Last year, I interviewed Lyon resident Valentin Levillian, a notable level designer among the TF2 community. This year, I found myself talking to yet another Lyon resident, this time being 22-year-old graphic designer Nassim Sadoun. Like anyone the same age as Sadoun, he hangs out with friends, plays video games, and watches movies, with a refined taste towards old thrillers and adventure movies, listing Lino Ventura among his favorites in the business. Of course, most people that don't know Sadoun personally probably know him for his TF2 work - at the time of this interview, his merchandise work, for instance, has a 100% acceptance rate among submissions. “I first started to learn about TF2 when I was 15,” said Sadoun. “In France, when you're about to leave middle school, you have to do a 3-day work experience. Luckily for me, one of my teachers had an uncle working in a video game company, so I was able to do my experience there.” “It was awesome,” he recalled. “I was able to see all the jobs related to video games like animators, 2d and 3d artists... but most importantly, this is where I discovered Team Fortress 2 - the guys were playing it during lunch time. I fell in love with the game immediately.” “So I bought the game and time has passed, until I discovered GameBanana - so I started to make skins for TF2.” At the time, Sadoun was in high school, learning graphic design and taking software classes for things like Photoshop. When he knew skinning was possible, he naturally dove right in. “My first ones were truly awful,” he said. “Simple color corrections with a high compression - they're still on GameBanana if you guys are curious. Then I heard about Facepunch, and that's where the real business started.” Sadoun had started to do work for the TF2 Mod Emporium on Facepunch, and 2 years after he first started, he was working on his first collaborative effort with fellow contributor Zoey “Sexy Robot” Smith. “That pack was a huge thing for me,” he added. “That's when I really started to make real content - I made concept art, texures and [promotional pictures.]” In April of 2013, Sadoun was contacted by another contributor, Jake “Heartsman” Harold, to work with a small team on what would become the Robotic Boogaloo community update. “No need to say that I was absolutely thrilled when he asked me that!” Sadoun exclaimed. “That was a huge thing for me, I was like ‘damn, we're working just like Valve!’” “I was responsible [for] making the big titles, some web graphics and the lettering of the comic. That's where I was also able to express my love for typography - because yes, typography is my second love.” Sadoun states that he has another, more-Jungle-themed project, similar to Boogaloo in-mind, but if anyone's looking for a graphic designer for their next secret project, he's definitely up for it. Aside from the larger group projects, he was also a co-creator behind the community made Texture Improvement Project for TF2, alongside Swedish contributor Benjamin “Badgerpig” Blåholtz. “It first started when I was disgusted by some Valve textures,” he said. “The gibs still with the beta textures, the low-res quality of some textures - it was horrible for me. So I decided to remake some of them from scratch.” “And then a lil' Badgerpig came out of the woods, saying that he also hated some current texture works and such, and we should make something together. That's when we decided to make the Texture Improvement Project.” “[We'd] fix most of Valve errors all across TF2,” he continued. “We'd remake all the classes’ textures, plus some props. It was good - until Valve started to add a lot of complex cosmetics items into the game, that's when the project slowly started to die. It was way too much work for us.” Nowadays, Sadoun is less and less in the texture business, but has certainly taken the merchandise workshop by storm. “When [Valve] announced their partnership with WeLoveFine, I immediately started to think about some designs,” he said. “Since I love TF2's art direction, the 50's-70's period, and making designs in general, it was icing on the cake!” At the time of this interview, Sadoun has 4 submissions to the merchandise workshop, all accepted for use by WeLoveFine. It won't stop there, either, as he says he's already got 6 more designs ready to be submitted. “To be honest, it was a life saver,” he concluded. “With all my work I was able to buy a good PC, so I'm more productive every day. [...] I just want to say thanks to all the people who worked with me, with who I learned a lot of things.” Nassim Sadoun's work can be found on his Steam Workshop and his WeLoveFine Profile.

Just west of Dallas, Texas, in the booming business city of Irving, is 21-year-old damn-near-jack of all trades Martin Ellis. You may know him for his particle work, his Saxxy accomplishments, or one of his many other achievements in life. Probably. A long-time player, Ellis said it actually took some time before he made stuff for Team Fortress 2. “I found out that [the] Source Engine was really easy to mod, and started looking at reskins of weapons and items and the like,” he recalled. “I found out about particle mods, namely the work of Bolty, and started looking into how to create things myself.” “It was mainly curiosity and a need to attach trails of lightning to things.” “My earliest effects were actually just simple changes to existing effects,” he continued. “Like changing their colors and taking parts from other effects and putting them together. I don't really have that many ideas for TF2 content in terms of items, so I just kind of focused on making effects.” Ellis first started playing TF2 in 2010, shortly after the 119th Update, and started working on it later that year. “At the start of my modding career, I was working on highly stylized effects with a cartoonish and vibrant look and feel to them. Two of my old favorites were the stylized explosions and blood effects.” “The whole point of the stylized effects was to capture the look and feel of the effects of older sprite based games, except in 3D,” he added. “There's an effort to make heavier use of large colorful shapes than there is to make fine details.” “Like when someone is gibbed, rather than having small drops of blood fly out, there's this huge splash and cartoon bones go flying. Similar to older shooters such as Doom. The actual inspiration for this kind of style is much closer to Sega Genesis games like Gunstar Heroes and Alien Soldier, though.” “Later on I was picked up to do particle work on the TF2 Texture Improvement Project,” Ellis recalled. “I ended up creating a style for effects that was similar to Team Fortress 2's current look, but with more fine detail and more vibrant action.” “The first actual workshop item I was ever picked up to do work on was The Precision Cut, created by BANG! He came to me and asked me to make some laser muzzleflashes for the weapon and I got to do work on it! I was crazy excited when I actually had someone coming to me for work!” Ellis would go on to develop particles for other workshop submissions such as the Heart Beater, and Superb Soaker. That same year, he was signed-on to do Unusual effects for the Robotic Boogaloo update. Later, Ellis was approached to do work for the Saxxy Award submissions Lil’ Guardian Pyro and Crackpot for the 2013 Saxxy Awards. Ultimately, Lil’ Guardian Pyro would win Best Overall. “[In 2014] I decided to fan out and try to hire myself out to do minor work on a larger number of entries,” he said. “It wasn't quite as enjoyable as working closely on one or two projects, because I honestly don't feel like I did that much other than come in at the end and tweak things that needed to be tweaked.” “The two videos I personally worked on for Saxxys 2014 were The Jewel Escapade and Sky Fortress: The Remaster. There were several others I was working on, but the entries fell through.” “It was a rush, and I think it would have been a better experience if I had just worked closely on those two. I loved what I actually got to do, though!” A common misconception apparently was that Ellis had worked on the community-made short, End of the Line. “I didn't actually do any work on the short - I just made the unusual effects!” he affirmed. “I kept getting messages like ‘OMG I LOVED WHEN THE TRAIN BLEW UP!!’ I had to redirect a few people to the actual EOTL team!” “Apparently the sunset effect, Death at Dusk, was almost as valuable as Burning Flames for a short while! I hope I can actually beat Burning Flames with this next group of Unusuals!” he hinted. With particle effects obviously not being something you can just buy in the store, they’re among the various odd jobs that are paid for differently from items. Rest assured, contributors like Ellis still receive a healthy sum from Key sales for their work. “The first Robotic Boogaloo payment was around two or three thousand dollars,” Ellis said. “I was blown away by how much I managed to make just making things for an existing game on the internet!” “Honestly Key money starts out strong and evens out really quickly. The first months had figures in the thousands, then it quickly dipped off once the Boogaloo ended. [But] it's gotten me a huge attention boost!” “I'm working on A Hat in Time now,” he continued. “And the TF2 work just doesn't seem to stop! Hopefully it'll keep building, because TF2 is helping me get a start on doing bigger and better things!” “Maybe one day I'll be paid to create effects that aren't small, self contained frills on a hat! Unusuals pay well, but they're really not as much fun to make as you'd think. I mean, they're so little, it's not like making a huge boss destruction sequence or an amazing set piece!” “I'm still happy that I can do what I'm good at for money, though! VFX artists are apparently in-demand in the games industry, which is great!” “I've got skills in a lot of areas - effect design, character animation, technical animation, material work. I'm kind of a ‘make it pretty’ guy. I can do a lot of jobs, but I'd love to work primarily in effect design someday.” At the time of this interview, Ellis is still a student, starting his senior project soon, so he's not taking on much for more work for a while unless it's absolutely life-changing, or, y’know, Valve calls. For people looking to do similar work, he recommends Source Filmmaker. “[It's] actually an amazing starting point for people aspiring to be animators!” he said. “Everything is self-contained, the interface is simple and easy, it's already got tons of content, and the render times are comparatively fast! It's only when you really really start to push the limits of what Source can do that things start to fall apart.” “I had tried to understand 3D animation for years, but when SFM came along with its tutorials and tools and stuff, it kind of clicked and I finally started to make progress.” “Now,” he concluded, “about two years, later I'm having to move to other software because I want to make things that are too intense for the program! It's an amazing thing, really.” Martin Ellis’ work can be found on his Steam Workshop and his Youtube Channel.

Though he's been tucked away in his studies for the last few years, TF2 as it stands likely wouldn't be where it is without 23-year-old Ricky van den Waardenburg. Under the name of Daimao, van den Waardenburg was one of the founding fathers of item contribution to TF2 as it stands. I was very lucky to speak with him, as he's been occupied with his computer science studies at Utrecht and Eindhoven in recent years. In what he says will be his first and last interview, hopefully this will shine some light on how we got here, and just where in-fact we’re going as a community. “I currently work for myself as a freelance programmer and 3D artist for various companies,” said van den Waardenburg. “It's pretty nice, but I'd rather return to work with Facepunch again in the Workshop - full-time, probably.” “As a game artist, it's only natural that I would play games. I have a passion for games! I played a lot of TFC, Warcraft 3, Dungeon Keeper, Guilty Gear and Street Fighter 3 in my younger days, which slowly transitioned into TF2, Dota and one of the million next iterations of Guilty Gear. Dropped Street Fighter as a series once 4 & Super came out. They really dropped the ball on that game, I feel.” “I've seen a lot of guys from the Emporium push out a lot of nice content,” he added, “which always motivates me, but then I remember I'm swamped with university work and contract work, which makes me hella sad. Makes sense if you really like games and 3D modelling.” “I'm also looking at making some .SMD and .DMX tools for 3DSMax 2014 and 2015 in the near future. [Soon,] I'll start developing those. MaxOfS2D complained to me about it a while back that there's no tools for those versions, and I like making stuff like that, so that'll probably become something eventually.” “Naturally I'm also interested in getting a Master's degree, but I want a short break from studying and work. That's why I'm taking a break for about half a year where I'm going to return to Facepunch and workshopping activity.” “Some people who've seen me around on Facepunch have probably noticed I've said I'll be doing that stuff a few times before and vanished. That's because I underestimated the amount of effort needed to finish all my university projects, whatever. Sorry about that!” “Eventually I want to make some fun games and publish them. I have specific views on what the future of games will be and I want to fulfill that by making my own stuff. Don't want to toot my own horn or anything so I'll keep those to myself.” “At the end of the day it comes down to that -- I'm just a guy who likes to play fighting games, make cool stuff and be productive!” A few years ago, before he went into high school, van den Waardenburg started to get into making various little applications and started experimenting with Gamemaker. Coincidentally, Gamemaker's creator gives lectures he studies. Going forward into high school, enter Roy Theunissen and Don Mulders. On Steam, those two are known as Mr. Royzo and Donald, respectively. Cue friendship. “I met Royzo in my first year,” van den Waardenburg recalled. “I think he overheard me talking about dumb Gamemaker stuff in gymnastics class? Sounds about right.” “He also used Gamemaker and we enabled each other massively, but it wasn't until he started making some 3D space game -- which was really hard in the Gamemaker environment back then -- until I started seeing how interesting 3D modelling was.” “We made a lot of really dumb -- in retrospect -- games for fun, which sparked my interest for game design, game art and programming.” “Then Don came around and he did about the same stuff as me and Roy at the time and the three of us made a lot of Gamemaker games in the hours-off we had in highschool. [A] little gathering of friends and students always formed around one of our tables when we had something playable. Fun stuff.” “I feel like Royzo and [I] always made the most technically-impressive engines and examples and games, while Don made the really addictive games. He made a 2D platformer [racing] game that everyone liked and played on one keyboard.” “That was so wonky, because you could only press like 4 buttons at the same time, so one guy always ended up playing on the mouse,” he laughed. Saying he's always been a Valve fan, van den Waardenburg was quick to hop into The Orange Box and TF2 shortly after release. When the floodgates were open, he, along with Theunissen, got into finding exploits for sport. “Modding the Spy's smoke particles to stick around while he's cloaked, enabling sv_cheats locally for third-person mode on any server with SourceMod and the whole ‘use every weapons on every class’ - which was eventually leaked by a friend of mine and everyone got their items suspended,” he listed. “Dumb stuff that was easily discoverable, but no-one really tried to find that back then.” “I was active on Facepunch and that whole place really[enabled] my creative processes at the time, like making Garry's Mod scripts. So I got enabled from two places: at school and on the series of tubes. Eventually me and Royzo started making TF2 models and a lot of guys joined in and it became a central modding hub for TF2 on the Facepunch forums.” “I started it, and Royzo joined in a little while later,” he continued. Royzo took over after a while and then Sparkwire did it for a while after the incident. Then the community. Which should've been like that in the first place to be honest. Plastering your name on something that community focused is dumb, but I didn't realize it back then.” “I remember flaming a guy - pretty sure his name was Sh33p, he had a ‘Gentlemanne of Leisure’ avatar with a monocle at the time - which haunts me to this day. He said we were just messing around with 3D applications until something came out, which for me was 100% dead-on, but for the other guys - AyesDyef, NeoDement, et cetera - I really didn't think that was the case, so I said nasty stuff about him which I never got a chance to apologize for.” “Sorry Sh33p, I was a snot-nosed brat who wanted attention. If I didn't get your name right, you know who you are probably.” Van den Waardenburg found inspiration and encouragement at the newly-founded Emporium, various internet boards, the aforementioned friends and school. “Everything skyrocketed,” he said. However, he lost his passion after an incident between contributors caused Theunissen to be driven away from the Emporium. In that period, he still managed to develop such items like the infamous Team Captain, and the Last Breath. Shortly after, he got into university, and order was restored. “University, game jams and Polycount re-ignited my passion elsewhere, namely for making games, programming shaders, importers/exporters/converters for model formats and all that kind of stuff,” he continued. “Somewhere before that I buddied up with Maxime "MaxOfS2D" Lebled and Severi "Kikka/OJSeve" Ojala and they reignited my passion for content creation for TF2 and Dota 2 and other 3D art. Thanks guys!” “I also got a lot of passion from seeing AyesDyef, NeoDement, Svdl - that guy is a true ballermachine - SithHappens, and modelling. This was all from the sidelines though, I always buy stuff from those guys to support them even though 75% goes to Valve. Shoutouts to everyone I forgot from the Emporium!” When the Emporium was founded, it was a simpler time. Back then, items weren't accepted into the game, nor was any money involved. A lot can change in five years. “I'm pretty sure the Emporium and FPSBanana showed Valve there was a huge supply and demand in making content for their games,” he inferred. “Eventually, we got contacted about some hat stuff and [the ‘Contribute!’] website popped up a while later.” “Basically we got a ‘maybe,’ ‘vague plans,’ ‘internal rumors’ message about buying hat models and implementing them in the game. Kinda like how maps and their assets are bought, I think?” “Then we got the classic Valve radio silence and suddenly the Contribute page popped up that evolved into the Workshop as you know it today.” “To be honest I think our actions at Facepunch definitely showed them people wanted to make stuff for their game, and that evolved internally into the Contribute page. “I only started contributing my later works, because it was just a learning experience for me in the beginning, so the results weren't that nice. I made the Frenchman's Beret back then for the website, which got in.” “I loved the sparkles,” he added. “The best part about making your own item at the time. It still is, honestly. AyesDyef's Kabuto got in in the first contribute update, I think? I still have one that dropped for me, which I treasure to this day.” “Later, near the Mann-Conomy update, they introduced paint, which was really bad because it was implemented really poorly at the time. Purely solid colors. Somehow I got around to fixing every texture to look pretty and I sent it over to Valve and they used them all, cool!” “Before the Mann-Conomy update there was no store or anything. You got the honor of being recognized by an international gaming business, which was enough for the original circle of modders. Nowadays it's for most people purely about the money, what a shame.” “The stuff I hear about downvote legions and bots some authors have to push other authors off of the front page is disheartening,” he said. “And the stuff that happens in the Dota 2 scene is super shady. Some of the top contributors there are hella two-faced.” “I really give it my all, [and] if you don't do that as a workshop artist, I don't think you respect the game enough. Some people just dump everything on the workshop because they really like money.” “That can ruin the aesthetic of a game. Luckily there's Halloween restrictions now for the thematically silly stuff, but there's also stuff with low texture quality, bad ambient occlusion bakes, wrong smoothing - which used to go wrong pre-Workshop a lot - and just generally bad design.” “It's your job as a Workshop artist to keep that stuff out of there, because Valve likes it when you make cool stuff for their game regardless, I think.” “The focus was completely shifted from making cool stuff of high-quality to pumping out low-quality crap to make money. Valve's policy of accepting everything that's cool doesn't help either, but it isn't their fault, to be really honest.” “If you make a game and pour your heart and soul into it for 7 years and people subsequently make mods for your game, you're going to [be] a bit biased in the first place, you know? Kinda like the art children make for their parents.” When the Mann-Conomy update reared its infamous head, money was now a factor in everything. If you didn't want to wait ages for a hat to randomly land in your lap, then you could whip out your credit card and you'd have hats galore in no-time. “I didn't think people would buy hats for those ridiculous prices,” said van den Waardenburg. “They're still really overpriced. If they changed that they'd get more overall happiness in their playerbase, probably. More people can afford hats [means] more people will buy hats [means] about the same revenue, but more happy players.” “Experiment with it, that's the whole point of TF2 nowadays, right? I've seen the lecture on the microtransactions in Valve games and that's what I got from it anyways.” “The pay is really good - even though I made like 2 hats,” he added, laughing, “and I was able to pay for everything I ever wanted - orthodontics treatment, university - and I still have a gigantic sum of savings that grows every month.” “I mainly use it to buy gifts for my family and friends actually. I remember I bought a PC for MaxOfS2D before he got into Dota 2 workshopping. We liked getting [emotional] together on Skype and I consider him a really good friend actually. He doesn't deserve the hate he gets, to be honest.” “My dad was like ‘no way you can work 2 hours per-year and get that amount of money,’” he recalled. “I showed him the email and he still didn't believe it. He didn't trust American companies anyways. America has a really, really bad rep in the Netherlands, hence his disbelief.” “But lo and behold, suddenly money popped up on my bank account, and I didn't tell him, and bought a really expensive chess set for him in secret and gave it to him for his birthday. He got [emotional] and it was fun.” “Honestly, the best part of giving a big gift is the reaction.” “I don't think I actually need to work for the coming 5 years or something. Just off of two hats, it's [insane]. It solidified my future. Thanks to Valve, I'm able to live my life.” “It sounds corny, but it really is true. Thank you Valve, Robin Walker, Gabe Newell, Jane Lo - you're literally the best - Brandon Reinhart, and everyone else. You've defined my life and made me want to live.” “Believe in yourself,” he advises. “Don't get [emotional] because your first item is bad. Don't do it for the money, at least not initially. Once you get better at it you'll be able to make a living off of it, which is totally fine, but keep your quality standards high. Don't be a factory.” “I've seen some Dota 2 guys make literally hundreds of muddy, badly-textured models in the hopes even one gets in. Polish your skills until you're happy with it. Don't be afraid to contact other Workshop artists for help, but look out which ones you contact. Some have a huge-ass ego because of the Workshop money I guess, but there's some genuinely nice and caring people around. Svdl, AyesDyef, ChemicalAlia, Sp3tch and many others come to mind.” “Don't be afraid to copy how other people model certain shapes or how they texture. And the most important one, having fun while you're doing it reflects in your work.” With university now out of the way, van den Waardenburg has an ever-expanding checklist of work to take care of. There's no denying that he's back in the game for good. “I've always wanted to make TF2 weapons and Dota 2 items,” he said. “The weapons because there's a chronic lack of them in the Workshop. There's like only two or three guys making really good ones - Sparkwire, Svdl, et cetera. I've accumulated a lot of concepts in the past few years for both games, so I'll do that probably.” “People who are on Facepunch will probably hear more of me somewhere there. If I'm not banned, you never know with that place. I'm still not demodded properly.” “I've been looking at programming a Dota 2 gamemode, which should be fun. This is the only way I think programmers can show their worth to Valve nowadays, because the Source SDK is actually so outdated now.” “Making mods in Source is the best thing ever, but like, why use it when you can buy a UE4 license for 20 bucks per month or for free when you're a student? Hopefully they release a Source 2 SDK or something.” “That's what I think, doesn't mean it's true though. You could probably show you're interested in working on stuff for their games and your love for them by doing it in another way, like making tools for the Workshoppers to use, and you'd help those people too, in many ways.” Self-proclaimed as the most frank person he knows, he also hopes to go to Valve and meet the team to give feedback on how they handle TF2. “I have so much to say,” he assured. “I think Valve really distanced themselves from the TF2 workshop from what I've heard. I really don't like that. You never know if what you do is good or what is bad, because there's just no feedback.” “It used to be [different]. For instance, I made a Last Breath model update like 3 years ago, I think, which ended up being a horrible miscommunication, and a TF2 artist at the time helped me put it in the game.” “The horrible miscommunication was that I used the SDK version of the idle pose of the Pyro, but they had a different idle pose - which you had to decompile from the game models, actually - so it looked like it was broken on their end. And they just remodelled it entirely, even though I sent them a fix. Whatever, no hard feelings. I remade the mesh and texture to see if I still could model/texture a while back and I was quite happy with it.” “I also think Workshoppers need something to help their fans,” he added. “It's really dumb and small, and already implemented in Dota 2, but would help immensely in fan-to-workshopper interaction. 20 people a day or something ask me to give my signature to their Team Captain or whatever. Let's say they saw it in a friend's profile or a popular trader had the signature on his item as well. It's done by me gift wrapping their hat and gifting it back, adding a tag ‘Gifted by Daimao on whatever date.’” “But most people who play TF2 don't know that. It's not logical to do it that way, so how can you expect them to know? Why don't we have the Autograph system from Dota 2 where you can just give out your autograph to a fan and they can apply it to their item. It's a minor thing, but I'm sure lots of workshop artists have the same issues. I kinda want to buy 20 gift wraps per day for each fan, but this gets too expensive after a while. It's an easy thing to implement too.” “I have no place to actually give them this feedback though, which is another huge problem. Dota 2 has some kind of dev-board where people can give feedback, but TF2 just is so disjoint from everything. I realize this all sounds [bad], but I really care about Valve and their games, so it's important to me.” “These are just the things that come to mind, I actually have lots of more feedback, but no way I'm actually going to get it across. I'm just a guy who made a hat or two, you know?” Compared to the pre-economy world of TF2, van den Waardenburg sees the updates as way different than what they used to be. Of course, there's more to that thought. “The End of the Line update…” he began. Brace for it. “Oh my God, that was a total disaster. People got hyped up by the main man behind that update, and then they didn't get what they were promised, or expected. This is such a big mistake from an outsider's point of view.” “The previous community updates were fine, but don't let a figurehead disappoint everyone like that again. It really damages the health of the game.” “It obviously doesn't reach most of the masses who play the game without knowing what's going on in the community, but it does hurt the tight-knit TF2 lovers that are still around.” “Get new blood in your team or something and go all out on some huge-ass update again,” he continued. “Involve the workshoppers like never before. Do another optimization update or port it to the new Source 2 engine or something.” “And rework melee weapons hit-detection, oh my God. Using a single ray-trace is so Half-Life 2 and frustrating for players. You're going to compete with other team-based shooters soon again, step it up!” “Go back to the pre-Mannconomy update and focus on new playstyles for classes instead of number swapping. Gameplay elements like the compression blast, Huntsman and the Dead Ringer all breathe fresh air into a class. The whole selling point is that you can play however you want to your class' strengths by choosing the right items to go along with your playstyle, right? Go back to that. That's why I played TF2 for hours a day and that's why I won't leave TF2 ever.” “There's so many people in the workshop or in the community who are so good at what they do. Why not bring those guys in and get some fresh new ideas? Maybe expose the code-base to a select few and make them program an interesting new gamemode or a slew of weapons, that'd be so rad. I'd be down for that anyday!” “Working for Valve seems like a cool experience in general from the people I've interacted with who work there. Everyone I've interacted with is so nice and respectful. Maybe do another set-design contest - focused on weapons - but host it on the Workshop instead of Polycount and get some winning designs for each class and base gameplay on the weapon's design? That'd be so rad. The Workshop is big enough now for stuff like that.” So, after years of radio silence, some light has finally been shed on a bit of everything, for the first time, and the last time, by Ricky “Daimao” van den Waardenburg, who only did this one-time interview because I asked. “Shoutouts to Mister Royzo and Don Mulders for being total beasts,” he concluded. “To Kikka and MaxOfS2D for being amazing friends. To Squint, NeoDement, AyesDyef, Svdl, Sparkwire, Recurracy, Helljumper, ChemicalAlia, Ronin, Tuna Melt, Evil_Knevil, Gerre, Gadget, Primrose, and the other OG Emporium crew. To Void for being a badass and editing this article. [And] to Valve for the amazing life you've given me.” Ricky van den Waardenburg's work can be found on his Steam Workshop.

You wouldn't be able to call yourself a fan of Team Fortress 2 if you didn't stay up-to-date on its ever-expanding comic book lore, and for all we know, you wouldn't be able to see those comics as they are today if it weren't for Heather Campbell. Over the years, the 28-year old UT Dallas grad, also known as Makani, has gone from fan artist to, as of October 2014, full-time artist in-house at Valve Corporation. “I started drawing when I was super young,” said Campbell, who grew up in Houston, “[it was] mostly because of a Tina Belcher-esque obsession with horses.” “My family was always really supportive of me as an artist, so it was always something I sort of felt confident at when I was growing up. So I kept up with it, and it was always something I enjoyed, but it wasn't later in until high school that I learned you could actually make a living on it. Before, it was always kinda like, ‘Well, I can draw, but the only thing I'll be able to do is draw portraits in the mall, so I guess I need to pursue something else.’” “Though when I was little enough, I wanted to illustrate books or coloring books or something,” Campbell laughed. “I grew up with Disney movies - I loved all those Disney renaissance movies, but Aladdin was like, the 'funny' one, so I liked that one best.” “But for the longest time I never realized animation was a job, I guess? Like people willed the movies into being, or the art talent it took to make something like that was just too inhuman.” “[I] never did art in grade school, I was a huge choir nerd - that was definitely a ‘Well, I can't do anything else’ option. I always drew, but I didn't want to do art in school ‘cause school art was always kinda meh and I thought the other kids that typically took art were weird,” she laughed. “Went to school for Arts and Technology, but after I failed programming twice, I switched to Arts and Performance so I could use my Choir extra credits as actual credits and graduate on time.” “In college I wanted to focus on animation and then later storyboarding,” she continued. “Mostly because I learned how tedious making 2D animation actually was. Though I do still enjoy animation, I think part of my dislike had to do with it being for school and all that. But ultimately I really love storyboarding most, the initial process of translating a story to images.” “I did do my 2d animation class assignments -- well, most of them -- but yeah, I never put together any real finished products. I think my final was an animatic that I liked doing, but never a finished animation or anything.” “Unfortunately, the guy who headed up the Arts and Technology department was pretty anti-2D-animation and we didn't have the best facility or anything. there weren't even any drawing tables in our little Arts and Technology building.” “I always sort of tell people a lot of your artistic learning is going to come from what you do outside of school - that really is how you improve. In my case it was sort of mandatory, though,” she laughed again. After Campbell graduated, she got a job at Aeropostale, but… was fired more-or-less because of Hurricane Ike. “Later that year, I did get a job in Austin from the only place that responded from my mass emailing of portfolios,” she added. “They were working on an xbox game that failed, then became an iphone game company which also failed, and technically still owes me half my salary.. so I moved back home for two years after that.” In 2009, Campbell received an email from Valve. “I asked if the initial email I got was a joke,” she recalled, laughing. “Valve was one of the places I didn't even send a portfolio to even though I was ‘sending them to any place I know,’ because the thought was just too embarrassing.” “I basically got super lucky that Jay Pinkerton liked my Administrator design, which was the main reason they contacted me I think -- they wanted to buy the design.” “After my initial interview they basically put me on as a contract artist but not for anything specific at the time. They needed another comic artist and I think the first person they wanted couldn't do it so they called me! While I was back at home, my main source of income was contract jobs like that and commissions -- and I got a job at Office Max for a while.” Campbell's first contract work for Valve included content like the 2010 lore-building Loose Canon comic, and signs and experiments featured in the “Bring Your Daughter to Work Day” section of Old Aperture in Portal 2. In late 2012, she had begun contracting full-time, and became part of the creative team behind the occasionally-published Team Fortress Comics series, alongside writers Jay Pinkerton and Erik Wolpaw, and a small group of other artists. In addition to the TF Comics, Campbell has also worked on art for various Steam sales and Dota, and has kept up with a bit of concept art for the company - ranging from Halloween spells and robot parts in TF2, to quick and dirty animatics for Dota. “[If it weren't for Valve], I don't know, [I'd probably be] playing MMOs in my room at my parents house and working part time somewhere in the suburbs?” she guessed. “Maybe working on websites, or t-shirts, I did both of those before.” “I've always been interested in modeling and animation, maybe if I made myself learn some of that stuff [I'd get into item-making.] The item-making economy still seems so new and wondrous to me, I forget people can do that full time or at least make decent money off of it.” “By the time all that got started, I was kinda fading out of the TF2 hubbub. I started playing TF2 in beta in college and played a lot up until a little while after the first Polycount contest.” “[Nowadays] I’m just playing MMOs in my room in my own apartment!” she laughed. “I just game and draw most of the time, check out some of the various conventions when they're here, travel a little bit to see friends, and have friends visit me. Mostly I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and started WoW again this expansion.” “I gotta admit I was never super into comics. I read a couple webcomics in the past which I enjoyed, and when I was little my brother and I read Sonic comics. Garfield! I liked Garfield when I was little.” “A lot of my sequential inspiration is more from storyboards,” she added. “I have a list of ‘you should read these’ comics I gotta get through from Jay and other buds - I started on She-Hulk, [and] I approve.” “I would say, I get a lot of inspiration from some european comic artists - Pierre Alary, Enrique Fernandez, Juanjo Guarnido - but as far as reading the comics, I haven't done a lot of that.” Campbell has come a long way with her work, and has undoubtedly served as heavy inspiration to many others, herself. In the past years, she's had a hand in developing countless memorable characters with her art, and bringing life to the continually-growing lore of TF2 - all in-part because of a design she uploaded to DeviantArt in 2008. “There's a lot of stigma on fanart,” she said, “and me doing fan art for fun is the only reason I have a job, and really the only reason I can draw at all. Like, there may not be a huge market for YouTube Poops made in Garry's Mod and SFM, but if you end up learning how to animate and use video making software because of that, then you have some hugely marketable skills.” “Being able to show and reach people, that is, your online presence and your ability to network is just as important as your actual skill and ability, so never be afraid to show people your work and put yourself out there.” “Also, keep creating, whatever it is you're into,” Campbell concluded. “I think there's a lot of sentiment around people pursuing art to create specific kinds of art? As long as you're doing something creative, your learning.” Heather Campbell's work can be found on the Comics page of the Team Fortress 2 website.