Posted August 8, 2025 by Martin
Desert survivalists with unshakable faith and really sharp knives
I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you have to have miniatures on the tabletop to have a good time playing a roleplaying game. That’d be silly. But for me personally, having miniature versions of everyone’s characters to look at during play helps with immersion, and I feel I run a better game the more immersed I am.
Oh yeah, and being able to SLAM! an enemy NPC miniature onto the table anytime the party encounters a fearsome new foe never gets old.
Welcome to Mini Madness, a series of blogs where I’ll share some of the miniatures I’m making. I’ll talk about what went into designing these little plastic friends, what I like about them, and what I’d change in another iteration.
Let’s kick things off with everyone’s favorite desert dwellers: Dune’s Fremen!
When you think of the Fremen, a couple of key pieces of kit immediately come to mind: Crysknife, Stillsuit, Jubba Cloak. I took a good amount of inspiration from the Fremen as they appeared in the recent Dune films, adding a face mask and a hood to make their silhouette read well across the table.
I knew I’d be using these minis in different kinds of scenes, and not all of them would be combat encounters. For their pose, I opted for a relaxed stance, but I still wanted to telegraph combat readiness. The Crysknife is pointed away from where the mini is facing, but their legs are slightly bent and the feet are planted shoulder-width apart, allowing for a quick upward cut with the knife if necessary.
One small change I made was to add a cutout to the model’s base that can hold an 8 millimeter color cube, which helps keep track of which miniature represents which character.
To print the model, I added supports to both arms, the cloak, and parts of the hood. I usually choose tree-like supports for these models, but this is mostly a personal preference. This particular version was printed at 0.08mm layer height on a Bambu Lab P1S printer.
You can download the miniature .STL file right here. I use Hero Forge to design my minis; if you want to play around with my Fremen model, maybe try a different pose or adjust the model’s measurements to read more feminine, masculine, or neutral, you can check that out here.
I’ll see you next time!