Freedom Force part 2

I'm back with more Freedom Force fun for all my fantastic friends and rambunctious readers. This round is made up of what I believe to be the villains who fought against the ever-vigilant Ewzzy. It's hard to remember on account of my creating them when I was still in high school.

This is "Coda" You can tell by the musical marker on his chest. I'm pretty sure I just thought the symbol and word was cool. No worthwhile significance. I have also no earthly idea what his power may have been but his left side is made of metal. His head being somewhat rusted, I can tell I just threw some textures on him and called it a day. I'm glad I got all the lens flares out of my system when I did. Now I know never to use them.

This guy is Demagogue named for Demagogy the strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the public. How that relates to his ability to fly and wear skulls I certainly don't know. I do know that this skin is based on the character model for Spawn. He was supposed to be the insidious main villain to face off against Ewzzy but I never really delved into what he could do. I know that he lead the other guys on this page but that's probably about it.

This is one of Demagogue's drones. I didn't actually skin this. The character model didn't have any texture mapping and was actually just a black wireframe mesh. I used a hex editor to change the values of the character model and remove the head and change the color to a shiny green. If you know what that means then you win the no-prise. If you don't then I'm sorry that I confused you.

 

 

 

That stealthy fellow under the moon  is Eclipse. He's another example of a barely skinned hack. What a terrible way to start the week. He is actually a reflection map designed to make the black and white shift depending on how you look at him. It's a really cool effect in motion. Too bad there isn't a way for me to show you that. Sorry. As a character I can tell you that his clothing weapons and armor are all made of the same shape-shifting material. Eclipse uses this ability to hide a vast array of weapons to keep Ewzzy on his toes.

Freedom Force part 1

If you read this blog you'll note my love of Photoshop. There are few problems that it can't solve. What you likely don't know is how the love story began. In 2002 Irrational Games released Freedom Force for the PC. The game allowed for skinning of the character models to create your own heroes. The immediate use of this was to put Batman and Spider-Man in the game. I used my school's copy of Photoshop to join in on the fun.
So I'm going to spend the next week or so walking you through my work as skinner for Freedom Force. These are some of my earliest works in Photoshop and will likely shame me for how bad they were.

That guy to the left is supposed to be me. Everybody made avatars of themselves for the game and I was a black-ops guy with the ability to see just one second into the future. Just long enough to dodge a bullet. At night in dreams the power was stronger and would allow him to see into more far flung futures.

You can tell I spent a lot of time figuring out this guy. I went through about 13 different iterations before this one. The others were mostly gangsters in zoot suits.

More July 4th Fun

For the record this was the view of the peak before we climbed. Imposing, no?

I produced a video of the fireworks as seen from the peak. The music makes the shaky cam palpable.

Looking at explosions in the distance via a handheld camera looks just like Cloverfield.

4th of July!

We climbed Cahuenga Peak and then, at an altitude of 1,821 feet, watched dozens of fireworks shows from around the city. It was so beautiful up there. Truly the most fantastic view I've seen since the Grand Canyon. What a great way to spend Independence Day.

The climb up was long and arduous, with many stops as my legs couldn't go on. That said, we made it up and I didn't throw up any of the chili I made for dinner. Thank god for the full moon because we would never have been able to see on the way down. Too bad it was still really freakin' dark. I tripped and fell a few times resulting in a wicked cut. Yes I bled for America.

If you are brave enough to look, here is the picture of the wound. SCARY.

Cahuenga Peak

I just climbed to Cahuenga Peak to see fireworks all over LA. Being an American is rad as hell!