Post by Quendil on Aug 7, 2023 10:17:25 GMT
From Brandon Toomey
Hey folks!
You have probably seen me posting in the group now and then - alongside David, I am one of the crew cranking as fast and as hard as we can to get AQMF back into your hands with Return of the Tripods. I am the... lead sculptor? art lead? lead artist? We're still figuring out exactly what I'm called on paper; I sort of came with the game when David got the IP, and banishing me back to the more primordial art dimensions requires a lot of hard-to-find spell components. Also, I make models.
I got the go-ahead from David to do a Q&A thread here about the art side of AQMF and stuff connected to that, so I'll hit some starter questions first and then y'all are welcome to bounce whatever off me! Fair warning, if I don't have an answer, I'll say so up front; if I'm not *supposed* to answer, I probably just won't reply to that question (or at least the part of it that's past the wire).
Q: When will 2nd Edition be ready?
A: The artist doing the graphic design work is wrapping up commitments on another Abbynormal kickstarter project (Thieves World), and then he rolls into the graphics for the AQMF / Return of the Tripods Kickstarter. I would task over to that stuff but I'm primarily a 3D art guy by experience, so he'd still probably beat me to the finish line in 2D art land. My time is most productive on game models. Short answer: I don't know the exact calendar date, but I am in about-to-ship crunch mode.
Q: How long have you been at Abbynormal?
A: Well, this one gets weird, because technically I've been involved with AQMF since before Ironclad Games bought it, prior to Abbynormal's ownership. I actually ran across an article by an author from the BattleTech community (I think it was Loren Coleman or Blaine Pardoe) about the implosion of the original AQMF kickstarter. I was immediately hooked on the concept: Martians vs WW1! With an awesome name, too! Yeah, I fell in love at first sight with an out of print game. So goes.
Anyway, I didn't have the money for armies, but the rules were free online, and I DID have two things - a 3D printer, and fifteen years of experience as a professional 3D artist working on video games for PC, Xbox, Playstation, etc. Believe it or not, there's about a 95% overlap in the software and skills. So, I started designing my own Tripods I could print myself. I was gonna play one way or the other, dangit.
Those work in progress screenshots got posted here, and Joe Gateway at Ironclad (who had just recently bought the IP) got in touch with me when he saw them. I ended up doing a bunch of other non-AQMF sculpting with Joe, and we always meant to come back to it, but it wasn't to be. Ironclad and AQMF were put up for sale the same day Joe was laid off. Joe did manage on his last day at Ironclad to put me in touch with this David guy who bought the IP, though. And, funny enough, it turned out David only lived like an hour from me... ...skip ahead a little, and I've been working on AQMF with David ever since.
Q: Which of the new models are your work?
A: The entire Martian TO&E, except the Lobototons, and some Drone models are in a state of flux (we have new ones that aren't mine, but I am also making versions of the Drones).
Q: What are you working on right now?
A: I'm working on Drones as we speak. I had a brief hiatus because we're launching my older son off to engineering college halfway across the continent in a couple weeks. Lots of paperwork and last minute stuff.
Q: What do you use to make the game models?
A: Almost exclusively zBrush, a digital sculpting program, although I also have 3dsmax and Blender in my toolkit, which are more standard 3D modeling programs. I kick printable versions out to either Cura or Chitubox to process them for 3D printing, and I use a version control database tool, Perforce (I think they changed the name to Helix or something) to store and track my progress on models as I work on them. That lets me rewind to specific stages, and keeps things organized. Also, David and other Abbynormal folks can get to the database from their locations to download files, and it cuts down on confusion of whether the version they have locally is the latest and most fixed.
Okay - open mic for questions!
You have probably seen me posting in the group now and then - alongside David, I am one of the crew cranking as fast and as hard as we can to get AQMF back into your hands with Return of the Tripods. I am the... lead sculptor? art lead? lead artist? We're still figuring out exactly what I'm called on paper; I sort of came with the game when David got the IP, and banishing me back to the more primordial art dimensions requires a lot of hard-to-find spell components. Also, I make models.
I got the go-ahead from David to do a Q&A thread here about the art side of AQMF and stuff connected to that, so I'll hit some starter questions first and then y'all are welcome to bounce whatever off me! Fair warning, if I don't have an answer, I'll say so up front; if I'm not *supposed* to answer, I probably just won't reply to that question (or at least the part of it that's past the wire).
Q: When will 2nd Edition be ready?
A: The artist doing the graphic design work is wrapping up commitments on another Abbynormal kickstarter project (Thieves World), and then he rolls into the graphics for the AQMF / Return of the Tripods Kickstarter. I would task over to that stuff but I'm primarily a 3D art guy by experience, so he'd still probably beat me to the finish line in 2D art land. My time is most productive on game models. Short answer: I don't know the exact calendar date, but I am in about-to-ship crunch mode.
Q: How long have you been at Abbynormal?
A: Well, this one gets weird, because technically I've been involved with AQMF since before Ironclad Games bought it, prior to Abbynormal's ownership. I actually ran across an article by an author from the BattleTech community (I think it was Loren Coleman or Blaine Pardoe) about the implosion of the original AQMF kickstarter. I was immediately hooked on the concept: Martians vs WW1! With an awesome name, too! Yeah, I fell in love at first sight with an out of print game. So goes.
Anyway, I didn't have the money for armies, but the rules were free online, and I DID have two things - a 3D printer, and fifteen years of experience as a professional 3D artist working on video games for PC, Xbox, Playstation, etc. Believe it or not, there's about a 95% overlap in the software and skills. So, I started designing my own Tripods I could print myself. I was gonna play one way or the other, dangit.
Those work in progress screenshots got posted here, and Joe Gateway at Ironclad (who had just recently bought the IP) got in touch with me when he saw them. I ended up doing a bunch of other non-AQMF sculpting with Joe, and we always meant to come back to it, but it wasn't to be. Ironclad and AQMF were put up for sale the same day Joe was laid off. Joe did manage on his last day at Ironclad to put me in touch with this David guy who bought the IP, though. And, funny enough, it turned out David only lived like an hour from me... ...skip ahead a little, and I've been working on AQMF with David ever since.
Q: Which of the new models are your work?
A: The entire Martian TO&E, except the Lobototons, and some Drone models are in a state of flux (we have new ones that aren't mine, but I am also making versions of the Drones).
Q: What are you working on right now?
A: I'm working on Drones as we speak. I had a brief hiatus because we're launching my older son off to engineering college halfway across the continent in a couple weeks. Lots of paperwork and last minute stuff.
Q: What do you use to make the game models?
A: Almost exclusively zBrush, a digital sculpting program, although I also have 3dsmax and Blender in my toolkit, which are more standard 3D modeling programs. I kick printable versions out to either Cura or Chitubox to process them for 3D printing, and I use a version control database tool, Perforce (I think they changed the name to Helix or something) to store and track my progress on models as I work on them. That lets me rewind to specific stages, and keeps things organized. Also, David and other Abbynormal folks can get to the database from their locations to download files, and it cuts down on confusion of whether the version they have locally is the latest and most fixed.
Okay - open mic for questions!