The Final Freedom!

[Gremlin]

Truth be told I pretty much just took a break from the world and wandered Oregon quoting Emerson while chopping wood.

Holy frak that's awesome.

[Tame Fisher]

Yes. Trees everywhere.

But onto this. I'm trying to put together a first draft of sorts for my costumed El Diablo. I've changed my visual concept for him from the previous prison-inmate-gangster look to something resembling his original getup. The recent FF article showcasing old concept art kind of inspired me to go back to Diablo's old colors, so here's what I have so far.

Spoiler

Using Gryphon's male_cape base on a skope of Gren's AoA Colossus skope of Ren's male muscular tall (phew). I basically just removed the extra armor, though I'd like to throw some big, imposing shoulder pads on the guy at some point, as thevhigh collar look doesn't sit well with me for an older, (slightly) more mature hothead.



My idea of El Diablo in the future is essentially the torchbearer of the original Freedom Force. While Patriot City has come under the totalitarian rule of Nick Craft and his own, fiercely loyal Minutemen, El Diablo attempts to rally average citizens to his cause. I see him as a rather jaded individual, having essentially become senior FF member and eventual leader by default in the wake of Mr. Liberty's betrayal of Minuteman's ideals. His shift from the cheery prankster of old to Patriot City's last champion of freedom is reflected both in his new physical appearance and how he uses his elemental powers; the wild fire-flinger have grown up into a focused fighting machine, a burning brawler with the strength and resolve to carry Frank Stiles' dream into the future, no matter the cost.

Also, I've realized that while my skinning ability isn't so great, I do rather enjoy putting together little teaser images and such using FF characters. I got back into this bronze age FF groove last night and came up with a few such images, starting with this relatively simple thing:



I'm working on more of those and some skins today while I wait for my new apartment walls to dry, so this thread's probably going to be a lot more active than it should ever really be. 

[docdelorean88]

Theres an El Daiblo i could come to love! I like this costume because it incorperates elements of Minuteman in it. The color scheme and a few othere details, make this a perfect costume for him. It would be a great scene to show somone makeing fun of his suit and then him lighting a fire hydrand on fire just by snapping. Great work and hopefully more to come!

[Tame Fisher]

Thanks, doc!

Here's another random image thing based on one of the ideas I have for The Ant.




I really want to do something more drastic with his design than just give him some extra legs, so I see this as just a random middle point between normal Ant and full-blown mutated Ant. Eventually I'll figure out what I want to do with him. At the moment I'm working on cleaning up El Diablo and working out a decent costume for grown up Liberty Lad. Speaking of the kiddo...

[Trelau]

great to see that this project is back on tracks!
i like the "concept-skin" for el diablo a lot, the color scheme is interesting (a little reminescent of minuteman's), but i'd like to see him with the shoulderpad you're talking about

for the Ant King, you should really shamelessy copy the Man-Spider from Spiderman TAS. it's basically what you're trying to do anyway (adding a more insectoide look to him). maybe try skoping the mandible of a regular ant on him, then scale the all character until his head is big enough for the mandible. Maybe add some wings, since the ant queen is the only one to have wings in real life, your Ant King should have his own 

[docdelorean88]

I would stick with what you've got, i  think turning him entirely ant is a little extreme. I think that if you incorperate the colors of the actual soldier and worker ants into his costume(like more realistic antennas darker purple and black color scheme and animations of him working on the other legs) it would keep his normal look, but enhance his mutated side. Afterall he still has to be recognisable. I think your test shots are great by the way!

[Tame Fisher]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'm considering something Doc Ock-ish for The Ant, now, actually-- just beefing up the legs and focusing on that rather than turning the poor guy into a bug.

But anywho, my first post on FR was in request thread for a Heath Ledger-inspired Joker following the big movie. For those of you who (luckily) missed my first try, have a gander:



Messy, and not really too labor-intensive, but I've stuck with the idea for a while now and am getting pretty close to skinning a face I'm happy with:



I was actually planning to use this guy for a little machinima dealie a while back, so I started over and came up with this. Looks pretty decent from certain angles. I put him on vxmale to work on some teeth, which are kind of poking through his lips a little there. Working on that made me wish there was a set of vx keyframes full of attack anims that were just like, raging fits of laughter. Anyway, I'd appreciate feedback on this one, especially, as I've been tweaking it on and off for about...yikes, more than a year, now.

[Gremlin]

Whoa. That looks really nice.

[Tame Fisher]

Thanks. Just thought I'd show a little of my Nick Craft work so far.



Still deciding on some design elements for the costume, but I'm feeling something like a Bucky Cap style for the grown up Liberty Lad. This guy is obviously not in his fifties, but I want to try and capture different stages of his change. On Ren's Invincible mesh, he looks wiry enough to resemble Liberty Lad, I think, but his posture and presence thanks to those Super-type keyframes give him this neat arrogant runt look that I think fits well with what I want from the character. It's not too visible here, but Nick Craft is sporting a fresh new scar-- an "L" burned into his face. Wonder who gave him that...

[murs47]

Very creepy face (joker). For Nick, make his eyes smaller, other than that, looks good so far.

[Tame Fisher]

Thanks! Still not sure what direction to go with the costume, though. I wanted to include some more tech-y elements (I made a circuit board-like pattern as a refl file that looked pretty cool in practice), but it looked so busy that adding any of the patriotic bits I'd hoped to would have just cluttered it up. So, while I figure that out, I'll work on some faces.



This is kinda like a timeline of pain-- Liberty Lad, over the years, has become a great big, embittered pile of scars (turning against every other superhero in the world will do that to you). It started with one burned into his face by El Diablo, and finally finished with his costume-wearing days, leaving him immensely disfigured and reluctant to face any of his former teammates face to face.

[docdelorean88]

Everything is looking fantastic!

[Gremlin]

I think the length of his mouth in relation to his other features should remain consistent. When his lips are pinched like that it doesn't look as much like Nick. The scarring looks very nice, though.

[Outcast]

The Heath Ledger Joker face looks pretty close to the movie character. It looks like a lot of work. Awesome job. 

[docdelorean88]

As far as the suit goes, you might want to go more fundamentally minuteman look with some altercations on it. I like the faces, but something isn't clicking. I think the only thing that is doing it for me, is that all of the faces, there are no solid edges, it looks like hes melting together. I love the design and concept! I just think that you might want to shrarpen the mask and hair. Also, i feel the skin is too pink, it needs more of a pale coloring. This is just my oppinion though. I think this entire project is a great feat, and realize that the creator knows best.

[laughing paradox]

Those faces are really good. Could I suggest just a little contrast on the face, though, to make the shadows more prominent?

[Tame Fisher]

Whoa. Kinda poofed off the radar there, huh?

Thanks for the feedback, though, everybody. I was actually working on a few skins, but between work and other random projects I never got around to posting back here. Here's one I made this morning:


If you're wondering why it looks a little choppy, it's because I made this on a netbook, and the screen's too small to get a full-body screenshot so I captured pieces of the body on character tool and pasted them together in Paint. I must've spent like three hours making sure that piping on the suit wasn't crooked. Yeesh.

I called this guy Offswitch because the symbol I drew on his head kinda looked like the thing on on/off buttons. Figured it'd be a neat look for a guy who specializes in negating other people's abilities.

[Outcast]

The simple design of the costume and the symbol on his head representing his power/namesake looks ok to me but I think the color of his pants is maybe a little too light compared with the rest of his costume. 

[Tame Fisher]

You're right about the pants, Outcast - I didn't match the colors up too well the first time around. As for the design, I guess it was really just an exercise in making cleaner lines for me. It would look a lot better with a cape or some kind of head accessory...hmm.

Meanwhile, here's one I started a while back on vxmale_nomouth, and recently jumped over to Tomato's DPmask mesh.



Still messy as it has not yet benefited from my improved line-drawing, but I'll try to wrap this one up soon anyway. I've also scrapped my old Liberty Lad concept so I can start over on the face/costume without trying to cling to that post-apocalyptic setting. I'm thinking maybe these guys can be a part of a newer, inappropriately edgier Freedom Force. Like Youngbloods or X-Statix.

[Tame Fisher]

 

I have no idea what to call him now.

[Tame Fisher]

Hello again.

Just thought I'd post my new version of Offswitch's face.



I'm trying to be less lazy with these more recent ones to match up to my adult Liberty guy's mug. I've been redoing my Joker face as well, but I think I'm going to focus on some originals for a while just to see how good I am at actually designing a costume. So far my ideas don't seem too exciting.

[Outcast]

I think it's neat that you were able to skin those belts on the neck of Rubberneck? I could also see some texture on his mask. The little creases you made to his bodysuit looks good too. So, so far so good.

The photoskinned face of the other character looks nice and clean too.
The design isnt that bad really. I think his name could go as "Marshall" or something...

Great job on the new face of Offswitch too.

[Tame Fisher]

Thanks for the feedback. The texture on Rubberneck's mask was actually just a simple "apply canvas" effect which turned out better than I expected. The belts were a little harder to actually get around his neck because I'm terrible at necklines, but the mistakes aren't so noticeable. Front of his costume's crooked, though, so I may just redo his torso all together.

Now that I'm looking at the new Liberty design, he does have a...I dunno, kind of an armored cowboy look to him or something. I shall re-dub him Marshall Lonestar. I tried updating my old, scarred adult Nick Craft today using a face structure that I've basically turned into my default base for all current skins in process. I think he looks a lot less melty now than in the original:

[docdelorean88]

Much much better! Great work!

[Outcast]

The face looks very good. The details seem just right. It's a pretty good start for your (face) base. 

One suggestion i can think of, is to make the details even more crisp?(less blurry?) The eyebrows seem to need this i think...

Then there's something about the lipline that makes it look a bit uneven. Not sure since the head is a bit tilted.

Just small minor things though. Again overall it looks very good. Good job!

[cascarudo]

cool skins love the faces 

[electro]

Cool skins & ideas Tame - There are also 4 70's versions of the ff squad that you could skope peices off of - good luck with your Mod



Here's the mesh Unkoman was talking about