Download War Games
Latest version: 1.0   (March 26, 2001)

While still working on Staind's 'Break the Cycle' skin, I received an e-mail asking if I could work on a new skin. Turner Broadcasting Superstation (TBS) was getting ready to air a show called 'War Games,' which would be essentially a hosted, edited-down version of some military field combat tactic exercises.

TBS was excited about the show, and had teamed with a company that specializes in Winamp plugins to write a game called 'Virtual Warfare,' which one could play in the Winamp minibrowser. Nullsoft wanted to put out a promotional package, and asked for a skin to go along with the game and promote the show.

This was on a Thursday, and I had until the following Thursday to hand in the skin. I figured I would work on the 'Break the Cycle' skin until Sunday night, and then begin the 'War Games' skin. Things proved to play out differently (read the story of the 'Break the Cycle' skin on its page for full details), and the 'Break the Cycle' skin was not completed until 2am on Tuesday morning.

At which point I was exhausted.

Immediately upon pulling myself out of bed late Tuesday morning, I began work on this skin. My last few skins had been based off pre-existing work, and were largely lacking any dimensionality. I felt like I'd been compromising my abilities, designing skins that represented less than what I'm capable of, and I'd honestly missed the challenge of creating something with a ring of photorealism to it. I decided up front that the skin was going to be a throwback to the sort of work I'd done on 'Major Tom' and 'Frequency.'

The first order of business was to find some reference imagery for the inside of the 'tank' I was trying to simulate. After scouring the net for several hours, I'd come up with only a handful of detailed color photos of tank interiors. Apparently it's not the sort of thing that people care to see with any frequency. The best page I found belonged to an Army tank commander, who had a few photos of his tank and men online. As I deeply doubt my ability to track his page down again, I'll send him my deepest thanks here.

My greatest concern, after looking at the images I'd collected, was that the basic interior of a modern tank appeared to be largely white, or an extremely faint beige (except of course for all the equipment and paneling and cables and whatnot). I'd always assumed a tank was sort of an olive green or tan (depending on where it's deployed) both outside and inside. While artistic license would permit me to make whatever choice seemed best for the skin, I wanted to go for what was accurate, and the only photographic evidence I had pointed to a light interior. I can only assume that the reason for this is that, in such a small space, it would seem less claustrophobic for its occupants. If anyone can confirm or deny that, please be in touch.

I spent the next two and a half days almost exclusively at work on this skin: building up the panels and carefully shading and distressing them; creating cabling and carefully threading them around panels and twisting them amongst themselves; placing screws and shadows and switches and little lights and buttons. While actual configuration and function is my doing, all of the coloration and gear itself is patterned after technology visible in the reference images I collected.