I recently had the opportunity to conduct an interview with Trevor, the person behind TCR Designs. If you are not yet familiar with TCR Designs, they currently produce STL files of Second World War armor in 20mm (1/72) scale. The following interview took place via email, as it was the most convenient for my own schedule. All questions have been collated for readability after a few back and forth emails for additional information.

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Evan: Tell us a little about yourself!

TCR Designs: Hello! Thanks for taking the time to interview me! My name is Trevor, I am a mechanical engineer by training and have always been interested in military hardware, particularly armored fighting vehicles. Currently I am pursuing my PhD in material science, and working with my business, TCR Designs, as a way to follow my interests and build my modeling skillset. It’s a busy life, but I am enjoying both school and working on building TCR.

Evan: What inspired you to learn sculpting, are you self taught or a professional?

TCR Designs: My introduction to 3D modeling was back in middle school, I used to play the online game, “World of Tanks” back in the day, and I also really enjoyed scale modeling. A lot of the subjects in the game did not have kits, so I wanted to make my own models to represent some of my favorite vehicles. I started out with the software “Sketchup”, which was an easy and cheap introduction to 3D design. Once I got to college, I took a course on “SolidWorks” in my first semester and immediately fell in love with it. I have now been working with SolidWorks for around 7 years, and CAD in general for over a decade. SolidWorks is, I would say, an interesting choice for a more artistic software, since it is intended as a product engineering tool, but I find it very powerful for all sorts of work. I would say I am a professional, since I have worked as a design engineer utilizing this software in the past.

Evan: Your work so far has focused on 20mm armor. Is there a reason that’s where you
started?

TCR Designs: My choice to work in 20mm stems largely from the fact that 20mm corresponds to around 1/72 scale, which is where a lot of my kit modeling was centered, so it seemed to make sense to start here. My models do all come with unsupported variants, so it is possible to scale them up to 28mm for instance, and I may pre-support and test print in that scale in the future to diversify, but for now 20mm is my focus.

Evan: Since you’ve sculpted so many tanks, which one has been your favorite project?

TCR Designs: I would say that my favorite projects so far have been ones with some interior components, most notably my Marder III (H), and my Archer models. I find it really satisfying to get the cannon internals looking function to really bring the models together. Beyond those two I really enjoyed modeling the Valentine Mk. III tank, it just had so much detail and was fun to see it come together. Besides tanks, I modeled a Pak 40 AT gun, which was actually the foundation for the internals on the Marder, but that was really satisfying since it’s just a different type of modeling to slapping details on the outside of a tank.

Evan: Is there any particularly interesting tank or project you’re interested in doing but haven’t yet started?

TCR Designs: Yeah, I have been thinking about making a remote controllable 1/6 scale Panzer III, likely the J1 variant. The big barrier there is just cost. In terms of 20mm scale I do want to work on the German Entwicklung series tanks, but those will have to wait until I start adding more paper designs for less historically constrained versions of the game.

Evan: It seems like you’re stocking up on those “core” tank vehicles people want to see, do you have plans to expand into more oddball models eventually? (I’m definitely not asking because I have an affinity for weird early war tanks or something)

TCR Designs: Absolutely! As mentioned, I am open to adding paper designs and other more obscure vehicles to be used in more freeform games. I do have some early French armor in the pipeline, with the B1, H39, and FCM-36 being just about ready. The big thing now is just releasing my models.

Evan: You’re also working on a ruleset to accompany your models, can you discuss a
little bit about that with us?

TCR Designs: Yeah, so I got into Warhammer 40k back in my early days of university, which was an awesome mixture of modeling and gaming. I thought it would be fun to create my own unique ruleset to play with my models, partially as motivation to keep making models. The game, called “Armored Advance”, is currently centered around WWII, particularly due to the relative simplicity of the technology making rules easier to generalize. The game aims to bring a larger scale to tank battles than is possible with 28mm models, and I have some plans to incorporate a sort of world map for a campaign system, where encounters between tank divisions and other force types are resolved on the tabletop, but movement and logistics is covered on the map. I have an early ruleset posted on my discord server, which is also a hub for playtesting and discussion, which can be found here: TCR Discord

Evan: Big tank clashes sound like a fun niche to fill in game design. Are you aiming for Armored Advance to be a game which is more complex and crunchy or something more light and fast, or maybe a sweet spot in between? 

TCR Designs: The core game loop currently prioritizes relatively quick, but flexible turns using the action system. The mechanics are meant to be pretty simple for the base tier of gameplay, essentially “What’s the range -> do I hit -> do I penetrate” which is really quick to resolve in my experience, the penetration mechanics are pretty basic where most cases are clear cut and don’t require rolls, with only cases where the gun’s piercing power is about equal to the defense of a tank requiring any. When I mention “tiers of gameplay”, I am incorporating a sort of system where depending on what you are looking for you can add complexity, generally through terrain rules. An example would be for a more complex game, bushes or walls may afford modifiers to the range/hit calculations as well as potential armor modifiers, or certain vehicles may have separate defense stats if they are hull down. Currently I am focused on the core ruleset, but there is plenty of opportunity for optional mechanics to increase realism at the cost of more involved rules. To answer your question more directly though, the game is currently in the more “light and fast” category, where matches between say a dozen vehicles per side can be resolved in 45 minutes to an hour.

Evan: What’s on the horizon for TCR? Will you be sticking with the Second World War or expanding your portfolio to other times and places?

TCR Designs: I have quite a few plans for TCR, some more ambitious than others. I definitely intend to expand to other time periods, and already have some WW2 armor from other locations than just western Europe (Italian, Japanese, Soviet, etc). I am currently filling out American and German forces to get testing underway with a variety of units, but other countries will be added. Another thing I do with TCR is design 1/16 RC tanks, which I am still in the process of bringing up to my quality standards of functionality and aesthetics, but some prototypes have been made.

Evan: Where can people find you or your work?

TCR Designs: As mentioned previously, I have a discord server for playtesting the game, which also includes vehicle requests and the ability to directly contact me (I am very talkative, so don’t be shy to reach out). My model portfolio is current available on Wargaming3D and is growing each week. I have a YouTube channel where I post modeling tutorials, and soon some battle reports for the game. Furthermore I have an email; tcr.designs.2022@gmail.com, where anyone is welcome to shoot me messages for unit requests or really anything.

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Thanks to Trevor for taking some time to chat with us about TCR Designs. We are excited to see their portfolio grow and check out Armored Advance when it comes out!

Check out TCR at these places:

Wargaming3d.com

TCR Discord

TCR YouTube Channel

TCR Instagram