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I am very pleased to have Mitch from Terrainosaur on the blog today. I have admired Mitch for a long time now, and not just because of his great output (though he makes amazing stuff) and not just because he’s funny (though he very much is), but especially because he’s doing all of this with a disability. I am also disabled, and I very much appreciate the visibility of people with disabilities involved in the world of miniature wargaming and roleplaying. (There will be more on this at the end. Mitch raises a great deal of money for charity, and we’ll have links below.)

I am enamored with his terrain pieces. Coming from a model railroad background myself, it is terrain where I feel most comfortable, and the incredible things that Mitch constructs are intricate and genius and absolutely delightful–I especially love it when he gets into making Necromunda terrain.

Without further ado, let’s get to meet Mitch the Terrainosaur.

1. What was the very first thing that got you into terrain and wargaming?

Mitch: As a child I played board games and card games with my family. My hobby was building WWII fighter planes. My father wanted to try Avalon Hill wargames but that wasn’t something my mother was interested in. I played them with him, and eventually we switched hobbies. I became a gamer and since he liked building models and painting them, he became a model railroader. I painted my first D&D miniature in 1983. Although I played a little Warhammer 40,000 in 1988, I didn’t buy any miniatures or get into GW games. When Braveheart came out in 1995, I jumped into Warhammer Fantasy Battle. My first army was Orcs & Goblins. My second was Undead. (I still have both.) Soon I had a lot of terrain and I enjoyed building and painting it. I was taking pictures with a Sony Mavica camera, which saved the files on a 3.5” floppy disc! One day at work I said I wanted to build a website to store all my terrain photos. A site so big, it would be like a ‘TERRAIN-o-saurus rex.’ They groaned and I knew what to name my site. My site has existed since 1999 but nobody goes to sites anymore; if you want your work to be seen it must be on social media. I started making terrain videos on YouTube in 2020 with the goal of building enough of a following for my How to Paint with Tremors video to be seen. In 2021 I decided to grow the channel in order to raise money for the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. In a year, we’ve raised over $12k.

2. What games do you primarily play, and why do you love them?

Mitch: I run D&D and play Necromunda. Games I play infrequently: Kings of War, Descent, Blood Bowl, Gaslands, Fiasco, Paranoia, Toon, Rangers of Shadow Deep, Space Hulk, and FUDGE. Plus I play board games at my local game store, though I don’t own many of those.

• D&D is the tabletop fantasy RPG people understand. Fifth edition is a lean, consistent rule system that serves the style of play I like: exploration campaigns with miniatures and maps.

• Necromunda is the only truly 3D tabletop wargame. The rules are functional, but nothing special. (The campaign rules are innovative and iconic.) But the terrain is a dream to build. Fighters must move up and down to get position. In other games extra levels are optional and usually not connected. Necromunda is also where some of the best terrain builders pour their energy and creativity. They’re not trying to build things smaller or cheaper, like you see many YouTube crafters aim for. Necromunda is narrative. For example, my friend Nick shot a harpoon at my fighter who was 9” above the ground (about 45 feet). The harpoon was on a line. He retracted the line, yanking my fighter over the edge. I said, ‘No chance there’s one of your fighters beneath him to break his fall, is there?’ Nick looked deflated. My fighter fell 45’ with a harpoon in him, landed on top of one of Nick’s fighters, and suffered only a broken arm. What other game produces stories like that?

• Kings of War is the best mass combat game on the market.

3. What made you decide to take the plunge into YouTube?

Mitch: As mentioned, I wanted to put the video out How to Paint with Tremors. The reason why I stayed was I’m close to retirement and I found I could build terrain, paint miniatures, post them online, and raise funds for charity. YouTube has helped me find a worthwhile thing to do once I don’t work for anyone else.

• The best miniature painters are on YouTube, but the best builders aren’t. Since I chafe at the formulaic or shady ways of getting views on YouTube, I may switch my focus to another platform. That might be Instagram. For example, I had a speech at the end of a YouTube video. That video got 1k views. I cut out the speech, put it on Instagram, and it got 5k plays. Since IG has fundraising tools and YouTube doesn’t, I might shift focus off the YouTube platform.

4. Looking back, what do you wish you had known before you got started in YouTubing?

Mitch: The algorithm is allergic to hobby channels. Given a choice between pushing the audience to a pop star or some guy discussing the properties of different glues, YouTube knows which makes it more money. Reddit, Facebook, and Instagram are more tuned into hobbies but they don’t have the mainstream traffic, and they’re hard to monetize.

5. What makes you most optimistic about the future of the hobby?

Mitch: Wizards of the Coast and Games Workshop are massive companies. Small game companies are making a profit. Crowdfunding is providing an avenue for small companies to reach gamers. Patreon is helping artists eat. I see no signs of a slowdown on the horizon.

6. What makes you most pessimistic about the future of the hobby?

Mitch: D&D used to be synonymous with roleplaying games only because it was the name brand. Now it’s sucking the air out of the room. There are hundreds of other TTRPGs but people don’t play them. We need a science fiction game that isn’t based on a movie franchise, which can draw in players of all experience levels. In the miniature wargame world, we need better rulesets. There’s been too much focus on the quality and size of the miniatures, while the rules lag behind.

7. If you could make one change to one game or one IP, what would it be?

Mitch: If I were in charge of WotC, I would design a sci-fi RPG. If I were in charge of GW, I would set up a cross-department group to help people with disabilities learn how to paint and build.

8. What advice would you give to someone who is just getting into the hobby? Mitch: If you’re just getting into the arts-and-crafts side of tabletop gaming, try building something. It could take years to get as good as the best miniature painters. You might build the best thing in only a couple months. Plenty of people pop up with great new ideas for dungeons, castles, spaceships, rivers, cities, forests, you name it. Show me what you got.

Thank you so much to Mitch from Terrainosaur for that fascinating and insightful interview. Here are the places where you can find Terrainosaur online, as well as his important video: “How You Paint with Tremors.” Also, Mitch is a champion for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, and there’s a link where you can make a donation below.

Instagram

YouTube