Currently living and studying at the Eindhoven University of Technology in Eindhoven, Netherlands, is 21-year-old Paul van den Hoogenhof. Known colloquially among the community as Bapaul, van den Hoogenhof is majoring in Mechanical Engineering while maintaining a steady presence on the Steam Workshop. Van den Hoogenhof started out studying Industrial Design, but upon finding out that wasn’t his piece of cake, he swapped studies after 6 months, and is now in his third year, hoping to get his Bachelor's degree in the first few months of the coming year. “Besides my studies I like to maintain an active lifestyle,” said van den Hoogenhof. “I am an active member of one of the student sports associations that the university offers, namely the student speedskating association. I have been practicing ice skating since a young age and it's one of my biggest hobbies besides making TF2 stuff.” “I was the treasurer of the sports association in the period of 2012-to-2013, which was a great experience,” he continued. “During summertime I like to go cycling like a real dutch stereotype, though on a racing bike. I also recently bought a mountain bike, which is great fun - thanks, Valve money!” Once van den Hoogenhof swapped studies from Industrial Design, he suddenly found himself with plenty of free time, which he uses to play TF2, or play through games like The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker with his girlfriend. “[She] already loved me before I got paid by Valve - isn't that sweet?” he added. In the early days of that free time, he found out about the Steam Workshop, thinking back to all the bad ideas that the infamous “idea guys” had come up with all the time. “I had done some 3D modelling in high school,” he recalled, “and just figured I'd give it a go when nobody would make my terrible first concepts. It all came to me quite easily and I really enjoyed doing it.” “When I then started on Mechanical Engineering, I just kinda stuck to it as a hobby and it resulted in my first self-made, the Digit Divulgers, for Christmas of 2012.” Before then, van den Hoogenhof’s uploads to the Workshop consisted of things like Mr. Snuggles, his first submission. “I got the idea from King Jaffe Joffer's Lion pelt from the movie ‘Coming to America,’” he said. “Making it team-colored probably wasn't the best decision as it looked more like a fox on the RED team and a badly-mutilated Sonic on the BLU team.” He would later remake the item with fellow dutchman and contributor, Rain. “It wasn't the first item I made though,” continued van den Hoogenhof. “In the beginning I made a few items, but I had no idea how to get them in-game. But by the time I learned how to get stuff in-game, I realized that they were subpar to be actually considered for official use and just moved on.” “I joined the Emporium somewhere in March of 2012, and got my first self-made in December of 2012, so that would be somewhere around 8 months, which I believe is relatively fast to get a self-made… guess I got lucky.” “Later, I just kept going and getting better at what I'm doing,” he added. “First I just modelled stuff, then I slowly started getting into texturing stuff as well - and now I'm starting to get the hang of sculpting. [...] I might have tried retexturing a gun for Call of Duty 4 once [before] but nothing really substantial. It was all new to me.” “University is starting to take up more and more time lately though, so I haven't been able to do a whole lot the past few months but it's still always a really nice activity to just sit down and work on all kinds of stuff I still have open.” “The first time I filled out the tax forms I did something wrong,” he continued. “I got them sent back to me. I filled them out a second time and after a little over 12 weeks I got my first payment -- $6,300. Never had I had that much money in my bank account yet, it was really amazing that a few simple cosmetics -- had 2 more Robo-hats in-game by then -- would get me so much money.” “First thing I did was buy a new computer that I'd been longing for for ages. The money definitely did not beat the feeling of getting that first selfmade, though. I remember barely sleeping the night after the 2012 Christmas update from excitement.” Over the past year, van den Hoogenhof has earned slightly over $23,000, and estimates around $34,000 total. While not a direct reason, his profits had made it an easier decision to recently end his part-time job at Prodrive Technolgies without consequence, making the Workshop royalties his only source of income. “It pretty much takes all financial worries away,” he stated. “I still put like 80% of the money into savings so I'm not really throwing the money away but if I want to buy something nice I can just get it without having to save months for it. I also like that I can get my parents some more luxurious gifts for Christmas.” “Besides that, I usually insist on paying stuff for my girlfriend, cause I know her financial situation isn't as good, but most of the time she insists just as badly on me not paying. I never was a person that would start a fight over a couple of bucks more or less, especially when it comes to friends and going out, so I guess that hasn't changed much in terms of buying people a drink.” “Sometimes it can get a little frustrating though,” he added. “When you want to go out but none of your friends have money to tag along to a concert or so, I'd almost feel like paying for them, but I know they wouldn't appreciate it [or] it'd probably feel like I'm rubbing it in their faces that I have more money than they do.” “I still really enjoy [the work]. I personally think that studying should be my first priority but that you can't spend each and every full day of the week on it. So when I've got an evening off I like to sit down and either play some games a bit or make some TF2 stuff and chat with the regulars in the Emporium chatroom. During my holidays I often even plan a full day where I just lock myself away from the world and just work on items all day.” “I just need to plan it all well, I've got finals coming up. I'll put my TF2 stuff on the backburner, but after that I've got a week off since I don't have any resits from the previous finals and I can hopefully finish some stuff I've got lying around.” “I don't think I'll end up in the game design field. Right now I can just work on stuff that I want to work on, seeing people that are in the industry, I fear that it'll become too much of a chore to keep on doing this stuff. I see more future for myself in the Engineering field.” “The competition is very fierce since the [item] importer came along, if you want to get into it you really need to do it because you enjoy 3D modelling, texturing, whatever, and not do it for the money. If you do that, you'll end up leaving the scene, since it just takes a lot of time and effort to get good enough if you're completely new to it all.” “With a good attitude there's lots of people that are willing to help you out,” concluded van den Hoogenhof, “but in the end it's something you will need to invest time in before you see the results - but that’s life for you.” Paul van den Hoogenhof’s work can be found on his Steam Workshop, and his Tumblr.

Born in a small coastal town in Maine, 22-year-old Brent Kennedy, or: CobaltGemini, currently studies and resides at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. You probably best know him as the creator of the award-winning SFM short Lil’ Guardian Pyro. I spoke with him about his process, his goals, and how it all got started. “I always had a passion for animating, really,” said Kennedy, explaining where his interests began. “I've drawn stuff since I was a kid, like stickfigures and stuff. Adults would always look over my shoulder and ask if I'd grow up to be an animator or make cartoons for a living.” He chuckled. “I kind of liked that idea!” Kennedy credited Wallace and Gromit and Coyote and Roadrunner shorts as major sources of inspiration growing up: “It really showed me how animation could be used to speak for voiceless characters and immediately form this bond with the audience… You didn't need any dialogue to completely empathize with the coyote as he just has this conga line of humiliating defeats.” He continued “There's a kind of witty and endearing humor that comes from having a character that doesn't actually have any dialogue, and that really stuck with me. Same thing with Wall-E in 2008.” “But, I can't deny TF2's influence on my work now.” Kennedy assures. “Like many others, I fell in love with the [Meet The] shorts way before I even touched the game.” “It was 2012,” he recalled, “and I had anticipated the release of Meet the Pyro since January, because I knew that they were planning on publicly releasing the SFM beta alongside it. I was one of the first people to get a beta ticket and I was over the moon!” “SFM was the first 3D animation software I had ever used, and it didn't help that only a dozen or so people in the world knew the ins-and-outs of it. But I was just incredibly giddy during those first few weeks. I hungrily tore through tutorial after tutorial, learning as much as I could. I started out just making posters -- which is a great way to learn SFM -- and I was floored when I found out a poster I made (an Engie and Pyro defending a sentry) was one of the first to be featured on the SFM Blog!” September of that year Kennedy made his first foray into animation with Pyro in Love. “I'm entering college at the time and, in-between classes, I'm making my first vid, Pyro in Love - all while learning how to use SFM. It was like laying down tracks as I'm going. I entered it into the 2012 Saxxies, but I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of it making the finals...” “I had scripted the short exclusively around the song "(Your Love is Like a) Heat Wave" by Martha and the Vandellas, a song which I do not even remotely own the rights to, but the motown 60's soul-pop plus its lyrics was too good not to use, it fit so well! So I broke the rules and essentially forfeited the finals, just to use that song. When asked if it was worth it, Kennedy replied: “Absolutely. I think that all filmmakers should try to do what they can to capture and express their ideas through film, even if that means making sacrifices.” “I mean, I could have made a sound-alike version of the song with different lyrics and maybe one or two different notes, but it just wouldn’t have been the same. ‘Heat Wave’ was the song. In a perfect world, I'd have loved to have somehow obtained the rights,” he laughed. Around August of the following year, Kennedy had already started production on his next Saxxy entry: Lil Guardian Pyro. “You can probably tell I kind of have a fondness for Pyro,” he added, laughing. “Just something about Pyro is a winning character. I think of Pyro like a big kid in a suit, and LGP started as me wanting to make a short that sort of develops the Engie/Pyro relationship in the game. The concept started as the Pyro being stuck on sentry duty, and then I had the idea of Pyro pawning off the job on his Cremator's Conscious - after that the plot just sort of came together.” “It was a really great experience-- writing out the plot and modeling the characters then animating with them. You don't really get to see a vision come to life like that everyday and I wouldn’t have had that kind of opportunity without without the support of a phenomenal crew. Chaofanatic, Hasan, WinslowMagne, Harry, Rantis... all of them just knocked it out of the park with their work for the team and I couldn't have done it without them.” “My one regret about LGP is that I didn't have enough time to devote to it,” he recalled. “A lot of the animations you see in there are rushed, and I'd loved to have given it some more love. Saxxy Submissions Week just happened to coincide with Finals Week for my college. Longest seven days of my life, let me tell you. Got maybe 12 hours of sleep out of the whole ordeal.” “But, we walked away with Best Overall, so I guess we did something right,” Kennedy added with a smile, “I suppose.” “Funny enough, you can see the exact moment I found out! I was doing a Kritzkast interview at the time ... Thing was, last Saxxys, they announced the winners one-by-one, but that year, they did it all at the same time - which really was very sudden for me.” “I clicked on ‘View the Overall Winner’ and then Lil’ Guardian Pyro came up, and my heart stopped for a second,” he said. “I immediately turned to my brother, who was sitting across from me at the time, and said ‘we won Overall!’” “Winning Overall and going to Valve was easily the most incredible thing that's happened to me - hopefully not the last incredible thing.” Kennedy’s next big animated project is for an upcoming TF2 community effort that he calls “his favorite animation yet”. While much is still kept under wraps, CobaltGemini had this to say: “It was just after the 2013 Saxxies when BANG! approached me about the project. We workshopped some ideas and I knocked up a script and a few weeks later we had a basic layout for it.” “It's nothing as ambitious as the 15-minute-long End of the Line,” he affirmed. “Expect something more along the lines of the [Mann vs. Machine] release trailer than anything else. I wish I could tell you when you can expect to see it, but that's really not up to me at this point. Before Half-Life 3, probably.” “Hasan, who did the music for LGP, will be returning to compose the music, as will Harry for the sound design. Chaofanatic, my personal particle artisan, is once again developing particle effects. Couldn't be happier to work with them again.” In a word, Kennedy describes this new project as “cryptic.” You’ll just have to wait and see, then. Kennedy’s experience with Source Filmmaker has given him a strong head-start in his studies, though he’s since graduated to utilizing Maya and, occasionally, 3DS Max. “[It’s] moved me towards the game design aspects of animation such as animating runcycles, weapon interactions, and creating rigging models compatible with the engine,” he noted. “I've been migrating my workflow over to Unreal Engine 4's Matinee and am in the process of learning how to work in Unity. Though Source is really something I hope to stick to. I can't wait to see what Source 2 has in store.” He hopes to pursue a career in the field, with plans of getting into both the cinematic and game design elements of animation. “Ideally, I'd love to find a job at Valve. Until then, I'll just stick with submitting taunts to the workshop - a few of which you'll be seeing relatively soon!” “If you want to get started [in animation],” Kennedy continued, “learn as much as you can from tutorials and guides. Familiarize yourself with the software. Experiment. The best lessons you learn are from your own mistakes, so make them early and often.” “But SFM is just a tool, mastering it is only half the experience. The other half comes from creativity and technique. Some of that - the best parts - will develop from yourself; the rest comes from drinking in a rich variety of media -- biographies, animated films, shows, history books, whatever you can get your hands on. Video games, even. It's something I've been told is your ‘media diet.’” “It's just like real life,” he concluded. “You have to maintain exercise - daily animation practice [and] experimentation - and keep to a diet - experiencing high-quality and fresh media - in order to grow into a healthy animator.” Brent Kennedy’s work can be found on his Steam Workshop and his Youtube Channel.

Soaking up the sun on the Central Coast in San Luis Obispo, California is 20-year-old Computer Science student Sean Troehler. Four years ago, Troehler started contributing items for TF2 under his Steam handle, Boomsta, and has such obtainable goals in life like beating Gabe Newell and Robin Walker in an arm wrestling match. Troehler has been an active player of TF2 since 2008. “It is without a doubt my favorite game,” he said. “I can honestly say that the game has made my life better, not just from getting into modeling. It brought me closer to some of my friends, helped me cope with some problems over the years, and led me to meet some of the greatest people in my life.” “When they announced that they would be accepting community made items, I was pretty excited because I always had ideas for weapons for the game. The fun and interesting weapon designs of TF2 were a huge appeal to me so I ultimately decided to try and learn how to model and texture.” “Ultimately though, it was just my sheer love of the game and wanting to contribute to something that I loved so much that got me to do it. It did take me a while to actual make something since I was unaware of the modding scene before.” His first official submission to the workshop was the Bombardier’s Softcap, a hat for the Demoman, uploaded in December of 2011. “It took me until Halloween of 2013 to get something in,” he continued. “That was a very bittersweet moment for me. It was awesome to finally get something in, but I had only done the rigging for it - The Halloweiner - so I was a little disappointed. More of me was excited though because my work finally did pay off and I was ecstatic to have contributed to the game.” “Before they released the importer, I mostly made weapons, because that is what appealed to me most. I was also a bit nervous to try cosmetics, so I never really ventured into that realm of items. After the importer released it was pretty clear that they were mostly looking for cosmetics, so I made the change.” Currently, Troehler has 4 items in the game - the Halloweiner, Trencher’s Topper, Trencher’s Tunic, and the Endothermic Exowear. “I think my first check was 30 bucks,” he recalled. “I wasn't disappointed and was happy to have 30 more dollars. With it, I went and bought myself and friend some Taco Bell.” “It definitely wasn't the reaction that I am sure many had when they got theirs. I knew though that this was going to be just the beginning. Also to me, the money is just a bonus. Just having the opportunity to make items and the ability to do it, really makes it for me.” Since he started, Troehler estimates he’s made around $10,000. He’s saved most of it in hopes of finally getting a car. “it definitely taught me a lot about the artistic side of game design that I never would have learned in school,” he said. “Studying TF2's artstyle has showed me what it takes to have such a well built game.” “Before making items for TF2, I didn’t have any modeling experience. I learned all that I know from HellJumper's Blender tutorial video - thank god for that thing. These skills have lead me to be very self sufficient in any game projects I work on. I’ve never been a great drawer, but I’ve always had great ideas - at least in my own mind.” “I had never had an outlet for any of my ideas besides a few terrible scribbles on the margin of my school work. Being able to model and texture allows me to bring ideas to life. It really is a wonderful feeling to think of an idea and create it even better than I imagined it.” Outside of Troehler’s TF2 work, he has a handful of game projects that are either finished, currently in production, or never saw the light of day. “One that I did finish was a small game I made for a class [where] I was given three weeks to code a game using openGL on my own,” he said. “I took full advantage of being able to model and made one of those lane-changing games with lots of different cars and a randomly generated city the player would drive through.” “I also make props for a game called Vanishing Point that is being made by some students in the Advanced Game Projects program at USC. My girlfriend, Victoria Cuthbertson, goes there and she is the Art Lead on that project. I actually met her through cosplaying TF2 characters at San Diego Comic Con. Funny how things work - I was the Scout sporting a Bonk Helm and she was the Medic.” While it is certainly in his interests, Troehler sees pursuing developing more indie titles as something a long way down the road. “I mainly have to focus on school which takes up most of my time,” he assured. “It is a nice thought and I am excited for the day that happens, either through Greenlight or any other means of publishing, but for now it is just a thought.” “There is still so much to learn and so much to do. I just want to make a game that holds through time, recognizable, and inspires other's. Team Fortress 2 has been just that for me. It has inspired me. Without TF2, I don't know what I would be doing, it is the sole reason why I am at where I currently am.” “It has lead me to follow my dreams, to try and create something beautiful, something inspiring, something that manifests what it has caused me to feel. I want to make for others what TF2 has made for me.” “I know this probably sounds lame to a lot of people since Team Fortress 2 is just a game, but to some like myself, it is more than just a game. It is hard to explain, but I am glad I have just had the opportunity to be part of it.” “Having items in the game really boosted my confidence,” Troehler said. “I was having a horrible time in my second year of college when it was coming to grades. Because of poor grades and test scores I started feeling horrible about myself. I became stressed about my situation and even broke down in class a couple of times.” “There is no worse feeling because you get stuck in a loop. You stress about getting bad grades because you already have bad grades, then because of that stress you get more bad grades. You just lose all hope in yourself.” “Getting items in kind of made me realize that I don't need amazing grades to be successful or even happy. It was something that now seems ridiculous to be upset about in the first place, but getting those items in definitely helped.” “You just have to remember that grades don't define you - especially when you are looking for a job,” he continued. “If you are passionate about a goal, then that passion will lead you there. It is easy to forget when you go to college, that you are there to learn about what you are passionate about. I definitely lost track of that, but getting an item in made me realize that so long as I make these items, develop my skills, and focus on learning that everything will be okay.” “Don't be intimidated by the amount of work you need to put in to make items. You just have to make the effort to try. And the skills you obtain are so worth it, even as just a hobby.” “A huge thanks to the people who made this game that will always be a part of my life,” he concluded. “To all my friends and people I have met because of TF2 - the Emporium people, Klammy, Victoria, Kill, and Ian.” Sean Troehler’s work can be found on his Steam Workshop and his Tumblr.

Perhaps one of the most well-known item contributors, for either his work, his impact, or what-have-you, is 25-year-old Jake Harold. A man of many names over the years, some of which I can’t get published, I’m sure, Harold currently works under the overtly-meta title of The Heartsman. “Before item making, I used to draw a lot,” said Harold. “I was working on a big comic story called 'Justine Tyme' just before item making picked up, but over the years, as I've been focusing on items, that goal has faded away.” “Lately I've been focusing on developing a new Youtube channel called 'HeartsBros,’ while trying my best to actually find the motivation to draw again.” “I've always drawn, really,” he continued, “and like most children who have 'always drawn,' I've spent most of my life fighting the bad drawing habits you learn when you are younger.” “Drawing was an escape, a way to zone out from whatever arguments were happening at home, or something fun to do to fill up the empty hours between the end of one school day and the start of another.” “My interest in comics was different though! I first got into those just before I started university. With comics, if a person can write, and draw, they can pretty much tell any story they want on their own! As a person that loved telling stories, this was awesome.” “I really want to [get back into comics]!” he added. “But it’s literally been years since I focused on it. I fell out of practice with drawing to the point of no return while item making, and I honestly never thought I’d get back to Justine.” “Recently I’ve tried to reduce the time spent making items for TF2, and see if I can break down that block I’ve had for so long now. It’s going ok, and I do feel like if I wanted to draw the story, I could, but the writing and ideas used in Justine are a bit out of date now. I feel I would need to re-approach the whole thing from a new angle.” “Right now I feel like I have two paths in front of me: go back to Justine, or move forward and see if I can make something fun happen on Youtube. For now, I’m going with HeartsBros, but hopefully one day, I’ll get that new idea to bring back to Justine and all will be complete.” An old player of TF2, Harold was sure to jump on the contribution bandwagon as soon as he could. “Ever since the first [Contribute!] program for tf2 was launched all the way back in, what, 2010? I've been hell-bent on creating for TF2,” he said. “The update content for the game, websites and videos, along with all the interest the characters’ voice lines contained, made me really want to be involved.” “It felt exciting, it felt like it was going somewhere. I wanted to be the guy! It took a few years to get the quality of my items to the standard where they could get in-game, and ever since then I've been chasing that dragon.” Harold’s first item to make it in-game was the Front Runner, a collaboration with fellow item contributor, Zoey Smith. “It was added as part of the 'weekly item spotlight' - something the TF team should really really try bringing back for a short time!” he added. “It took about two years from when I started, to get the Front Runner in-game, and another year after that before an item I had made completely on my own to get in - the Cool Cat Cardigan.” “In between then, I had a bunch of collaborations get in. The Executioner was one, along with the Pom-Pommed Provocateur and Zipperface - AKA: the best hat in-game. Most of the content I got into Valve games back then were in Dota 2, though. I had about 24 of the first cosmetics ever added to Dota.” “A small group was invited to make the items to 'seed' the economy. [...] It was basically being 'invited' to an early workshop, where we got a little bit of feedback on our work as we progressed. It was pretty cool, to tell the truth.” “Getting the first payment was very liberating,” he recalled. “So were all the subsequent ones. Each time I'm paid is basically another pat on the back saying 'yeah, you can make a living being yourself.' It's played a big part in forming the kind of person I am today.” “It's let me visit America a bunch of times in the last couple of years. It's let me visit PAX. It's let me visit Valve a few times aswell. It's given me a much, much greater perspective on the industry and on life in general.” “The work I've done for TF2 has impressed people enough to offer me work opportunities in the industry. It's helped a lot, but it has handed none of these things to me on a platter. Item making can get you into the room, but you need to approach the people in that room.” “[For instance,] there was a project a while back where [Data Realms] wanted TF2 promo items made for Cortex Command. It ended up never happening, but since then I had chatted to the lead dev at Data Realms, Dan Tabar. When the time came, he approached me about joining the team for Planetoid Pioneers. I was really excited to take him up on that offer.” Another notable act, was Harold’s involvement with the 2013 community-made update, Robotic Boogaloo, of which he was the lead organizer. Also on the project, he did the lineart for the comic, Death of a Salesbot, while storyboarding the the accompanying animated short. “It was a lot of work,” he said. “I’m very proud to have been given the chance to work on Boogaloo. There were rumblings from the team after the update came out, that they’d like to work on a second update, but I personally wanted to see a completely new bunch of creators come forward and make the next community update, which then happened with the End of the Line update… which I ended up being involved with.” “When you organise a project like that, you’re very much a ‘man in the middle.’ On one side you have Valve, on the other you have the community and team you are working with. The communication process with Valve and the community, when you’re in that position, can be quite difficult, and very time consuming.” “In the future I would much rather work on my own projects, like HeartsBros or Justine Tyme, instead of making another TF2 community update.” “Unless of course, Valve offer me a job. Then I'd work on as many upcoming updates as I could.” In the end, Harold plans to take on whatever comes his way. “I don’t want to focus on just one,” he continued. “Back when I self published comics, I was using drawing skills, writing, packaging design, web design and learning how to promote work in-person and online.” “Item making involved 3D modeling, 2D texture work, making promotional art and watching the community to see what people wanted from items. I don’t feel like I could ever focus on just one of these disciplines. If I get to work on games in the future, that will be great, but I’ll probably still be drawing comics and making videos at the same time!” “[But,] do what you want to do,” he added. “Don’t do what you think you ‘should’ do, or what other people want to do. You will never work to your best ability if you aren’t creating the things you like to create.” “Find something you enjoy, and make a career out of it. Make your own job. Be your own employer. Go out there and make things happen, do not rely on others to realise your dreams. That said though, collaboration is awesome and is different to ‘relying’ on somebody else.” “Having somebody to bounce ideas off of has been a big part of how I’ve personally progressed over the years.” “I suppose if I had to say one thing,” he concluded, “it’s aim for a lifestyle, not ‘notable achievements’. If you look at others and think ‘They met x person’ or ‘They got to work with x studio’, and then aim to do such things in your own life, you may not end up in a happy place.” “Don’t compromise who you are in return for something you can note on your resume.” Jake Harold’s work can be found on his Steam Workshop, his website, and his Tumblr.

Just under a mile from van den Hoogenhof, is 23-year-old Sam Lovett, known by many as the content contributor, Pogo. With a perfect sunday that starts with a lie-in ‘til about midday, and a self-proclaimed overindulgence for video games, Lovett has managed to find time between his studies to leave his mark on the TF2 community. In 2012, Lovett graduated from the University of Southampton in Aerospace Engineering. Nowadays, he’s studying for a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Not long before the tide-turning Polycount contest, Lovett got involved with the modding community, and it all took off from there. “I loved playing [TF2] and wanted to make stuff for it,” said Lovett. “I started with retexturing weapons, then hexxing and recompiling [...] I got some good constructive help from the guys [on Polycount], and made my three-item set in time for the contest. It's not much to look at now, but I still get the occasional request for updates to the items I made there.” While the images on Lovett’s long-lost Polycount submission thread are resting in peace, the items themselves can still be found on the notorious Gamebanana here and here. Since then, he had been signed on to the community-created Robotic Boogaloo update. “I joined the team towards the end of the project to help out with fleshing it out,” noted Lovett. “I helped out with particle effects, but none of mine were actually shipped with the Boogaloo update.” In May of 2013, Lovett received an email from Valve, notifying him that he’d been selected as a service provider. “Valve had asked top contributors to list people they thought deserved to be listed under this new scheme,” recalled Lovett. “I was listed for the TF2 Modelling Tutorials and Resources page on Kritzkast,” of which he was the author. After the Polycount contest, it was still ages before any of Lovett’s item work had made it in the game. In the Summer of 2013, he got his first self-made in the game, with the Bigg Mann on Campus. Just after that, the Bozo’s Bouffant was added in the Scream Fortress Fifth Annual Helloween Special. However, plenty of arguments and refusals with the IRS led to some international pay delays, and Lovett wouldn’t see the payment for his work for almost a year later. “It wasn't until March, 2014 that I received any money,” he noted. “I had done some napkin calculations to estimate what the payment would amount to. Even then I was surprised with how much it was!” After it had been building up for several months, Lovett’s first pay came out to be a hefty $13,000, and in total, has made around $30,000. “Not bad at all,” added Lovett. “Without the Workshop,” he continued, “I wouldn't have been able to go back to University for another degree. Other than that, I'm usually very frugal so it hasn't changed much in my day-to-day life.” Still hoping for the phenomenal Six-Barrel Serenade to make the cut at some point, Lovett has considered going into Game Development, but for now? He’s concentrating on his studies. “I prefer it as a well paying hobby,” he said. With “nothing too big” on the horizon, Lovett is trying his hand at some Dota 2 items, while working on TF2 items as well. “Just have fun with it,” concluded Lovett, “find people with similar interests and enjoy what you do.” Sam Lovett’s work can be found on his Steam Workshop.