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

[ghazkul]

Always loved the MC2 series. Skinned a version of Stinger not long ago, nice to see the previous generation looking so good.

[Podmark]

If anyone goes and looks at my oldest skins they'll see that I was a huge fan of the MC2 stuff, especially Spider-Girl. I always think about going back and updating those skins.
So I'm really happy to see the A-Next Ant-Man get a great skin.

[windblown]

I'd never seen that design before. The skin looks fantastic.

[Tomato]

I was going to do the same thing with this next skin... but eff it.

[AfghanAnt]

I love the teeth but I have zero clue who this is.

[Deaths Jester]

Wait..is that the Nazi version of Antman that they did in A-Next?!?!?!  Ohhhh...pretty!

[Deaths Jester]

OHHHHH...Antman during his "armoured" time with the FF...nice!!!

Ummm... what? No DJ.

This is quite literally the A-next/MC2 version of Scott Lang, aka Antman. He only showed up as Antman in issue #8 of the original A-next series (though he's been an important member of the supporting cast, since his daughter was a founding member of the new team), but it left such a huge impression on me at the time that I chose my original username based on him. Ink and I came up with Red Ant later on, because I couldn't exactly claim a trademarked character "mine" when it came to the big events and things.

Actually he did wear this type of costume for a time in Earth-616 too. See?  It wasn't worn for a long time though.

[Tomato]

... DJ's right two times in a row?


...


Darn it, now I need a drink.

[Cyber Burn]

Geez 'Mato, the level of detail on that is just epic.

[laughing paradox]

Cool, Pincer. Now that's a character I never thought I'd see in the game.

Going to do more A-Next stuff?

[Tomato]

Not exactly? I miiiight have one more A-next skin in me (I probably do, but no promises), but even if I do, it'll be just the one more. I decided to do these after getting a bit nostalgic, but I don't have nearly the attachment to the MC2 universe that I do with the Crime Syndicate stuff.

That said, I remember trying to skin the first one back in the day... but in the dark days before nifskope or even a decent amount of quality meshes, the best mesh to try and make this skin on was "The_Ant." I never managed to get that skin to a point I was happy with it, so this skin was dedicated to that little kid in me. If that stupid kid, who felt so lonely due to his reputation, who couldn't skin worth a darn... if that little kid could see what I've done here, and how far he's come this last decade... he'd probably break down in tears.

So yeah, this skin is literally as much FOR AntmanAnext as it IS AntmanAnext.

[Podmark]

Pincer looks awesome. That face is just great, and I love metal effects.
I just barely see the Ant-Man resemblance. If I wasn't paying attention I'd completely miss that Pincer was Scott Lang.

Great job on these Tomato.

[vorelliwiseau]

The skinning on this is so superb. How do you make the textures on those accessories so well-defined, Tomato?

[Deaths Jester]

... DJ's right two times in a row?


...


Darn it, now I need a drink.

What?!?!  It's what happens when you bring about Marvel Comics...am an old school fan...not so sure about the more recent stuff but the older stuff is my specialty!!  And if you're going to have a drink, you best well share!!!

[Tomato]

posting the images I did on tumblr in spoilers

Spoiler

The skinning on this is so superb. How do you make the textures on those accessories so well-defined, Tomato?

It helps that I made the mapping on 90% of them, but I'm unsure of what you mean, exactly. If you mean the edge lines... I used vectors for most of the edges on Pinser and Antman, but once I was happy with them I rasterized them and ran over them with a lighten/darken tool to give them a bit of extra definition.

[ShortFuse]

Great work as always Tomato. 

[windblown]

Wow, that's awesome, the teeth and the metal texture are fantastic.

[Bloodshadow]

Awesome mesh & skin work Tomato
I love Antman Anext especially,very cool!

[Tomato]

So I am breaking down and doing Stinger (really, did you think the third would be anyone else?) but... because I'm having to manually modify many of the animations, it's going to take me awhile.

[ShortFuse]

Sweeeeet!

[crimsonquill]

Should have figured that Stinger was next based on your revisit to MC2 characters! 

Fantastic work on Antman and his evil counterpart and Stinger looks great so far.

- CQ

[Tomato]

Still have a ton of behind the scenes work to do on this one before it's releasable (half the animations need to modified to work how I want them to) and I still need to do the stingers, but it's coming along nicely.

Also: Since DC is still being a gigantic tease about the identity of the prisoner, I'm having to find other skins to do other than CSA stuff for the moment. And well, since I've just finished Scott Lang, it seems only right that I do another of Pym's successors next. And wouldn't you know it, I've been thinking about my own take on one such successor floating around in my head for ages.

[laughing paradox]

Stinger looks really nice.

I think I'm going to tackle a bunch of the A-Next characters. That shirt around J2's waist is going to annoy me, though.

[Cyber Burn]

In case I haven't said it before, I really love seeing characters from alternate realities. I am really looking forward to seeing this group get released.

[Podmark]

She's looking great! I always liked Stinger a lot. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Another of Pym's successors eh? Hmm...

[Tomato]

In case I haven't said it before, I really love seeing characters from alternate realities. I am really looking forward to seeing this group get released.

That might be a bit... I'm having to manually modify every single animation on Stinger (Animations with her at full height need the wings shrunk down, animations with her shrunk down had to be corrected for height, and any animation with her transitioning between sizes had to be edited) so while I've got got most of the work done (down to the last few dozen animations) it's a tedious, boring, annoying process and it's gonna take a few days to finish.

Skin's done though



For the stingers, I decided to base them off the artwork from "Last Hero Standing," mainly because that was the simplest iteration of them. And yeah, that's me being flat out lazy, but I would remind people that I am doing manual edits to every single animation.

[Deaths Jester]

Lazy, lazy 'Mato...going with the easiest Stingers...hmph....

[ShortFuse]

Awesome work. Can't wait to see her in action.

[AfghanAnt]

Why didn't you mesh the stingers? I think it would have added a lot.

[Tomato]

Why didn't you mesh the stingers? I think it would have added a lot.

Exhaustion, honestly. There's an issue with the female_tm2 mesh that forced me to spend a good couple hours fighting just to get the helmet to work properly (I need to go back and re-physique the whole mesh, I just don't have time ATM), plus about 10+ hours of fighting with the keyframe animations (which still is not completely done) and I'm doing everything I can to save myself from going into burnout on this one. I may revisit it later and do something a bit nicer, but for now I'm just ready to be done with it.