He’s the mesher of many requests, and he might just have the most meshes on the FR market. If you need a piece for a skope, he’s probably already made it. While he may not be active at the moment, Tommy has done more than enough work to quench the urges of the masses for both FF and MUA players. Today, FRP shines the spotlight on Tommy to see if he’s even considering returning to the fray.

FREEDOM FORCE

One could refer to you as the “People’s mesher” because of all the requests you’ve done over the years. Why do you choose to honor so many requests?

I try to be fair, to not play favourites, which means everyone who makes a request should get a mesh made (at least once). If I were not making stuff myself, I’d want to feel there was at least a chance of me being able to see what I wanted in the game.

As a mesher, you’ve managed to hit several areas that your comrades don’t particularly touch on such as objects, fx, and map pieces. What made you spread yourself out into so many different areas of meshing?

Partly because nobody else was doing some of those things and they needed doing. Partly because they were things I wanted in the game or needed for my own Mod projects. And partly to just push the proverbial envelope if I could (of both the game and my own abilities).

Meshing is probably considered the hardest and most expensive FF skill to pick up. Who inspired you to learn how to mesh and how have you gone about developing your skills since your first mesh?

Back in 2003, I was laid up for several months with back problems, both in hospital and at home. Whilst I was in hospital, a friend died in a motorcycle accident. He’d been working on making extra car models for GTA Vice City, so I guess he inspired me to try again even though I’d tried and failed previously due to the steep learning curve and lack of time.

Since I wasn’t working, and was stuck in my room with the computer all day every day, I had time to get to grips with meshing.

As for developing, I sometimes read tutorials, but mostly it’s just practice and experimentation.

Animation is one of the most tedious parts of creating a 3-D object, correct? What inspired you to tackle animating instead of relying on already built keyframes, and how did you go about learning it?

Yes, animation is very time consuming for what can be a relatively small reward. Necessity drove me to start making keyframes for the meshes I’d made which couldn’t use existing ones. For learning, I read a little on it, looked at existing keyframes, and again practiced and experimented until I could make them. It’s still the area I’m weakest at though.

Recently, you have shown off and released a “megamap.” What inspired you to do this, and how difficult was it to put together?

The inspiration was games like GTA, The Spider-Man and Hulk games that had big ‘sandbox’ cities. FF tended to have these small maps, and I wanted a much bigger one to play in. It was a lot of work to put together, and I’m fortunate that many other people helped me with things like the script that “auto-populated” it so I didn’t have to manually place 23000 objects, and in many other ways.

For the majority of your meshes, you skin the standard skin. How has your skinning improved over the years and why do you choose to do your own skin work instead of asking a skinner to do it, which is the usual method?

I make the skins myself because I’m usually too lazy and impatient to communicate with a skinner, send them the mesh, get it back, and so forth. I prefer to make a placeholder and get the mesh out fast. Though I have now slowed down and started to put a little more time and effort into my standard skins, which is why they appear to be getting better of late. Had I spent more time on earlier skins, they would probably have come out a bit better, lol.

Out of your large and varied collection, what mesh would you consider your best work of art to date in either FF or MUA?

Tough question. I can narrow it down to Ultimate Iron Man, Iron Man Mk21_tf, Rorschach_tf, and The Comedian_tf. All of those weren’t my usual poorly made rush jobs, so they are bordering on adequate.

A large portion of your collection is mainstream oriented. How do you choose which character or characters you will mesh?

It used to be if they hadn’t been meshed already, and/or someone requested a character, I’d make them because I wanted to see everyone I’d seen in a comic in the game. Later I began making my own versions of characters already meshed because I wanted to see my own “take” on them.

As one of the quicker meshers around, Benton wants to know what is your record time from concept to finished product.

I honestly don’t know. I do know at my peak output, it wasn’t unusual to get 3 or 4 meshes made and skinned in a day, but those days were often 8-12 hours of meshing. So if I had to guess, 2-3 hours, but it’d have to be a relatively simple character.

As a man with several projects in the works, a few of them must have fallen further and further down your list. What projects have you not gotten around to completing and why?

The List Of Shame… lol. In no particular order, not finishing up the Legion of Superheroes Mod, My Buffy/Angel M25 Freeroam Campaign Mod, My E2 Elseworlds At War Mod, my Avengers/JLA Mod, and the Megamap New York. As to why… a combination of being over-ambitious, my reach exceeding my grasp (or is it the other way round?), and the fact that making a Mod is a huge amount of work. I’m sort of surprised I actually got anything done to the point of release, looking back.

Making a mesh must be incredibly time consuming, yeah? How do you approach each project and have you learned from any other mesher’s philosophies on content creation?

It’s time consuming if you do it right, but I don’t, lol. I tend to do it quick (but I make lots, so the time gets consumed anyway). I start by getting reference material. Handbooks are good for this, with nice, big, clear views of front/back/sides. But I’ll also look online for covers or pictures of a character. Sometimes I’ll try to do the style a particular artist has for the character, like my Hercules which was a Kirby/Heck version. With other characters, I’ll sit down with a few “Essential” volumes or a pile of comics and read through to get a “feel” for how they look or move, if I’m making custom animations.

Other meshers have been kind enough to teach me a great deal, either directly, or via tutorials, or by sharing Max files. Although we may have slightly different approaches, I’ve tried to share info with other, newer meshers and to reach the levels of excellence set by the other meshers, though I rarely manage the latter.

Not only are you a mesher, but you have also made at least two mods. Did you find the mod process to be difficult, and why did you choose to make the mods you have created?

I found it very difficult, even though I took every shortcut I could conceive of, and basically just strung together big fights with some poorly scripted linking scenes. It’s a different discipline, a different skill set from meshing, and it helps if you can actually write well, have interesting plots and dialogue. And then there’s the skills of getting Python to do what your story needs, and then trying to think, “What might a player do here? Will that break the code?”

As to why, well, I used to love the Avengers, which was my favourite comic. It was a natural choice to make the Mod (especially since I’d begged publicly for others to make one and nobody did). I’ve also been fond of the LSH for many years and felt that both groups were a rich source of characters, foes and stories.

You have also made a few fx. Is fxing something you found fun to do or was it just another experiment?

Making FX is kind of fun. The geometry and animation tend to be simpler, but it’s often more of a challenge to get it to work and look good. Mostly I’ve only made them to compliment a character mesh which I felt “needed” them like my Sportsmaster.

Although you’re in retirement at the moment, do you see yourself returning to the world of mesh creation any time soon?

I’m actually still actively meshing and animating, just that it’s not directly for FF at the moment. But some of what I’m making can be used for FF and will probably show up there. And I will make more FF stuff whenever I have the time and inclination, it’s just the former is vary scarce, and the latter gets used up quick too. I have a half finished Arnim Zola I really need to finish soon…

Your meshes are often the ones that are skoped the most. How does it feel to know your work is still helping others to accomplish things even though you’re not actively part of it?

That feels great. Probably better than just having people use my meshes “as is” in the game. When I made the “_tv” series with hundreds of parts, it was with easy hexxing in mind, as nifskope wasn’t an option then. Knowing I’ve given people some stuff to play with is really nice, and seeing how brilliantly and creatively the parts get used is an eye opener. I’ve been inspired a number of times to mesh things based on ‘skopes I’ve seen that have been so creative, well executed and original that I just had to steal their ideas, lol.

What is it that attracted you to Freedom Force and made you get involved in its community?

It was the first superhero game done right. The art, the mechanics of gameplay, but most of all the mod-ability of it — that you could easily insert any character and accurately set up their powers.

At first the community was just a place to lurk and get free stuff, lol. Then I somehow became a part of it, and then started making stuff. And I have made some friends along the way, which is a plus.

MISC.

Though they’ve changed a lot over the years, I suspect you may still have a favorite comic character running around. Who’s one of your favorites and why?

I always had a lot of admiration for Hawkeye. He is (or was) just about the only non-mutant, non-super soldier serum enhanced, non-superpowered hero in the Marvel Universe. He is marvel’s Batman. The fact that he’s a bit mouthy and abrasive adds a little tension as well.

With so many great books and authors out there, it must be hard to choose just one. What are some of your favorite books or authors?

Thomas Hardy, Ian McEwan, Terry Pratchet, Noam Chomsky, George Steiner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez are all some favourite authors who spring to mind. I tend to only read non-fiction nowadays though.

Many only know you as a mesher. Outside of Freedom Force, what are some other fun hobbies you like to do?

Punting (shallow long boats propelled by pushing a 18ft pole into the river bed). I play nintendo Wii golf (Tiger Woods, that is) with some friends pretty regularly. Reading both comics and ‘real’ books. Painting and drawing, though these have both suffered since I started making stuff on the computer.
If you had to make a choice between the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and modern age of comics, which era would you choose and why?

Silver age (assuming that to be roughly the 60′s). Probably simple nostalgia and childhood memories.

Out of the comics and into the movies, what are some upcoming features you are looking forward to seeing?

I liked Iron Man, but an actual Avengers movie would be an undreamt of treat. Edgar Wright directing Ant Man could be good too.

If you had to reach into a bag of adjectives and only pull two out, which two would you grab to describe yourself (granted you had luck based abilities)?

ummm…Contrary and Honest.

There’s not a lot of good stuff to watch on the tele, but what are some shows you would willingly recommend to others?

Drama:

The Wire, Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Deadwood.

Comedy:

The IT Crowd, Father Ted, The Big Bang Theory, My Name Is Earl, Extras.

Finally, if you could create your own comic, what would it be about and why?

If not the Avengers, I always wanted to try a semi-realistic approach that would stress how dangerous and fatal Real Superheroing would be.

So there would be a revolving door cast of wannabe superheroes breaking legs and arms trying to swing between buildings, getting beaten to death, or beating others to death. A little like what Kick-@$ is, but my main character wouldn’t last the first issue. And I’m not that interested in “Hell, Yeah!” moments as much as “Oh, God, No!” moments.

I also started work on a semi-biographical comic that told my father’s story during WW2 and afterwords that I’d like to finish one day.

So today we’ve learned that inspiration can come from anywhere and such inspirational events can push you to pick up a most difficult skill. Not only that, we learned that Tommy is not one to play favorites; and he has a nice selection of shows he watches. If you want to collect some Tommy’s meshes, you can find them at AlexFF or Freedom Force Forever. That’s not even mentioning his many yahoo groups.