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

[BentonGrey]

Man, that finished Luthor is fantastic!  Both of them are!  Great work, 'Mato!  I really love the facework and the quality of the colors.

[Tomato]

He's released btw. Glad to get this monkey off my back...

though, speaking of monkeys...

[BentonGrey]

I am 100% invested in wherever this goes....

Also, hurray!  I am really excited about playing through the CSA arc with this Luthor in tow.

[Cyber Burn]

Can't wait to get home so I can download this. Awesome 'Mato!

[Tomato]

[naitvalis]

Both luthor skins are excellent quality works and indeed are a must for every counterearth game, also i can't wait to see that counterjoker but don't forget the monkey !

[Tomato]

For those not on the discord, I've been steadily working on the Jester for awhile now. Rather than be a palette swap of the CoTE character, my goal was to make something more in line with the general color scheme of Prime Joker, but have it also be in super poor taste. I'm pretty happy with it tbh, just need to add the staff in.

[Podmark]

That looks fantastic!

[Cyber Burn]

That is beautiful, 'Mato. I love it. I'm still looking at Keys, I just haven't accomplished anything. (Keys are not my strong point)

[BentonGrey]

That's fantastic, 'Mato.  What a unique design!  I liked the plain one, but this adds another layer to the redesign.  You've got the clown costume switched to the harlequin costume completely.  Great work, man!

[deanjo2000]

Excellent

[OrWolvie1]

Nicely done, Tomato. your work continues to astound me 

[Tomato]

Bit of an image dump, but I wanted to show off some of the new additions, including the plaid pouch from which all his "jokes" come from. Still have one final component before I can wrap this up but I've had a lot of fun with this assault on ones eyeballs.

[OrWolvie1]

He looks awesome! Love the attention to detail that you've given him. Fantastic job! 

[Tomato]

Jester is now available on Heroforce. I completely revamped my DC page for the sake of my own sanity and to make current and future updates easier to sort through.

[murs47]

So, so good!

[Tomato]

My plan is to work on some Crime Lodge members next, I actually have an interesting take on Jay's counterpart (he's not a Quick, thinking of using Zoom for reasons that'll become clear) but still wrapping my head around Alan.

[Tomato]

So, as has been established by now, I'm a bit... persnickety, particularly when it comes to CSA universe shenanigans. Rather than do the likely more sane option and just using the "Quick" moniker for Jay's mirror counterpart, my head cannon is that Jonathan Allen was NOT inspired by Jay's counterpart like Barry, but was instead inspired by Johnny Quick's mirror counterpart. Of course, that left me floundering for a new codename to use for Jay (who is still a core member of the Crime Lodge)... but as my ideas for Henry Garrick started coming together in my mind, "Zoom" seemed a fitting choice.

[murs47]

As cool as this is(and it frickin is), I was expecting a Mazda skin.

[Tomato]

As cool as this is(and it frickin is), I was expecting a Mazda skin.

TBF, I was thinking of those commercials when I made the thread title.



For those who still haven't figured it out, Zoom is based pretty heavily on the Teddy Sears "version" of the character seen in "The Flash" season 2. Not to spoil things, but in the show Teddy's Jay was revealed to be the series' villain, "Zoom," and had been keeping the real Jay prisoner. As I was wrapping up on Jester, I started trying to figure out what to do with Jay and Alan, and a google search for "evil Jay Garrick flash" brought up Teddy's version of the character. The more militaristic design and the name "Zoom" fit with what I was already contemplating for the character, so I decided to use it as the basis for my version. There was some back and forth on whether I should do Teddy Sears or JWS as the basis for the face, but ultimately I went with JWS since I wanted an older Zoom to match the other CLA members, and MAN does his face work well on the VX mesh.

P.S. So as an additional nod to the series, much like the counterpart to Barry is "Jonathan Allen," in my headcanon Jay's counterpart is "Henry Garrick."

[Tomato]

[Podmark]

Very nice! The face work is excellent and I really like the jacket design.

[Tomato]

First preview. Reusing my extras from the others because... let's be honest, it'd be the same ring and battery.

[naitvalis]

Loooks very promising, i like all the stuff you build about counter earths , you have plan to do also less important characters like guardian or bane  ? (Maybe with your own designs i haven't see any dc officials)

[Tomato]

I'd love to do almost everyone in the dcu, but there are SO MANY and skins take so long it's more a question of getting to them at that point.

After I finish PR, I'm gonna shift focus to the Fel(as in Felonious) five Teen Terrors. I'm a huge Titans fan, it's where I first got into making my own earth 3 counterparts, and I'm excited to get into them. I expect that alone to take me to next year.

That said, if we're just talking designing characters... I wouldn't mind designing and/or working with other skinners. Heck, I know the E3 stuff is kinda my thing now, but I do not mind at all seeing other takes on them, and in fact I have a bunch Benton sent me.

[Tomato]

Obviously pre-face/mask, I'll work on that either later today or next weekend.

To give context for those not in the discord, the thought process I had was to try to find a way to match the showmanship of Alan's classic costume. Alan designed his costume to leave an impression, and I don't see any reason his counterpart would be any different in that regard. The trick was to find a way to somehow match the spirit of the costume, while being its own thing.

The initial inspiration was the style of the Third Doctor, played by Jon Pertwee, specifically his "Inverness Cape." It's this bizarre cross between a trenchcoat and a cape, and Pertwee's outfits would often have a dark (usually black) outside material and a bright, glossy interior color (usually red) that stood out whenever he moved around. From there, Benton suggested using a Mandarin coat in keeping with the Chinese roots of Alan's origin, and (though I haven't skinned it yet) I plan on adding a Zorro style mask both for its theatricality and for its more bandit-like edge.

[Podmark]

Wow, very cool, not at all what I was expecting from the silhouette preview you showed the other day.

[Tomato]

Yeah, I get that. Part of the impulse with making EVIIIIILLL versions of a character is that there's a compulsion to make characters gritty and dark and evil looking... but I tend to shy away from that approach when it doesn't fit the character. Instead, I try to go back to the idea of their design and give it a different spin... Jay, for instance, has a very basic design: his original "costume" is a red tee shirt and jeans he sewed lightning bolts onto and a goofy hat he pulled from a Mercury costume. The Arrow design I worked from works because, functionally, it's very similar... it's a leather jacket and jeans "Jay" added a lighting bolt to, but it adds a bit of a subtle edge because it's intentionally a bit more soldier-esque.

Likewise, Alan is a showman, and because his ring does most of the work anyway, his costume is intentionally more about style than about functionality. As such, I think it's fair to say his costume wouldn't have been any less garish if he was evil. If anything, because of how the ring works, I see Scott Alan (the name I gave Alan's counterpart) leaning into the showmanship of the costume even more as Power Ring, seeing himself as a zorro or robin hood type figure.

[Podmark]

Yeah I see what you are going for.
From the silhouette I got a more Guy Gardener in a leather jacket vibe. Just shows where a mind can go with presented with a shadow.

[Tomato]

Scott and Henry (PR and Zoom) are officially released on Heroforce.