Interview – Rivet Wars

Zweischneid: I had a look around your website. There are Miniatures, Comics, Art, etc… . You have been busy! Can you give a bit of background on Rivet Wars? When and where did it all start? How long have you been working on Rivet Wars?

Ted: It all started a couple of years ago when I posted a picture on the forums at toybreak.com. I was on that site because I love their podcast. They have great information. A lot of help on casting toys and making molds.

I drew a tank, but with a mix of mech.  So I called it a ‘vert tank’ for vertical tank.  I got lots of great feedback on the sketch. So I decided I would do something with that tank:  I would build a world for the ‘vert tank’ to exist in!

From there I made a 3D print of the tank, made some silicon molds of it and started casting it in resin. I thought I’d make a few and sell them, but they became really popular. People just love to customize them.

After that, I continued designing infantrymen, other vehicles and weapons to fit the world.  Moreover, I did paintings, designs and worked on the story for the world.

Zweischneid: Your art direction, or style, is very unique. On one hand, your characters and miniatures follow a “cute” design. And yet, you are using a WW1-inspired setting – a grim topic – and some of the art in your comic is quite gory. Where does your inspiration for the “Rivet Wars style” come from?

Ted: The style is a combination of all the things that influenced me. I always loved military hardware. I have shelves full of books on tanks, aircraft and military uniforms.

I am also a fan of Japanese anime, especially the work on Miyazaki. He did some amazing illustrations for Hobby Japan of panzers [tanks] and of aircraft battles. These had a great deal of influence on me.

With Rivet Wars, I wanted to show believable vehicles and weapons. I also wanted to show things that stretched the imagination. Things from the covers of the old popular mechanics magazines: giant land battle ships and mono-wheels. Things that could conceivably be build, but might not turn out to be practical. Rivet Wars is a world in which those things were made to work.

War is a grim topic as you mention, so I felt that making the people caricatures – little rivets themselves – I could make something I could really have fun with. I can give them enormous moustaches, huge helmets and giant medals!

There is something about the turn of the century, about the uniforms and the generals of that day, which is so much larger than life. This style allows me to have a lot of range with how that is treated.

With the comics I wanted to show that there was some depth to this world as well. I hope to explore the world some more in comic form. I want to develop the history and characters on many levels.

However, Rivet Wars is ultimately about exciting vehicles, about soldiers and about weapons from a WWI-style era.

Zweischneid: The next big thing for you will be the Rivet Wars board game.

Can you share a few insights on the game? How many players can play the game? How long will an average game last? What role do the miniature play? Will people collect a “force” to fight, or is it more abstract than that?

Ted: Yes, the board game is very exciting. We have worked on it for over a year! We are really look forward to letting everyone have a chance to get their own Rivet Wars army and battle it out.

The game is for 2-4 players. An average game will take about 45 minutes. From the beginning, we wanted Rivet Wars to be a fast paced skirmish game.

The miniatures will represent your units on the board. Their placement in relation to each other will be very important, as you can buff other units and use different groups of units to support each other. This gives the game a great deal of depth and interesting choices for the players.

People will definitely want to collect different units for their different effects and abilities. Nevertheless, we wanted to stay away from the model of building an army. In Rivet Wars, you get deployment points each turn. You then spend these points on the units you wish to field.

This makes the game-play very dynamic, as you try to call forth units with abilities to counter the units fielded by your opponent. It also allows players to change their style of combat over the course of a game: You could be shifting from cavalry to infantry or to a mix of both. Or, perhaps, you want to spend all your points of a tank, and support that tank with infantry in the next turn.

The more miniatures you have, the more options you have to act or react in each turn. This makes Rivet Wars a very exciting and very tactical game to play.

Zweischneid: You are planning to launch with Kickstarter, for which you teamed up with CoolMiniOrNot (CMON) and Super Robot Punch. Can you talk about this partnership? How long have you been working together? What is everyone’s role?

Ted: Super Robot Punch (SRP) is the company I formed to make Rivet Wars.

We are teaming up with CMON to make this game reality. We have worked together for the past two years. It really has been great.

SRP is mostly responsible for the game and the minis while CMON is publishing and distributing the game.

Still, there is more to it than that. The team at CMON is a group of people with talents in every area of game production. They just love games. And they have been a huge part in getting Rivet Wars to the place it is today.

David Doust and Chern Ann really helped focus the vision of what we all wanted to make. Kevin Clark has been critical in helping to balance things out and give the game a great feel.

Zweischneid: Assuming your Kickstarter succeeds and you launch the Rivet Wars game, where do you go from there? What are your hopes and ambitions for the time after the Kickstarter?

Ted:  If the Kickstarter succeeds, my hope is to give people a product that will really excite them. I put everything I have into the design and creation of the miniatures and the game.

At the beginning, I really made Rivet Wars for myself, simply to create something that I thought should exist but did not exist yet.

When I found out that others also thought Rivet Wars was cool and something they wanted, I was thrilled. What made me sad was that I could not make enough of the figures myself.

So this is the chance. This is the opportunity for everyone to get their own Rivet Wars army.

And if it does well, I have some exciting ideas for new vehicles and amazing soldiers. Rivet Wars has many more alliances than the blight and the allies!  And maybe someday, we can introduce aircraft of all types!  And larger vehicles!

Thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss Rivet Wars. I hope that you will find the Kickstarter as something you’d like to support and that Rivet Wars is a world you will explore with us as we continue to expand.

And remember…Get in the fight!