The Dimension 20 documentary is about the little things, with an emphasis on miniature master Rick Perry
When I managed the game for my local Dungeons & Dragons group, I always took pride in bringing something handmade every time we sat around the table together. Maybe it was a leather-bound book filled with vintage David Sutherland illustrations of the Tomb of Horrors, or a 3D map of a few rooms of Castle Ravenloft with just the right assortment of miniatures from my collection. As a lifelong fan of D&D, Rick Perry knows that impulse well. But as a production designer and creative producer at Dropout's Size 20he operates on a scale that is on another level entirely.
Season 21 of Size 20, a real-life feature show on the streaming television service Dropout, will premiere on January 10, 2024. It's an incredible series that shows no signs of slowing down, and Perry's work has been integral to its popularity. To celebrate his impact, Dropout has released a documentary entitled The legendary Rick Perry and the art of Dimension 20. Ahead of the release, Polygon spoke with the lifelong Texan, now resident of Washington State, to discuss his work.
While world-class Dungeon Masters like Brennan Lee Mulligan, Aabria Iyengar, Gabe Hicks and Matthew Mercer lead every game at the start of every game Size 20 Season with high-level creative direction, it is up to Perry and his team of experienced artists to bring that vision to life in miniature on the table. That means creating figures hundreds of centimeters tall from scratch using clay and sculpting tools; kitbashing dozens of scale models into fantastical landscapes to anchor the viewer in the world; and creating dynamic, layered battle maps where experienced improv actors can eat up the set.
Like the props you take to your home games, it's basically bait that he deliberately uses to draw players (and viewers) closer to the center of whatever complex story he's trying to tell.
“Size 20 (requires) an enormous amount of creative genesis to create a twenty-episode series,” Perry said, “(one that) takes place in a completely new world where we don't know what color the sky is, or what food the people are eating. So there's a huge amount of creative activity that has to start from scratch, and that takes up a lot of time.”
The documentary details how that creative work begins at his home on Lopez Island in San Juan County, Washington, at an outdoor sink first assembled by his father-in-law in the 1970s. It's then moved to a converted three-car garage that once housed farm implements but is now filled with bins labeled for the miniatures they contain – a box of trolls here, insects in the corner. Only after weeks, sometimes months of effort on the farm with an entire team of designers, are the larger pieces packed into crates and shipped to Los Angeles. Often, Perry said, that's where the real work begins.
The trick, he continued, is to stay nimble even when you're creating maps for tabletop encounters that won't happen for weeks.
“It's in the DNA of Size 20” said Perry, “because at the very beginning, when we decided that we wanted these eight battle maps that are custom, that have a mix of, like, high school and fantasy, it's not like something that we can just do really quickly unroll. We need to know in advance to be able to make skating dwarfs and all this stuff.
“That means we have to map all that out in every detail – as much as we can,” Perry continued. That kind of on-rails gameplay is unfortunately anathema to modern role-playing, which emphasizes creative freedom for the Dungeon Master. like the players at the table. It's always a challenge, Perry said, to keep things on track. But with a miniature set often costing as much as a full set, it's up to everyone involved to keep the trains running on time.
“That tells the Dungeon Master these are landmarks,” Perry said. “These (scenes we're building) are places where you have to get the ship through these little hoops. We try to build in as much flexibility as possible, as many opportunities for improvisation as possible, which means that sometimes where a battle card falls, they can switch places or we can cut one off. We don't try to cut any corners because it costs money to make them. And it's a business venture, the show, and we want all that production value to be on screen.
The nearly 45-minute film goes even further in its exploration of Perry and his work, delving deeply into his childhood and his time spent in college as a member of a group of performance artists. For fans of Size 20, it's a rare behind-the-scenes look at how his particular style of storytelling comes to life. But for artists, crafters, or even casual hobbyists who paint miniatures for fun on the weekend, this is the story of a kindred spirit who has found a crucial, transformative role in the creative industries.
The legendary Rick Perry and the art of Dimension 20 is now streaming on Dropout.