slump and will not recover. The rules are simple. Never leave PLA terrain in a vehicle in summer, store it indoors rather than in an uninsulated garage or attic, and keep it out of direct sunlight in display cases that trap heat. Room temperature storage is completely safe indefinitely.

For transport, terrain is more forgiving than miniatures. A plastic tub with pieces separated by cloth or bubble wrap handles club nights fine. Stack heavy pieces low, keep delicate spires from bearing weight, and do not leave the tub in the car between games, see above.

Durability, honestly

PLA terrain is rigid and holds detail beautifully, and rigidity has a flip side: a drop onto a hard floor can chip a corner or snap a thin feature, where a resin-cast piece might bounce. In practice, terrain lives its whole life at table height over carpet or gets handled deliberately, and years of regular play barely mark a varnished piece. When a break does happen, plain super glue repairs PLA nearly invisibly, and a painted repair is genuinely undetectable.

A finished board is worth it

Painted terrain changes how a table feels more than any other hobby investment, and PLA makes it cheap to get there. If you want to see what finished pieces look like before you commit a weekend to painting, our painted showcase shows real examples, and everything in the terrain range arrives ready for primer. Prime it, slap paint on it, varnish it, and keep it out of hot cars. It will outlast the edition.