C6 is one of the oldest skinners in the community, and over all of that time, he has somehow managed to distinguish himself as the community-appointed cream of the crop. He’s the one that inspires others to up their game and, at this point, is there anyone he HASN’T skinned? Today FRP takes the time to shine the spotlight on C6 just to see if he’ll ever release anything… the giant tease.

FREEDOM FORCE

What is it that attracted you to the game of Freedom Force and its community?

Super powered characters pummeling each other in colourful outfits of course! I’ve always been a huge fan of the genre (less and less these days sadly). The shear amount  of customization in Freedom Force was a dream come true for comic book fans. I remember playing the demo over and over using every new skin I could find. As for the  community… they’re just awesome. A lot of great and talented people have come and gone over the years. I’ve never been part of an online community this friendly and eager to  help newcomers and regulars.

As a skinner of a thousand things, something must have motivated you early on to tackle skinning. What got you into creating skins and why do you release them?

I couldn’t help but try to make my own skins of my favorite heroes and villains. I knew next to nothing about digital art at the time but I was just drawn to it. It’s also no fun to horde your toys… everyone should get to play! Yes… I am aware of the irony in that statement. :P .

The most common inspiration in the skinning field happens to be you. How does it feel to know that your peers hold you in such high esteem?

Cool and weird at the same time, I guess, lol. I read post referring to me as “the best” and I would try to respond by saying, “No no… top 3 maybe!” I don’t think I’m the best, and I’m still learning how to skin, really. It does feel great to have inspired people, that’s for sure. I’m constantly inspired by others when I visit Freedom Reborn.

Though you may hold a coveted position within our small community, are there any members within the FF fan base that motivate or inspire you? How about outside of it?

In the early years, skinners Gryphon, DarkJared, and a mesher named Beyonder. You may have heard of them :P . As time went on, there were Grenadier, Ink, and ips. These  days it’s Afghan Ant, Renegade, TAP43, Murs47, The Ultimate Evil, Blkcasanova247, style, Podmark, Tomato, House Quake, Vertex, Avalon, JKCarrier, Juancho, and BentonGrey. They’ve all inspired and motivated me in one way or another.

You’ve done so many skins now that it’s impossible to keep up with whom you’ve skinned and whom you haven’t. How do you go about choosing characters to transfer into the FF realm?

Yes, it has been a lot, hasn’t it, lol. I lost track at around 600 and that was over 4 years ago! I think I might be in the 1200-1400 range currently. I’ll have to count them all one day. As for whom I choose to skin… originally, it was all my favorites first like Spider-Man, Captain America, Superman, etc. Nowadays, it’s pretty much, “Hey, he’s got a cool costume. I’ll skin him!” A lot of my skinning these days is going back and updating my old skins. They are just horrible! When fans complain to an artist that “your old stuff was better”… it’s definitely not in my case!

Out of all your skins, which one would you say is your best or provided you with the most challenge?

Tough one to answer. The skin that fills that spot keeps changing, lol. As of today, I would say my reskin of Man-bot. He took me about 10 hours to skin… and for me… that’s a lot!

With the advent of skoping, characters can be more accurate than ever. How do you feel about skoping and have you tried your hand at it at all?

Skoping is great. It really revitalized the community! As with meshers, skopers amaze me at what they can do. I am trying to skope a little here and there but my motivation in it is lacking. I would love to one day stop begging meshers and skopers for stuff and just do it myself. Afghan Ant is a great example of what a great skinner/skoper can do!

Though skinning is great and all, have you ever considered trying your hand at fxing, modding, or any other FF skill set?

I dabbled in FXing once upon a time (I’ve never shown or released anything). I also learned early on that modding isn’t for me, lol. FXers, modders, and voice pack makers
are integral parts of the community. Without their added contributions, I would have moved on long ago.

Being around as long as you have, your skinning style must have gone through a lot of changes. How would you describe your current style and how did it develop?

There were a few style changes and phases over the years. My “Everything must have black!” phase… then my “No more black!” phase. There was also my heavy drop shadow  and dull colour phase (yuck). I also was in a “shiny plastic” phase there for awhile… though I still kind of do that. My current phase would be “No more base face!” I’m really trying to explore my face making and trying to give every skin its own personality. I’ve read people say my current style is like a comic book… so I’ll agree with them. :)

Freedom Force is a game all about showing off and improving your ability. Has Freedom Force helped you in any form outside of content creation?

For sure! Like I said earlier… I knew next to nothing about digital art. Thanks to my excessive skinning, I’ve learned how to digitally colour my own artwork or draw on the computer using a mouse or tablet. I recently penciled, inked, and coloured a 6 page story for the upcoming Honor Brigade TPB. I also learned that I wouldn’t want to be a comic book colourist. It can get pretty tedious. :P

As of the moment, the skinning community seems to be very active. Is there anything being produced for the game that you’re looking forward to or want more of?

I would love to see more FX made. After FXForce stopped producing… FX dropped dramatically. After all, our pretty skins and meshes look pretty boring when everyone is  using the same beams and area attacks on each other. A new EZFX would be great (I’m lazy at installing separate FX), and I know it would be a HUGE undertaking, but it would  still be sweet. I’m looking forward to BentonGrey’s “The DCU according to BentonGrey” mod. We’re fans of the same comic timeline, so I’m curious to see how he fixes things  modern DC has done

Over the past few years, you’ve become heavily associated with the mesher Renegade. How is it working with Ren and did he or his meshes help you improve your skills in any way?

Renegade is awesome, and I think we compliment each other very well. He’s a master at his craft and amazes me at what does. We get along really well and bounce ideas off  each other for fixing this or that.  We also have a tendency to inspire each other a lot, lol! No doubt his work has made me a better skinner. I try to do my best work with what he  offers me to skin. He’s not active at the moment, but I look forward to more collaborations in the future.

Sometimes members feel the need to compare their work to yours. How do you feel about this, and what suggestions would you give to those who do this?

Unless you’re at a certain level, I would advise against it. It took me 7+ years to reach the level I’m at now. Doing so may cause harsh critiques against your own work that you didn’t’ deserve. Go at your own pace and keep trying to improve. You can only get better!

One of the better ways to improve one’s skills is to get critiques. How do you feel about criticism when it comes to custom work?

I love critiques, good and bad. The good ones keep you going, but the bad ones should really keep you going. I’ve received a lot of critiques over the years that have helped me tremendously. I wouldn’t be at this level without them. Just try not to lose heart after someone verbally rips apart your 3 hour skin. Take what they said and try to apply it. I think it’s the only way you’ll really improve.

Finally, with all the mods around, have you found yourselves playing any? If so, which ones would you recommend to others?

Tough question… mostly because I play very little Freedom Force these days (too busy skinning). Most of my latest skins never actually gets used by me at all. Try all the mods, I say! :)

Art

Although you don’t show off much hand drawn art at the moment, you have presented several pics in the past. How would you describe your art style and what are some of your influences?

My style is old school by today’s standards. My influences in my comic work stopped when I quit collecting comics in the late 90′s. John Byrne is my all-time favorite artist and is my biggest influence. Others have been Jim Lee, Dale Keown, Sal and John Buscema, Ron Frenz, Mike Zeck, Alan Davis, Todd Mcfarlane, Marc Silvestri, Art Adams, Jim Aparo, and Neil Adams.

Previously, you have worked with Zapow on the comic series Honor Brigade. How was it working on that series with Zap, and did you learn anything from that project?

A fantastic experience! Zap is great to work with and a really good visual writer, so it’s easy to understand what he wants drawn. I learned a lot working on Honor Brigade. I had done my own fan comics before, but this was a whole new ball game that required a level of dedication and discipline I didn’t know I had. One of the many important lessons I did learn was that when designing a characters look… DON’T GET COMPLICATED… keep them simple because you have to draw them over and over and over again for 20-30 pages. The less complicated the design… the less time it takes to draw them and the less amount of frustration you’ll run into trying to pose them in all kinds of positions. Toy Boy is a good example here. He’s fun to draw but also complicated and time consuming. I’m convinced that is one of (and there are soooo many) reasons why today’s artists miss deadlines. Artist over design characters like crazy these days… far too much detailing to draw panel to panel in a decent timeframe.

How much input, if any at all, did you have in Honor Brigade’s direction, and how did you feel about the overall outcome of the book?

Honor Brigade is Zap’s baby. He pretty much had it all planned out. I threw a curve ball at him when I designed the look of Adrian Conroy (the Honor Brigade’s main villain). Zap sent me a small character bio with a limited physical description. I saw him as a black man with a sharp goat and graying hair. Zap loved the switch to a black Conroy over the white Conroy he envisioned and completely rewrote his origin. This ended up having a huge impact in his overall story. Zap’s scripts were all panel to panel so knowing what he wanted in each scene was easy for the most part. Every now and then, I would make adjustments to get it to work better visually.

As briefly discussed with JKC, sequentials are very important in understanding the events of a comic. Do you have a method for laying out your panels?

I used to draw small thumbnails of every page before I started on the big boards… but I started noticing that my thumbnails were more dynamic than the bigger pages. Something was lost in the transition… so out the thumbnails went and now I go from script straight to the big board. As for page layout, most of my experience is with panel to panel scripts, so I know how many panels are on the page and what is in them. I just have to find a good flow to fit all the panels onto the page. I also break certain “rules” when I draw panels… like you’re not supposed to flip the scene 180 degrees from one panel to the next. I don’t really get that one because if you put in a good establishing shot of where the characters are and where they are standing…you should be able to flip the camera wherever you want without confusing the reader. I’ve never heard any complaints anyway! :P

If you had a choice to work on any comic series of modern or ancient time, what would it be and why?

Captain America… 25+ years ago. Cap is one of my favorite characters (even though I’m Canadian). His costume is a classic. Head wings, flared gloves, buccaneer boots,
chainmail, a kick @$$ shield, and no pointless pouches! He has a great cast of allies and villains like SHIELD, HYDRA, AIM, Falcon, and Red Skull. It would just be a lot of  fun to draw I think.

Finally, if you could study under any artist, dead or alive, and learn his/her techniques and philosophies, who would it be and why?

Although he has stated that he would make a lousy teacher… John Byrne would have to be my choice. He’s a professional in every sense of the word. He actually treats drawing comics like a job and not a hobby you do between commissions. He’s up early and sits at his desk and draws until he hits his daily page quota, which is usually 3 but goes for more if he can. He’s also a master of perspective drawing, and I don’t think anyone can draw a better cityscape better than him. I’d think he would be a great mentor to learn “how to…” from.

MISC.

It shouldn’t be a major surprise that one of my favorite characters is Storm from the X-men. Who do you find yourself fancying?

Big-time Thor fan. Captain America, Punisher, Wolverine (before Marvel ruined him), Doc Samson (Blame Byrnes’ Hulk run on that choice), Superman (post-Crisis and pre-crap they brought back from pre-Crisis), Hulk, Batman, Doctor Doom, and Taskmaster (classic costume thank you).

Over the past few weeks, you’ve expressed disapproval over certain costume choices. What’s your favorite style of costume, and what about this styling appeals to you?

Colourful tights work for me! It’s a total yawn fest seeing a “super hero” who looks like they rolled out of bed… [and] threw on whatever was piled on the floor as an outfit. Then goes out and says, “Its god#%$@ hero time!” I say go back to bed Fan Boy. Wake up when you’re man enough to put on some tights!

It’s funny. I remember dying to see live action films of superheroes be made when I was little. Now I often wish they would just stop making them. The amount of damage that  Hollywood has done to the comic industry is staggering. For some reason, everything that Hollywood screws up… leather x-men, S-Belt Superman, rubber Batman, organic web shooters, bullseye forehead scar, and Jessica Alba… current writers and artists can’t wait to drag that kind of crap into their comics. Instead of celebrating the things they can do that Hollywood can’t… they hyper realize everything, so it looks just as stupid as it does on the big screen. End of rant.

I asked Tommy this, so I suppose I’ll ask you also. Out of all the ages of comics, which one do you enjoy most and why?

Silver-Age. Heroes enjoy being heroes. Everybody wears colourful get-ups and take themselves seriously. No excessive gore, nudity, and cussing (not that I have a problem  with these [things] in other media). Stories take place everywhere… cities, space, strange planets, alternate dimensions, mythical locals, micro-verses, etc. Not sitting in a kitchen discussing which hot super-villain babe they would love to screw.

If you want a better understanding of words and their usage, reading is the quickest way to go about it. What are some of your favorite books or authors?

I tend to read mostly sci-fi books. Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. I’m heavily into Warhammer 40k books at the moment. I’m 4 books into the ‘Horus Heresy’ series. It’s been great reading so far. My favorite author at the moment would probably be Dan Abnett of Gaunt’s Ghosts fame. Those books just rock.

With TV and movies, for the most part, heading down the drain, what are some shows or movies you find yourself wanting to watch?

My TV viewing has dropped off quite a bit over the years thanks to “reality” TV… but I manage to find a few gems now and then. The shows I’m currently addicted to are Dexter, Breaking Bad, House, Lost, Fringe, Big Love, and True Blood. My all-time favorite movie is James Cameron’s ALIENS. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen it and know the script by heart. My taste in movies is pretty wide and I’ll usually give any movie a shot.

When you got a good song playing, one may feel like they can do anything. What are some of your favorite artists or songs?

I have Winamp going when I skin, and my music tastes are pretty varied… I can go from listening to Judas Priest (greatest metal band ever) to Neil Diamond [with] no problem. Some of my favorite songs are “Delivering the Goods” by Judas Priest, “Homecoming” by Greenday, “Up Around the Bend” by CCR, and “Los” by Rammstein.

Finally, if one were to choose three words from the dictionary to describe yourself, what do you think they would choose?

Loyal, open-minded, and is “kick @$$” in the dictionary? :P

So in summary, this is what we’ve come to know about C6. He’s still learning to skin, he gets inspiration and motivation from a ton of people, and he likes his superheroes in tights. If you want to grab some of c6′s skins, how about going over to Renegade’s Toybox or AlexFF and grabbing them. If you want to support his comic work, go check out the Honor Brigade site. Spotlight… out!