Tomato's skinwork: Atomik (01/09/21)

[Cyber Burn]

Very nice 'Mato. Is the hand crossing animation in the second pic new? I don't think I've ever seen it before.

[Tomato]

No, it's actually from special_pink. I thought it was oddly appropriate for doug.

[windblown]

Nostalgia Critic looks fantastic, the face is impressive. I have to say that I hadn't heard of him before, but after a search I've found some really funny videos, it has been a great discovery.

[Tomato]

Boo.

[spydermann93]

Is that PC Ultraman!? AWESOME!

[Cyber Burn]

It's always a good thing when I can expand my CSA collection. Excellent work 'Mato.

[Tomato]

Gonna be a bit on this one, having issues with nifconvert... I'm not sure it works on windows 8, I may have to move it to my Virtual PC to get it working.

[detourne_me]

Cool. I look forward to seeing what's coming up next.
Yeah windows 8.1 has really put a hamper on my activities too. FFX is unplayable. Nifconvert won't work either.  I have to switch things back and forth between my desktop and net book.

[Tomato]

Honestly, trying to get that Ultraman skin done was a nightmare. What should have been a hour or so skin turned into a 6 hour mess of updating, restarting, and reinstalling. As some of you know, I had started work on Ultraman before. However, because one of my portable drives died, I lost the nif I previewed before and all skinwork I'd done. However, I still had the max files saved so I could just re-export the collar piece, but to get to it I had to reinstall VirtualBox, which wouldn't load my old virtual pc so I had to make a new one with the old VHD, qhich meant installing a fresh copy of XP and then installing 3ds max 5 again.

Meanwhile, on the real computer side, Windows 8 was giving me issues (after a few minutes any new "windows" that opened would be completely black), so I updated it to 8.1. Paint Shop Pro X4 didn't like 8.1, so while I'm trying to get the max stuff going, I had to go through and get it updated to X6 (thankfully Corel's having a christmas sale) before I could do any work on the skin.

So yeah, fun was had by all. Have a preview of my Owlman skope.

[vorelliwiseau]

Nice, new Owlman! Is this the classic version, the Crisis on Two Earths, or the Forever Evil one?

Also, I am sorry to hear about your Windows troubles. That had to be a very tiring affair - it's why I'm scared to upgrade.

That, and I spent like most of my time and money Christmas shopping.

[BentonGrey]

These are Pre-Crisis CSA guys, right, 'Mato?  Neat!  That's a very unique face you've given Ultraman, very fitting for him. 

Yeah, sorry to hear about your troubles man.  That's obnoxious!  I'm glad you finally got things sorted out, though.

[Tomato]

Nice, new Owlman! Is this the classic version, the Crisis on Two Earths, or the Forever Evil one?

Also, I am sorry to hear about your Windows troubles. That had to be a very tiring affair - it's why I'm scared to upgrade.

That, and I spent like most of my time and money Christmas shopping.

Finishing off the Pre-Crisis versions. If I do more after this, it'll be either heroes (Enigma, Luthor, etc.) or I'll do a few custom creations (such as a second Crime Lodge pack with counterparts of Jay Garrick and Alan Scott). I definitely will NOT be skinning Forever Evil (the story has potential, but I feel like the designs are basically the N52's version of the crime syndicate. Some of them are good, but many aren't as sleek and clean as the original Morrison designs.)

As for JLA Crisis on Earth 2... I love the film, and I do plan to use several of the designs from it (I'm also leaning in that direction for when I do Luthor, since the JLA Earth 2 version wasn't really an antimatter luthor design so much as an homage to the pre-crisis Luthor) but I don't really care to do the core five. I don't really care for the designs all that much, and I'd be retreading ground I've already covered.

As for the computer thing... it's entirely possible, likely even, that windows 8.1 had nothing to do with my issues with X4. I was having some issues with it prior to updating, and the issues I was having with X4 were shared by a few other image programs until I restarted. Besides, X4 had a fairly obnoxious bug with regards to TGAs and alpha channels which X6 doesn't share, so I'm happy to have updated... everything else was a result of not having installed everything to my new computer yet.

These are Pre-Crisis CSA guys, right, 'Mato?  Neat!  That's a very unique face you've given Ultraman, very fitting for him. 

Yeah, sorry to hear about your troubles man.  That's obnoxious!  I'm glad you finally got things sorted out, though.

The rest of them, yes. It took me a bit to figure out what exactly I wanted to do with them... as I mentioned above, I didn't want to retread the same ground with the CSA, but it seemed silly to do Pre-Crisis Johnny and PR without doing Ultraman, Superwoman, and Owlman. The idea I had was that these are the counterparts of the Pre-Crisis Earth 2... gives me a chance to do something a bit different, but still utilizing the classic designs.

Edit: It occurred to me after posting this that the Forever Evil team included more than the core five members, and I do actually like the looks of Atomica and Deathstorm. Aquaman's counterpart is ok (again, I would have settled for it before Cyber and Syn's designs blew me away) but I have an evil Aquaman already, and he doesn't have a seashell on his shoulder.

[vorelliwiseau]

Oh, I'd love to see Crisis On Two Earth's Luthor's armor! That's the gold plating-on-black bodysuit one, right?

Anyway, wherever your dice rolls, looking forward to seeing your take on the rest of the CSA-related characters, Tomato. That Crime Lodge pack sounds like an interesting concept.

[Tomato]

Yeah. It's the one I'm most likely going with, unless the prisoner in Forever Evil is Lex and DC gives us an awesome looking counterpart. Original E3 Luthor is just goofy, Luthor Jr. was forever ruined by Infinite Crisis, and JLA:E2 Luthor was a callback to the silver age lex. The Two Earths costume may not be the best "Heroic Luthor" ever, but it is a really good costume design.

[Cyber Burn]

I really love the fact that you're doing all this CSA stuff. They're some of my favorite characters (Though I have not read anything new with them in years), so I look forward to seeing these finished and released.

[Tomato]

The CSA kinda suffers in that, for every really good CSA story out there, there's a Countdown (or worse, JLA: Omega *shudder*). I should probably make a list of what I'd reccommend and what I'd avoid sometime even if I don't get around to reviewing the books themselves, but off the top of my head I'd say "Syndicate Rules" and "Trinity" are both in my top ten Syndicate stories.



To paraphrase a certain writer whose work I detest... He's the Goshdarn Owlman!

Edit: For those who don't follow all my crazy sub-tumblrs, I posted two separate reviews today, one covering the mess that is countdown, as well as the first half of a Syndicate Rules review.

[AfghanAnt]

I'm guessing Pre-Crisis Owlman? I love the face but I always thought he was a lot slimmer in physique.

[Tomato]

He was. I'm doing something a bit different with Owlman, Superwoman, and Ultraman here... I thought I'd explained it already, but I couldn't find it when I was looking for something to quote, so I guess not.

I have always hated this notion that the Crime Syndicate is constantly changing their costumes around (Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman had variations of the same costume from the Silver Age all the way up to flashpoint, it chafes my nerd britches to see people trying to have the modern CSA outfits evolve from the original E3 costumes). It's one thing to skin the pre-crisis Johnny and Power Ring as counterparts for Hal and Barry (rather than Wally and Kyle/John) but I just could not justify doing the pre-crisis Trinity as though they were supposed to be the same person. The hardcore CSA nerd in me just wouldn't allow it. But the collector in me wanted to finish the set, since I'd already done PR and JQ.

So I compromised: In the Tomatoverse (Damnit, if Benton is allowed to have his own DCU, I'm allowed to have my own Antimatter universes), this Trinity isn't from the Morrsion CSA, they're from the CSA's equivalent of Earth 2. Opens the door for me to do counterparts to the JSA down the line if I want, but still satisfies the "Mcnitpick" part of me that will not accept these costumes as CSA-prime canon.

Owlman was a bit of a problem because Batman really doesn't HAVE an Earth 2 version to emulate. In Earth 2, Batman has retired, leaving Dick Grayson to run around stopping crime. Benton suggested I do something similar with Owlman, but since the entire point of this set was to use the PC Crime Syndicate designs, I'm treating it like Owlman's just donning the costume for one last score. I based his appearance off of various "Old Batmen", particularly TDK and Batman Beyond. The body type is primarily based on his TDK costume in Arkham City/Origins: I felt it was a nice compromised between Miller's exaggerated art style, and Bruce's appearance in Batman Beyond.

[spydermann93]

Tomato,

I want to thank you for, and state that I am loving, your reviews on the CSA and all of its incarnations (the good and the silly ).  I also really enjoy reading your opinions on the books (I haven't read them before, but you're enticing me to check the Earth-1 CSA ) and I love these skins and meshes that you're pumping out.

[Tomato]

Thanks. Hopefully I'll be able to crank out the other half of "Syndicate rules" this week so I can finally talk about the book I've been itching to review since I started this: "JLA: Omega." And boy, we'll have a LOT to talk about then. You might want to get some popcorn ready for that one guys, it's just going to be one giant rant about how much I HATE everything about it. You know your book is just bad when I can hate it with more vehemence than I do "Countdown".

[Cyber Burn]

I so can't wait to get my computer back, these CSA skins are awesome. If you don't mind me asking, what mesh did you use as a base (I'm just curious in regards to animations really).

[Tomato]

It's a sliiightly modified version of the Male_Muscular_TM mesh aka He-Man base mesh. I hexed it a bit to give him the more TDK-esque gorilla arms, but it's all MB compatible, and is on Ren's Owlman keys.

[Tomato]

Decided to do an alternate skin that was a bit more "modern Batman"

[Sioux City Dynamo]

Hi Tomato,

Great CSA designs!  I really like them.  I have always liked the CSA and enjoyed the battles between them and the JLA.  I am thinking, once these are done I may have these guys square off against their Squadron Supreme counter parts in the Rumble Room!   

[Cyber Burn]

These are some great skins 'Mato. Not only am I a sucker for anything CSA related, but I'm also a sucker for great facial work, which you have very kindly provided.

Kind of off subject, I don't recall if this has been asked yet, but will you be skinning the versions from the Jusice League animated movie? Sorry if this has been brought up before, but I'm on my wife's IPad, and have a heck of a time navigating with it.

[Tomato]

I did, but wevs. No, I probably won't be doing the animated team. Even ignoring that I generally don't like the costume designs (Owlman and Superwoman are fine, but I really dislike Ultraman, Power Ring and Johnny Quick) I'm kind of burnt out on the main five in general. I'll have done at least 2 versions of each character when this pack comes out, and I need to change it up and do some additional characters. I'll certainly consider others from that movie (J'edd is from the film, and I'm strongly considering going with the Lex Luthor as well, I just wanna see if Forever Evil does anything with him first) but it depends on my mood. I definately want some heroes first, however.

tl;dr: No, probably not. Not the Forever Evil versions either.

However, you or anyone else is free to kittbash my work and make them yourselves.

[Podmark]

That Owlman is coming along nicely Tomato.

[Tomato]

Aaaand done. Also, just to preemptively answer some questions that only I would ever ask:

-I didn't include the gun pouch seen in most classic appearances & the DC Direct figure because it's not present in the George Perez artwork of the character in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Since that's the last canon appearance of the character, I chose to leave it off.
-I went with Quitely Owlman symbol rather than the classic belt buckle because Renegades's Owlman mesh makes use of the belt buckle for a ranged animation.
-The reason for the alternate color scheme, beyond simple aesthetics, is due to the fact that Batman went through a similar color change after of Owlman's original appearance. As I mentioned, I don't accept the mentality that the CSA uniforms can constantly change when the JLA costumes really haven't, but I can justify it since a similar change legitimately DID happen to Batman.

[spydermann93]

Oh, man! I am so psyched for these skins and meshes!

[vorelliwiseau]

Love those accessories, Tomato! Great work all around.