Today we’d like to introduce you to Rollin Kunz.
Hi Rollin, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I bounced around different combinations of day jobs and creative side jobs (illustrator, graphic designer, and muralist, among others) before having my first big independent success in the fall of 2020: The DUNGENERATOR, a deck of cards that generates hand-drawn dungeon maps for use with tabletop role-playing games. I had pulled the dungeon cards (and their mechanics) out of a larger game design that I’d tried unsuccessfully to pitch to board game publishers over the previous year. I put together a Kickstarter page for them on a lark, thinking it might be easier to sell the cards separately as accessories, set a very modest funding goal, and clicked launch one quiet Thursday morning. Altogether, the first campaign made about $50k. I followed up that success with another, differently-themed DUNGENERATOR deck and contacted potential collaborators. One of these led to me doing the illustration and graphic design for ORC BORG alongside the Rowan, Rook & Decard team, another success shipped worldwide and warranted a popular Italian translation edition. In 2021, I could leave my day job to work full-time on my art and game designs. My business is still small and scrappy, but I’m excited to keep riding this wave as long as I can.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Nothing has been smooth! In addition to the inherent difficulty of learning to coordinate the worldwide distribution of some silly art cards to thousands of strangers, some of the events that have added to the challenge include:
- An ongoing global pandemic
- A foreign power invading my original Ukrainian manufacturer
- A big boat jamming up shipping for weeks (remember that?)
- Brexit disrupting EU/UK shipping
- Multiple city-wide, week-long winter power outages in Austin
- Hurricanes nearly leveled my US-based manufacturer
- More pandemic
No one is more surprised than me by how long I’ve lasted as an independent artist!
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an “inky illustrator” and “bizarro game designer.” My illustration practice is primarily self-taught, based on hours and hours of poring over the works of comic artists Mike Mignola, Frank Miller, Todd McFarlane, and Sam Keith as a kid (and later, artists like Gabriel Bá and Eduardo Risso). I’ve always been interested in the way light and shadow play across and can be used to define 3-dimensional forms. This is readily apparent in my illustrations and fits nicely with a specific tabletop and video gaming space subset. The other key element I believe my visual work is recognizable for is its graphic design. ORC BORG’s unhinged graphic design was inspired by that of its source material, MÖRK BORG (by Johan Nohr), and it was the first work for which I gave myself free rein to cut loose. I want my graphic designs to feel diegetic – like they’re a part of the world they’re describing. However, my proper discipline is game design- I’ve always worked towards crafting entire experiences for people. I think there’s a real “magic” to that. I want to, through game design, allow folks to access experiences they’ve never considered. My next release will be a massive game design, with me doing every inch of the work from conception to creation to fulfillment. So it’s a crucial one for me! You can peek at that at DUNGENERATOR.net or follow @ROLLINKUNZ on your favorite social media platform!
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
The tabletop game industry will shift away from gigantic, big-box, pound-of-plastic projects (and retail boxes shipped complete of air to gain more display space) to small, sleek, easily shippable products. I think, similarly, that digital tabletop options are on the rise. Eliminating the need to ship a product is enormous, and I’m all for making games more accessible! The video game industry is seeing a lot of turmoil on the corporate side, but there’s no less of a demand for video games. I’m hoping we’ll see an increase in small-to-mid-sized studios able to take big design leaps and push game design forward with clever solutions. Also, machine learning will not stick around, at least not in the indie space. Once someone realizes a machine pooped out a product, the “magic trick” – the real “art” of it – is ruined. Plus, every market can only sustain a limited number of shoddily produced works!
Contact Info:
- Website: dungenerator.net
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/rollinkunz/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ROLLINKUNZ
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/rollinkunz
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/2headedhero
Image Credits
All images by @ROLLINKUNZ
