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

[Tomato]

So I went into a crash+burnout situation (lost layer data, meh) but I'm finally back at it. Trying out a RDJ style beard, think it gives Thuul a more Roguish appearance.

Thanks to SickAlice, work has begun on Atomic. Mostly working on skope end at the moment.

[UnkoMan]

Yeah, I like this one!
Looking forward to seeing more of these. They've been great!

[Tomato]

*sigh* if I could go a few years without having to do this again...

So. I doubt any of you heard, but I must once more remove a skin from heroforce because the person it's of turned out to be a disgusting human being. If anyone has a desire to download Mad King Ryan, preferably *just* for archival purposes, do so quickly, because I doubt it will survive past this weekend. Corpirate will remain available in the pack's place.

That said, be aware that Ryan Haywood (google) is a turd of a human. My friends and I spent the weekend destroying merch of the man.

[Tomato]

So I unfortunately don't have a ton of time to work on Atomik rn (I promised roommates I'd do some sprite work for a pokemon mod) but the recent announcement of a Crime Syndicate Miniseries inspired me to get back to work on Atomik. For those who saw the OG design on discord, but not the new one, there are a few changes incorporating both the new design, as well as the jacket from the 90s teenager Ray design.

[BentonGrey]

I do like the 90s jacket for our whole 'EXTREME/Grimdark! is evil' thing.  He needs some fingerless gloves too!

[Tomato]

See, I thought about doing that when I was designing them, but ultimately I decided not to because we had discussed the idea of Atomik being a thief/spy for Ultraman, and leaving fingerprints (even tiny ones) seemed counterintuitive to that.

[deanjo2000]

He's coming along nicely, (or evily )

[BentonGrey]

Haha, but who says that these designs make logical sense?  Still, that's coming along really nicely.

[Tomato]

Face is done. Meant to post this like 2 hours ago but I went downstairs and forgot.

[Tomato]

Mostly done with the core part of the skin now but I'll likely work on the extras first before I get that done (want to do some straps for the arm/knee pads). That said, likely done for today, and I wanted to post a sort of mini-bio for y'all. Real quick though, in case anyone was wondering... I'm using "Atomik" rather than "Atomic" both to match the upcoming change for the CSA miniseries (which uses "Atomika"), and because said change was done to more closely mirror the spelling of "Amerika".

Spoiler

Born Rhonda Palmer, Atomik spent most of her academic career with her achievements being belittled and ignored due to her gender. However. after discovering the power of the dwarf star material, Dr. Palmer decided to use her newfound abilities to steal from those who had pushed her down throughout the years. Taking great pains to mask her gender (not wanting to endure either the belittling or sexualization that plagued her academic career), Palmer soon made a name for himself in the criminal underworld as Atomik. However, his exploits caught the attention of Ultraman, who was able to use his abilities to blackmail Palmer by threatening to reveal his secret.

The original idea was that I wanted to acknowledge the canon version of the character, but not fall into the tropes that are implied by a female thief/spy. Rhonda is much more of a roll in the dirt kind of thief, crawling through dirty air ducts and trudging through sewers to get where they want to go. And while not really consciously aware of it, he's also much more comfortable in the guise of a man than the years spent living as a woman. It's why I'll probably continue to use male pronouns most of the time, because for all practical purposes this is a male character even if he has some feminine characteristics.

[BentonGrey]

The skin is looking great, 'Mato!

[UnkoMan]

Oh! This character origin is dope!

The jacket and pads and stuff remind me of a '90s character, but done tastefully. I dig it!

[Tomato]

In 4 more months maybe I'll finish the belt and have this sucker done 

[Tomato]

Atomik is complete

[BentonGrey]

That's a lovely skin, 'Mato!  I quite like the costume design.  It's recognizably the Atom, but with those ridiculous 90s elements we've been talking about. 

[deanjo2000]

Very nice

[Podmark]

Great skin, and I really appreciate the work you put into the character.

[Nyte Dragon]

That looks great Mato! And I like the addition of the yellow into the color scheme. Usually Atom is shown only red/blue, and with him being a thief/spy for Ultraman, it ties into UM's colors too.

And I love the backstory too.

[murs47]

I see that Sinestro and it says "I miss you Murs! Come back!" and so I'm here Tom-Tom. I'm here.

Joking aside, you are incredibly talented. It's been a pleasure watching you master your craft. I hope you're well.

[Tomato]

So this was SUPPOSED to be finished and posted YESTERDAY, but it's been a hectic month. Only came up with this idea mid October (those few people who know my twitter might have seen my mini breakdown) right before I left for a week to go to a wedding and cracked a rib and just... life happened.

This isn't quite done, I want to add a medallion, but I have to mesh and map it and I keep putting that off. In short, the idea was to cast various FR members into the roles of classic-ish movie monsters. I cast myself as the Vampire (my day job is literally drawing blood) and there were a bunch of others discussed with my collaborator/partner in crime, but those may have to wait for another year sadly.

[Deaths Jester]

Well...we got two of them done at least. Not bad with such short amount of time and the stuff that real life has thrown at us lately. But when did i become a partner in crime?!? I do crime on my own...keeps the overhead down...>_>

[Panther_Gunn]

But when did i become a partner in crime?!?

That's what I read, but in my head I heard Batman from The Brave & The Bold: "We're not partners!"

[SickAlice]

Looks great, really. Also hope life lets up a bit for you, well pretty much extends to everyone that needs it.