Interview: Arvalon 8 with RM Printable Terrain
RM Printable Terrain is back with their 3rd Kickstarter. After having two highly successful Kickstarters that were both fantasy based, I was surprised to hear the new one was going a new direction. This time, RM Printable Terrain is creating a Science Fiction based Kickstarter. With just a few days to go, they have been blasting through stretch goals opening up a ton of miniatures, starships, and terrain. (They say there are over 50 miniatures, 12 ships and tons of terrain pieces, and that information is probably already out of date at the pace they are adding new models. It’s always nice to work with a company with a proven track record and a terrific vision of great looking terrain. Find out more about why they went with with this Sci-Fi theme and how this Kickstarter came about. Plus, the team that has been put together to bring this thing to reality.
How long have you owned a 3D Printer and been printing terrain?
- Cody: I was exposed to 3D printing in university, but never owned one myself until last year. I actually met Marc because I needed someone to print terrain for this new game coming out called Star Wars Legion.
- Marc: Wow that was a long time ago that I introduced Cody to 3D printing, and how far we’ve come! I’ve had a printer or printers now for 3-4 years, and I’ve been printing RM printable terrain now since the beginning about a year and a half ago.
- What printers do you use to print terrain?
- Cody: I use the Prusa Mk3. It’s a great printer and really does a nice job printing out terrain.
- Marc: I started out with a Cr-10, then it grew to being 2 Cr-10s and 2 Ender 3 pros… and then I added these crazy Sovol 1’s cause of Kevin’s recommendation, they were a bit of a nightmare, but now I’ve finally got them doing what they need to do. I also have a pair of Elegoo Mars. All great printers, but definitely require more of a hands-on learning then Mr. Fancy Pants over there with the Prusa, what a beautiful machine!
- What did you learn in your previous two Kickstarters that is helpful for this latest Kickstarter?
- Cody: I wasn’t part of the team during the first two Kickstarters, so that is all Marc. I was, however, exposed to Kickstarters through the startup world when I helped run a loan company that specialized in funding for Kickstarters – especially for marketing budgets. Approving what Kickstarters to loan to was a real eye opener for what helps make Kickstarters successful.
- Marc: The past two Kickstarters taught me a lot, from the importance of completed starter packs before the launch, to colour photos and test prints, to how important a focus and making something that everyone can use is the key. The first Kickstarter had a focus, a storyline if you will, the second wanted to expand that focus but got to broad and to specific of a genre. Arvalon-8 has a story to it, a purpose, and a focus, and I think that’s the real key, infact we’re enjoying the Kickstarter just as much as everyone else we might look into making a ruleset and RPG for our terrain and miniatures next!
How long have you been working on Arvalon 8?
- Cody: I’ve been working on Arvalon-8 for most of this year actually with Marc, test printing, reviewing the terrain, discussing drafts and sketches, there’s a lot that goes into the launch of a Kickstarter.
- Marc: This time we’ve brought on an entire team of artists, digital and old-school. All of them combined have been working on this Kickstarter (and myself and cody) since January!
- Tell us about the vision this Kickstarter? How did you come up with this idea?
- Cody: Marc wanted to make a science fiction terrain set, and I really wanted to make a set that met Tournament needs. As a competitive player for 40K, a TO, and a store owner, having a durable, easy to store and effective terrain set was super important to me.
So that is why the terrain set is scaled to 5 inches in height out of the box (perfect for 40K 9th edition), has the thickness it has, and was designed to be modular. I actually had a large tournament for Star Wars Legion where we debuted the terrain and someone bought our prototype set before the tournament finished. The feedback from some of the best players in the world was extremely positive. That made us very happy with the product we had created. - Marc: I don’t know if I agree with cody on this one, he came to me and said, “look I need a set that is more study for store use, it has to be sci-fi, and I want it to include big walls” as he stretched his arms out to show the wall size. We got to sketching, and loved the desert planet / Mandalorian feel as the show had just come out! So we started with the terrain, and then what goes with a Mandalorian Theme? Well bounty hunters of course, and Greg pointed out that everyone loves miniatures, so the project was expanded to include miniatures/ ships/ and terrain in March of this year!
- Cody: Marc wanted to make a science fiction terrain set, and I really wanted to make a set that met Tournament needs. As a competitive player for 40K, a TO, and a store owner, having a durable, easy to store and effective terrain set was super important to me.
Who are your partners helping with Arvalon 8?
- We’ve got an amazing team of artists helping with the project, and a few that left the project early on, I’ll just talk about the ones still with us.
- Cody Brown: From Hooded Goblin, he’s been great to bounce ideas off and help with media from the movie to the images, he’s made the project look the way it looks! He’s also talked about terrain from a futuristic point of view!
- Greg Kourakos AKA 3Dprintingpro: He’s been working on the professional supports now that it’s unlocked, he’s a whiz at adding supports, and using my resin printers I always found that to be the most annoying part of making the miniatures, so this makes it that much easier for everyone!
- Thiago Santana: He’s been working on a ton of the miniatures, and put together a team of artists that are also working on sculpting the miniatures, ships, and terrain: https://www.artstation.com/thilue
- Jhonatan Brendo has been working on the stunning full scale ships: https://www.artstation.com/jhonatanbrendo
- Tiago De Alvarenga has also been working on the amazing models and miniatures: https://www.artstation.com/tiagodealvarenga
- Vitay sculpted some great desert rocks: https://www.artstation.com/z-art-academy
- Mirko Sekulic sculpted some stunning alien terrain for a stretch goals: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MickeyCosplay
- Olie Boldador, is an unmatched 2D drawing artists, who has taken horrible drawings and paragraphs from me for ideas and turned them into amazing concept sketches of bounty hunters, terrain, and ships: https://www.artstation.com/olieart
- What is your workflow for coming up with these creative pieces?
Cody: I honestly just threw ideas at Marc until he couldn’t stand me anymore and then Marc came up with some amazing designs. Marc was a very good sport during the creation period.- Marc: A lot of the time it’s looking for what’s missing, I personally have not found a great Sci-fi RPG with tons of unique characters and terrain, some of our terrain goals are other persons full Kickstarters! It starts with someone always suggesting something, and then it’s usually me going, oh yeah we can add this and and we go from there… We take our Ideas… horrible sketches and descriptions from myself, and then Olie makes them into masterpieces, and then the amazing team Thiago has put together (and artists we’ve worked with on other upcoming projects) and they get cracking on making them. I usually look them over and offer input, and if I go “wow, that’s it”, I know we’ve created something that others will like. 3DpritingPro this time has the last hands on with the miniatures and professionally supports them!
- You have some amazing paint jobs on your pieces. Do you paint these yourself?
- Cody: Green Leaf terrain painted our showcase set. They have done a lot of work for my store terrain, so it just felt natural to use them for this project.
- Marc: Don’t forget he miniatures we’ve shown painted as well, my buddy from my first painting studio (Craig from Old Gits Paintworks) painted them up in an evening to help out!
- Something new is that this is not just terrain. You are featuring starships and miniatures. What brought about this change?
- Two things contributed to this change – we wanted to give the world we were creating some character, and we see the demand for miniatures.
Marc reached out to some amazing artists, and everything just lined up so we went with it. Now our world feels more alive and the artists have been knocking it out of the park with their designs. - Marc: I’ve got nothing else to add, except everyone needs miniatures right now with the current state of the world, you might not need terrain just yet, but everyone needs some amazing miniatures that will look great in any Sci-fi setting.
- Two things contributed to this change – we wanted to give the world we were creating some character, and we see the demand for miniatures.
- As of sending this out, you have unlocked the stretch goal All Miniatures Pre-Supported. You have been blowing through stretch-goals with wild abandon. How has the campaign gone? Are you meeting expectations? Exceeding them?
Cody: Our goal was to make back our expenses. We had all the basic terrain items done and Kickstarter was the vehicle we chose to bring it to market. Everything beyond that had been amazing.
We expected success and we put in a lot of work before the campaign launched to put ourselves on the best foot, but we are just blown away by the response.This is because most science fiction themed printing Kickstarters tend to hit a wall due to a smaller demand. It is usually the fantasy focused kicks that do this well, so we are just really grateful for this project doing so well.So thank you to everyone supporting Arvalon-8!- Marc: Again going to have to completely agree with Cody, with all my Kickstarters, it’s a hope and a dream that people like what you’ve tried to create, I’ve always set a personal goal to get back what I’ve put into it. This really is a love and a passion of mine, and has been for 27 years (The hobby, terrain creation, miniatures) so breaking even is always the hope. This campaign has absolutely crushed it, even before launch many other fantastic 3D design studios said that Sci-fi was a tougher nut to crack and get huge success, I think we’ve had an amazing 1st campaign into the Sci-fi genre, and hopefully more to come, possible even an RPG supplement or game!
Thank you to everyone for supporting us, it means the world, and we’ll keep stretch goals coming, make sure to download the free miniatures, get them painted, share them, I don’t think we’ve seen the 3 bounty hunters fully painted yet!
Get them here: https://www.rmprintableterrain.com/collections/sci-fi-terrain
I’d like to thank Marc and Cody for their time in getting this Interview back to me. I hope you spend some time checking the Arvalon 8 Kickstarter and all that it has to offer. If you like Star Wars Rebellion, you will really want to check this one out. Though, I think Kill Team and other Games Workshop games would benefit from the terrain as well. Not to mention, if you are a Starfinder player, pretty much all of this would be useful for that RPG. There are a few miniatures now released for free as well as some terrain. Check them out if you are sitting on the fence. They print really well and look terrific. This is a great deal for the amount of terrain and miniatures you recieve. Full Disclosure: I am a backer of this Kickstarter.
