Meet Maximilian Uriarte, the New York Times bestselling author and artist behind Terminal Lance.
Chris: You have developed some adorable Muhreen NFTs. What does a Muhreen imply? Why did you pick cute fighters for the NFTs?
Maximilian: Muhreen is (of course) a fun play on the word Marine. As an artist and Marine veteran myself, I’m most well-known for my work with Terminal Lance, a comic strip about life in the Marine Corps. Muhreens really has its roots all the way back in 2011. In 2011, I released an animated short film called “Post,” starring two bobble-head style Marines standing post. It was a big hit with the fans of Terminal Lance, a lot of people even got tattoos of these guys! After Post came out, I had an idea to build a website or app where you could create your own little Marine out of interchangeable parts, but the idea never really came to fruition.
In early 2021, I was able to revive the Post series with the new 3D animated short film “Frag Out.” A few months later, NFT’s blew up into mainstream discourse, and it seemed like a fun, new and exciting medium to realize my original vision for Post and the Muhreens.
Chris: The NFTs will unravel on Christmas Eve. What are the metadata rarity factors for the Muhreen NFTs?
Maximilian: The Muhreens are made up of different weapons, headwear, mouths, eyes, backgrounds and a few surprise super-rare attributes. Each one of these different pieces has different rarity levels attached to it, and there’s even some ultra-rare Muhreens mixed in like the OPERATORS: MARSOC (special forces) Muhreens with unique names.
Chris: You have a small but strong team. The creator and artist for Muhreens are popular in the NFT space. Please tell us how you guys got together to develop this NFT?
Maximilian: I was really intrigued by NFT’s, and was mulling around doing something in the NFT space. Rather serendipitously, our developer Christian reached out to me that same week via Twitter and asked if I was interested in doing an NFT collection. He handled the contract and development side of things while I illustrated and created the entire collection by myself.
Chris: What is the minting price for each Muhreen? How much is charged as gas?
Maximilian: Muhreens are in tiered pricing starting at .01 ETH for the first 3333, .02 for the second 3333, and .03 for the final 3333 (total of 9999). To my knowledge, gas prices fluctuate and are set by the network.
Chris: Following from the previous, where do you plan to go from here once all the 9999 NFTs are sold? Do you have any plans to add more NFTs to the same theme?
Maximilian: We’re not going anywhere! I think there is plenty of room to do another collection and expand on the Muhreens by potentially doing other military branches as well (Army, Navy, Air Force, etc) or potentially other time periods (WWII themed set, Revolutionary war, etc).
Chris: In addition, how do you plan to use the sale proceeds apart from creating short animation video?
Maximilian: Animation is the goal, and the more funds we have to play with, the more we can put into it to create higher-quality content. We haven’t really considered other uses for the sale proceeds other than creating great animation, but there could be opportunities there to further expand the brand.
Chris: You are creating NFTs that would ultimately be in animation videos. What is the concept behind these videos? Although irrelevant, I'm just curious, what audiences does it cater to?
Maximilian: The Muhreens are the stars of the Post animated series! Each episode will have two randomly selected Muhreens that will be 3D sculpted, modeled, rigged and animated into the films. To start, each episode will continue on the “Post,” where the two Muhreens stand post and are driven by their boredom and hijinks. I think what will make this fun is that each Muhreen is so different, they will inevitably inform the story and where it will go. If for instance, we have a sniper in a ghillie suit teamed up with mortarman, that is going to give us a much different episode than what we saw with "Frag Out." I think the unpredictability of each scenario will make this a fun creative endeavor for everyone involved.
Chris: Before closing, I would like to highlight that you are creating a community through these 9999 NFTs. Do you have any reward systems for your loyal NFT holders?
Maximilian: This is something that we’re looking into! We want our NFT holders to be involved in the creation of each animated short, with them able to pitch story ideas and really be part of the team. I think there is definitely a way to reward the most prolific collectors—for instance, if you have an entire fireteam (4 Muhreens) or even an entire squad (13 Muhreens), there’s opportunity there to do something really fun for them.
Thank you to NFT Calendar for giving us the opportunity to highlight our collection and get the word out there!
