Spotlight On: JKCarrier

JKC may not be one of the first names to pop into mind when you think of the skinners on FR, but he is one of the better creators still left around, though he seems to be in retirement. On the other hand, maybe you know him from his web comics, which he has hosted on his site, JKC’s Fantasy Theatre. Either way, FRP decided to take our light and give this multi-talented creator his shine time!

FREEDOM FORCE

You’re an old time member of the community, correct? What brought you to FR and what made you want to contribute to such a community?

I remember going to the official website back when FF was first announced, but I didn’t really get involved in the community until a while after the game was already out. By then Gryphon had released his base skins, and had a beginners’ tutorial on his site. I had a graphic arts background and knew my way around Photoshop pretty well, so I figured, why not? There was a section on the old myfreedomforce.com forums where people posted requests, so I started doing a few of those. I did Zeus, Dejah Thoris, and a few others. And when the official boards went down, I migrated along with everyone else to Freedom Reborn. Was it called Freedom Reborn back then? I don’t even remember.

You seem to be a skinner that loves the silver age and obscure heroes, am I wrong? What is it about that era and its heroes that inspired you to recreate them for a game like FF?

You’re definitely not wrong! I was born in 1965, so I sort of came in at the tail end of the silver age. That’s the stuff I grew up on, and there’s a lot of nostalgia there for me. And I guess I’ve always been partial to the underdogs… the minor characters that don’t get as much love. I know a lot of other skinners feel differently, but once I see someone do a really good skin of a particular character, I don’t feel much motivation to skin them myself. In most cases, I’d rather work on a character that hasn’t been done before, rather than the 85th version of Wolverine or whatever.

Skoping became all the rage, and I know you’ve made a few of your own. How hard would you consider skoping to be, and what would be your best skope?

It’s a lot easier than making changes with a hex editor, that’s for sure. At least with NifSkope, you get some visual feedback, instead of having to reload the mesh into the Character Tool every time you make a little change. It’s still kind of tedious, though, especially if you’re doing something elaborate. One skope I was especially proud of was Korvac, the Avengers villain. I pretty much built his bottom half from scratch, using box and disc pieces.

With all the content and creators around the FR and non-FR boards, have you ever found yourself motivated by the work provided to the community or the individuals behind said work? If so, who are some of those people that inspired/motivated you?

Very much so. Seeing what people [can] come up with, new techniques and pushing the boundaries of what the game engine can do, is always inspiring. I don’t want to name anyone in particular, because really it’s all inspirational in one way or another. Even if I see something that I think didn’t turn out so hot, that can give me ideas. “What did they do wrong? How would I make that better?”

With the advent of EZScript by M25, modding has become moderately easier to do. I want to say you are one of the only, or few, skinners ever to attempt it. How would you rate your experience with EZscripting and what inspired you to pursue mod making with your mini-mod, Party Peril?

Party Peril was just me playing around. M25 put out this new toy, so I wanted to try it. It was dead simple, just a bunch of silly jokes tied together. At one point, I started to put together a real campaign, something much more elaborate. The EZScript bits turned out to be relatively easy, but putting together all the other pieces — maps and characters and so on — was such a drag that I put it aside. I’ll probably get back to it at some point.

Although you have branched out into other areas of FF creation, is there anything else you want to try such as FXing or mapping?

I sometimes wish that I could mesh, so I wouldn’t be dependent on swiping parts from other meshers in order to make characters. But between the expense of the software, and the steep learning curve, I doubt I would ever seriously pursue it.

Everyone has a personal style when it comes to creating. How would you describe your own skinning style and what would you consider your best work?

I’m kind of a hack, really. To me, the real skinning “artists” are the ones who work completely from scratch. My skins are cobbled together from other people’s base skins, bits of photographs, and textures yanked from who knows where. Then I work it over in Photoshop till it looks halfway cohesive. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but I did a pair of original characters called Vampyre and Wytch that I thought turned out really well. I thought they were a good concept and design.

Speaking of the best work, what would you consider the skin that provided you with the most challenge?

Probably Prince Ra-Man. I’ve done two versions of it, and I’m still not very happy with it. It’s an ugly costume anyway, plus it’s all loose clothing, and I’ve never been very good at doing fabric folds.

Tomato submitted this question: What made you use his base skin for the Catman skin?

No particular reason, other than it’s a nice base. I try to mix it up and use different bases, so I’m not just riding the same person’s coattails all the time.

What was it about the game Freedom Force that drew you to it?

I’ve been a comic book fanatic all my life, so anything with a superhero theme was bound to get my attention. And it turned out that the play style really suited me too. I’ve never been great at “twitch” games, so I like the tactical aspect of it. Plus the characters and storyline are really well-written.

A lot of cool stuff is still being produced for the game. Is there anything that is really catching your attention at the moment?

I’m not gonna single out any one person, but I will say that there’s some amazing skopes being made. I look at some of that stuff and I can’t even figure out how they did it.

Finally, since I don’t ask this question often, have you played many mods, and if so, what are a few you would suggest or recommend for others to play?

I haven’t played a lot of the more recent ones, mostly due to lack of time. From the first game, I think the two everyone needs to play are “The Strangers” and “The Great Hunt“. Those two really set the bar for what a mod can accomplish, I think.

Art

You don’t promote it much on the boards, but you also have some artistic ability, right? How would you describe your art style and how did you develop it?

As mentioned above, I’m a big fan of silver age comics, so there’s a lot of that influence in there. Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko in particular.

On your dA page, you have a picture of Storm that you drew for a FR challenge. She just happens to be one of my favorite characters. What was the thought process behind the creation of this piece?

That was another case of finding a new toy to play with. I had downloaded DAZ Studio, which is a free program similar to Poser, and I wanted to try posing a figure in the program and then use that as a basis for a drawing. The FR challenge was a good excuse to try it out. Since you can set different kinds of lighting in DAZ Studio, I came up with the idea of having her dramatically back-lit by a flash of lightning. I’ve done a few other drawings based on DAZ renders, but posing the models is so fiddly and time-consuming, that it’s really not practical to do a whole comic that way.

You happen to have a few web series in the works, correct? How difficult would you say creating a web series can be, and how long have you been doing it?

I’ve been putting the comics up on the web since 2007, but the material is actually much older. I started self-publishing xeroxed minicomics back in the early ’90s, so that’s where all this stuff first appeared (You can find out more about the print version of Fantasy Theater by going to http://jkcarrier.livejournal.com ). Getting the stuff up on the web isn’t hard… there are a number of hosting services that will do all the organizing and stuff for you; you just have to upload the art. I use webcomicsnation.com

You’ve been in the comic/art field for awhile now, and your talents have probably grown exponentially over the years. How does being in the art field challenge you to better your work, and what tips would you offer to those that want to break into the field themselves?

Putting your work out in front of an audience does tend to motivate you to do better. When you’re just drawing for your own amusement, it’s easy to get into lazy habits. But when you know someone’s going to see it, you have to step up. The best advice I can give is to just get started. You can plan and scheme and sketch from now till doomsday, but nothing will educate you faster than the process of taking a comic from start to finish. Your first comic will probably stink, but that’s ok. Learn from it and then make the next one better.

As a drawer of sequentials, you probably know that the layout of a page can seriously affect its clarity. So what’s your method for laying out your pages?

It’s true, layout is probably the single most important part of a comic. You can have the most beautifully-rendered figures in the world, but if the reader can’t follow the action, you’re sunk. What I do is sketch out a very small “thumbnail” — maybe 3″ x 5″. I figure if the action is clear and readable at that size, then the full-size page will probably work.

You have three web series on your website last time I checked. How do you usually come up with ideas for your series, and how did you go about creating each one?

When I was starting out in the early ’90s, there were a lot of minicomic anthologies being published. In those pre-internet days, they were one of the best ways to get your work noticed. So in many cases, it was just a matter of me trying to come up with a good short story to submit to an editor. And then after the strip was done, I’d think, “Hey, this could be a series”, and pretty soon, I had a small stable of recurring characters. Glorianna came out of an animation class I was taking. If you’ve [n]ever done animation, it can get pretty tedious drawing the same character over and over, so to keep myself interested, I came up with this sexy amazon warrior to use in my assignments. A friend of mine suggested that I put her in a comic, and the rest is history.

Out of all the characters in your series, which two do you happen to fancy the most and why?

I’ve done more Lady Spectra and Glorianna pages than anything else, so I guess it’s them. They’re essentially polar opposites: Lady Spectra is very much an idealized silver age heroine, while Glorianna is very flawed and neurotic. The best compliment is when someone tells me that they like Spectra, but don’t care for Glori, or vice-versa. That means I’m not just repeating myself.

Art is a genre all about inspiring and motivating. Who are some people that inspire you in the artistic world?

I mentioned Kirby and Ditko already. In the current scene, I really dig people like David Mack, Mike Mignola, Ted Naifeh, Carla Speed McNeil, Jaime Hernandez, Linda Medley, Donna Barr, Eric Powell, R. Stevens, Andi Watson… anybody with a really strong, individual vision.

MISC.

Everyone has their favorites and I don’t think you’ll be an exception. What’s your favorite series and comic character? Why are they your faves?

If I had to pick one all-time favorite, it would be Batman. It’s such a brilliantly simple premise: little kid sees his parents murdered and vows to fight crime. And around that simple idea, they’ve built this rich tapestry. He’s got all the best villains and all the best toys. What kid wouldn’t love to have a secret cave full of high-tech gadgets? Or dress up like a spooky vampire and beat up all the bad guys that the cops can never seem to keep off the streets? It’s a very cathartic and appealing fantasy.

Reading is one of the best ways to build a varied and expansive vocabulary. What are some books or authors you enjoy perusing?

Like a lot of people, TV and the internet have rotted my brain, and I don’t read as much as I used to. When I was younger, I read a lot of science fiction and fantasy: Phillip Jose Farmer, Harlan Ellison, John Varley, Fritz Leiber, Robert E. Howard, stuff like that.

TV seems to be heading further and further into the wasteland as show after show is canceled and replaced with reality television. Are there any shows you would recommend as “must see”?

I think “The Venture Brothers” is the smartest show on tv. Wicked funny, and it operates on so many different levels. There’s a cop show that runs on TNT called “The Closer”, starring Kyra Sedgewick, that I really like. It’s got a great ensemble cast and a lot of humor. I watch “Jeopardy”, since I’m a trivia buff. And my reality show guilty pleasure is “Dancing With the Stars”… hot ladies in skimpy dresses, what’s not to like? Oh, and “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report”.

Music is a great way to help one pass the time. What type of music do you find yourself grooving to?

I’m a classic rock guy. The Who, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Led Zep.

Final question: With so many movies on the horizon, do you find yourself looking forward to any of them?

Honestly? Not really. The only time I go to the movies is if someone asks me along. My friends and I usually get together for the latest “nerd blockbuster” like Star Trek or Batman or whatever. Aside from that, I don’t even pay much attention to what’s coming out. For the money it costs, I’d rather go buy a comic.