Who is the real Detourne? Is he an alien sent from outer space to spy on us and get our secrets for an evil mastermind? Is he a shape-shifter akin to Mystique with the same malicious intent? Don’t be silly, gangers. Detourne is one of those low-key members of the FR community that you’ll take notice of, but you can’t always remember what it is he does (skinning and skoping). Today, FRP2 takes a shining to Detourne to determine exactly what talents he keeps under his sleeves, and why he’s been away from the content train. Silly, Det… we’re on to you.

FREEDOM FORCE

Let’s start out with the obvious, shall we? You’re male, correct? However, your avatar is female. How did you come up with your avatar’s name and design?

Yes, I am male, but my avatar is female. Well, I guess I have two reasons for that. I’ve always appreciated the female form, and when I’m playing games and I can choose which sex to be, I almost always play as a female. For example, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, KOTR, City of Heroes, and Champions Online — all female characters. Heck, if I’m going to be looking at a characters backside for [XX] hours, it might as well be a girl. Secondly, females are definitely underrepresented in the superhero genre. Especially non-derivative characters or ones that aren’t completely sexualized.

As for my name and design… well now, that’s a longer story. About ten years ago, I really got into the artist/theorist Guy Debord and his Situationist International collective that inspired punk and culture jamming. Detournement is one of the concepts of the movement. It means to take different pieces of art and re-contextualize them to make something new. Welp, for a long time I’ve known that I’m very creative myself, but let me take some things apart and put them back together, and something pretty good can turn out.

Original art projects I’ve had in university from videos, music mashups (before it even was a term), and even shockwave/flash attempts were all in this vein of manipulating other people’s work, and I guess it’s carried into the FF world for me by doing skopes.

Clearly, a large part of the FF community is interested in comics and that was their major draw to the game. What was your draw to the game and the FF community, and why did you choose to stay as long as you have?

I was pretty lucky as a child. My father grew up reading comics, and I’ve kind of inherited my love of comics from him, especially for Daredevil and Silver Surfer. Also my uncle on my mom’s side was an actual artist for DC and Marvel, but eventually he moved to Europe to work on The Phantom and Agent X-9 covers.

I “grew out” of comics by high school. “Age of Apocalypse” had finished and “Heroes Reborn” was kinda lame, but my love came back once I got to university to find my required reading for courses to be Maus, Dark Knight Returns, and more.

I got into FF accidentally actually, as I was trying to make machinima out of Empire Earth and other games that were easily moddable.  Once I found out about FF though, I never looked back!

Oh… why have I stayed so long? Well, the community is amazing, and really it hasn’t been until I started playing Champions Online with fellow FR members that I realized I’ve had these online friends for longer than I’ve had a lot of other friends. Quite amazing, really.

You started as a skinner, no? How did you pick up skinning, and how well do you think your abilities have grown?

As I mentioned before, in university I had a lot of access to cool software. I thought, hey I can use photoshop, I’ll try skinning. In my first attempts, I didn’t even use a base skin. Didn’t even know what they were. It was alright though, as Madman was my first skin! hahah. Anyway, I honestly haven’t skinned in about two years. I don’t think my abilities ever grew past “Similar 6″ base repaints.

You’ve also entered the ring of “skoping,” which is basically an advanced form of hexing. How do you feel the advent of skoping has helped you, and how hard was it for you to learn this particular skill?

The advent of skoping has helped me because now I feel like I can really contribute to the community. There’s a few things in skoping that I feel I can do very well, and I’d like to share it with others.

For example, one of the things that always bothered me were generic keyframes.  I like to have personalized keyframes for characters or actions that make sense for the character. So I totally love IPS, Renegade and Texas Jack for making great character specific keyframes.  Oh, and a huge thank you to M25 for the keyframe transfer tool. I’ve tried both hexing keyframes and using nifskope before… ugh. I’m still learning new things in Nifskope almost every time I open the program!

I know it’s difficult for many to choose, but what would you say is your best skin and skope? Why?

My best skin is probably the standard for Syn’s Warpath mesh. I used multiple base skins, and at times, no base at all since it was a new mesh.  And until Podmark releases his new skins to blow mine out of the water, no one has really skinned the character.

My best skope?  Now that’s a much harder decision.  I think it would have to be the alpha-enabled meshes I’ve done. I love having all incarnations of a character on one mesh.

Inspiration and motivation: the two things that’ll keep any creator going. What/Who inspires or motivates you to take on a project?

I get motivated by new skins on old meshes. For example, I see a great new skin for an alpha_male mesh… I must make it better! haha.

Lately, I’ve been motivated a lot by my fellow Champions, Murs47 and BlkCasanova247. Cas has innovative skoping techniques, and some of Murs’ new skins are begging for new skopes!

I know you dabbled a little bit in fxing. Have you ever considered picking it up full time? How about modding/ezscripting?

One thing holding me back from FX’ing is the lack of an easy way to check/change the textures.  I wish they would show up well in Nifskope. I don’t know how you do it, man.

That goes for modding too.  My brain isn’t wired too well for reading technical stuff.

I really want to get into EZscripting; it’s just taking me a while to get going.  I’ve literally been batting around a few ideas for years (Hellboy mod, TMNT free-roam, Batman free-roam). One of these days, man, one of these days…

Retirement, or the FF version of it, seems to be a thing many creators go through on a recurring basis. I mean, just look at C6, AA, or Dr. Mike. Detourne, are you in retirement or just a prolonged hiatus? Ever plan to jump back into the creators’ ring?

I do plan on jumping back into the creators’ ring in terms of skinning/modding.  I’ll keep on skoping, no problem about that.  I’ve never really considered myself in retirement since I can’t stay away from the forums!

There’s quite a few things over the horizon for the FF gamers. Do you find yourself still excited by the content that’s being produced? Is there anything you’re looking forward to or hope to see made in the near future?

Of course, I’m totally stoked for the Amazanauts (Dr. Mike and Afghan Ant’s new project).  I haven’t downloaded Patriot City Tales Episode 2 yet (Kingdom Hearts on NDS is eating my time now at school), so once I get that, it will be great! Also, the next project John Jr. puts out will be great too. His herofiles are straight to the point and his mods are easy enough for a guy like me (I’m looking in your direction Mr. “I-need-a-doctorate-in-gaming-to-play” Premonitioner :P ). JKCarrier’s new project will be amazing too! Can’t wait for that.

There’re many mods out there to cover a large variety of tastes. Are there any available that you’d recommend to others? Are there still any mods you’re hoping to see produced one day?

ANY of Dr. Mike’s mods are requisite to enjoying FF to it’s maximum potential. I love Patriot City. Liberty Bay and PCTales are great fun, and great storylines.

Prev’s Ultimate X-men, Classic X-men, and C4′s Danger Room mod are my absolute favorite cause I’m a X-fanatic. Also, innovative mods like C4′s The Reformed and Conduit’s Matrix mods are way underrated. I REALLY want to see an open-ended free-roaming Batman mod. so much.  I also want to see more episodic mods like PCTales.

FF is a game that has lasted for several years and even had a mini, yet brief, revival. Do you think this game has much longevity left in it? If so, why do you think it has lasted this long and will continue to do so?

Well, the longevity of FF depends on us, the content providers. As long as people keep creating skins, meshes, fx, maps and mods there will be the Freedom Force community.

One sure way to increase longevity would be to get mods hosted on Steam but without breaking copyright restrictions; so I think that leaves us with Dr. Mike’s mods, The Reformed and Liberty Bay. If we could do that… then wow, I could see a whole new influx of players and creators.

Why do I think the community has lasted this long? Well, for one, FR is probably one of the nicest, most well-mannered online communities I’ve ever come across.  The big sites for my own profession make me wince and cringe almost every time I log onto them. I can always count on going to Freedom Reborn or Freedom Force Center and coming across some insightful, positive posting.

Finally, many have discovered that their FF skills have come in handy outside of the game. Has anything you’ve picked up from FF helped you in your real life?

Well, my photoshop skills have improved a lot, but I’ve only really used them for party invitations or some teaching materials, not really an everyday thing. Telling my girlfriend that I manipulate 3-D models and other technical jargon is a good way to get her off my back about spending too much time on the computer.

MISC.

For a community like FR, comics are a big draw. What’s your favorite comic or comic character?

Wolverine, hands-down. He’s a hairy Canadian that likes beer. I can relate. I grew up with him becoming the superstar that he is now. I used to watch a lot of Clint Eastwood movies (still do now), and Wolverine just channeled that persona so well in the 80′s and 90′s.

My favourite comic would probably be Planetary. There’s just so much to absorb; it’s like a continuous What If…? Second to Planetary, umm probably Morrison’s run on [New] X-men. I also want to tell people to check out Lady Snowblood; this manga was pretty much the inspiration for Kill Bill.

Comics have had their high and low periods in history. How would you define this current period, and why do you think you buy (or read) comics?

This is definitely a high period. If you think about it, the late 00′s are one of the highest periods ever for almost all artistic endeavors. Movies have never been better. The music industry is changing so much and people have access to any and all types of music they ever wanted to hear. And comics? …Well, let me tell you about comics. Writers have begun embracing all previous eras; you can pretty much find any era of comic you want out there or even comics that mix them all together like All-Star Superman. Throwing out names like Brubaker, Simone, Johns, Millar. Man, there’s so much.

Then there’s the new breed too. I think Jason Aaron and Greg Pak, Fraction too I guess, are going to bring so much into the comics industry. Jason Aaron’s Ghost Rider reads a lot like Morrison’s Doom Patrol, and I think I should really check out Wolverine:Weapon X now.

The one thing I’ve picked up about you over the years is that you love movies. What are some of your favorite movies and why?

My all-time favourite movie is 2001: A Space Odyssey. I just love the exploration of the relationship between technology and humanity. Are they interchangeable? So naturally Terminator 2 is also high on my list. Donnie Darko is another movie I love. Oh, and I can’t forget Army of Darkness! Give me some sugar, baby!

Despite being Canadian, you’ve been living abroad for a few years, right? How is living in Korea different from living in Canada?

Yup, I’ve been living in Korea for close to 4 years now. It’s quite different in too many ways to describe here, but I love it. One troubling thing is the time difference for talking to friends and family.

Music is something that’s rarely the same from nation to nation. What are some of your favorite musicians? Have you taken a liking to any new styles since living overseas?

Oh… favorite musicians, too many to describe; let’s say I like most rock music from Mogwai to Guitar Wolf, [from] Sigur Ros to AC/DC. Here in Korea, I’ve become a part of the punk scene in Seoul. Check out YouTube for bands like Crying Nut, No Brain, GogoStar, Rux, and Shorty Cat.

An emerging scene here is called Kimchibilly — Kimchi, Korea’s national food, meets Rockabilly, American country-rock. It’s really cool, kind of surprising to see a bunch of Asians with suede zoot suits or flannel shirts and dungarees with, of course, pompadours and duck tails.

Books are a great way to pass the time, especially when there’s nothing better to do on a boring day. What are some books or authors you enjoy?

I haven’t been reading much lately at all, but my favourite author is Philip K. Dick.  I’ll devour anything he wrote.

Close your eyes and imagine reaching into a magical bag that could produce any object imaginable. If the bag was in tune with your thoughts and produced exactly what you wanted, what three things would you pull out to describe yourself?

I’ve been playing too much Kingdom Hearts lately. The first thing that comes to mind is a keyblade,  but ok… here goes: first thing is a broken Swiss Army Knife.  I had a broken one that I loved and it describes me well; I can do a lot of stuff, just not particularly well.

Second, a 7-inch vinyl of Kermit the Frog singing “Rainbow Connection,” and third, a plastic Ankylosaur.

Finally, if you could be a real life superhero, what type of hero would you be, and what legacy would you hope to leave behind?

I’d be a street level Captain America type hero: not quite as athletic as Daredevil, not quite as strong as Luke Cage,  and not with the money or gadgets of Batman.

My legacy would probably be the village coot shouting, “He was a good man. He tried his darndest. Too bad he wasn’t bulletproof!”

So what is it we learned today, class? Well, I learned that Mr. Detourne needs to earn his friggin “doctorate-in-gaming” degree already. I mean, really. :P . Secondly, Detourne likes to take things apart and put them back together, which is why skoping is perfect for him. Thirdly, he wants to get into modding even though his mind isn’t into technical reading. If you want to grab some of Det’s skopes and skins, you can check out his yahoo groups (2) or his champions page. Oh, Det, you really should give Wolverine: Weapon X a try. I’ve a feeling you won’t be disappointed. :D