Interview with Retexturers: 4th of July, Part 1

 Welcome to the first of a two-part series where we interview retexturers who had their works published for the 4th of July sale 2014. Some of the retextures are still available as of writing so if you are quick you may be able to bag yourself a great holiday themed hat! In this first-part we interviewed IBarrageI, a prominent member of RAOC, and TheInnovative, a RN Catalog Analyst who has just accomplished his first published retexture. 

IBarrageI 
Member of RAOC 
Publishes: 21
Item published: The Admiral's Cape 















Q. I've lost count of the amount of retextures you have had published. What number is this again? 
A: It's my 21st, I'm also losing track now :P.

Q. What inspired you to retexture the popular hooded mesh? 
A: I was inspired by TREVOR818730's "Rebel Wastelander", a recently published retexture of his. The design was old-timely and vintage. That made me want to capture that theme even more.

Q. Could you explain your design choices to me with regards to the colours and textures used? 
A: As I mentioned in the previous question, I wanted to make something look vintage and old-timely, that was one of my main focuses. Secondly, with those themes in mind, the second drive behind the design was my all too obvious love for steampunk, and also a love for the designs from Bio-Shock: Infinite. All these themes merged well with eachother, and I decided to use faded colours when it came to adding the flag to it, also adding stains and other finer details to it.

Q. What do you feel about the number of copies of your item that have been sold and the price it was set at by the ROBLOX team? 
A: The price of 1000 R$ is very fair in my eyes. Just for the due fact that it's a Holiday retexture that has a fair amount of character customization possibilites. The number sold isn't really a problem for me, as if there are many people willing to buy my retexture for 1k, that in itself is a win for me.

Q. How do you feel about the fact that a number of your '4th July' themed retextures have been taken by BrightEyes but not published? Does it dishearten you or fuel your ambition to succeed further? 
A: The honest answer to this is, both. The idea of being disheartened is not the sole thing that happens if it's taken and not published. But soon after you may realise that, "Wow, Brighteyes actually took this retexture, she must of liked it at least", and that thought, if you are strong enough to take it, is the fuel, to succeed in getting better. Improve on what is looked for, refine what you like.




TheInnovative
Member of RN
Publishes: 1
Item published: CotM: Independent Chicken 
 



Q. This is your first retexture published to the ROBLOX catalog. How did it feel to have your Chicken of the Month published?
A: Remember when you are a kid and you begged your parents to take you to the store and buy you an awesome new toy and after days they finally took you? That feeling doesn't even compare to the feeling you get after finally getting a retexture published after making them for so long.

Q. What inspired you to retexture the popular chicken hat? 
A: Very early this year there was talk of a new monthly hat series called "Chicken of the Month" (referred to as CotM) and that every hat in the series is made by a user. This got me excited giving me an easy opportunity each month to get a publish. After the February Love Bird CotM came out I finally decided to retexture one. I took the texture from the February CotM and removed all the hearts, changed the hues, and drew a cool egg pattern. I was making a CotM for Easter in April. As time came by and April rolled around, BrightEyes asked for a purple chicken hat. This disappointed me as my chicken was yellow and orange and Easter themed, so I quickly changed the hue of the chicken to purple. I personally thought my yellow version was better but I was determined to get a publish. A few minutes after tweeting BrightEyes my CotM, she took the model. This may not sound as cool of an achievement to you but I was VERY excited to finally have a retexture taken by an admin. Only right then did I notice, she also took 4 other chickens quickly killing my competition. I then realized that trying to get a CotM publish wasn't easy. The next day, users on Twitter showed me a published texture of April's CotM. It wasn't mine. I was pretty upset at the time and thought I wasn't going to get a publish. Then in May I decided to take another shot at it and try to make a chicken for July. I started by using the original chicken texture and "UV Map" it to get a diagram of exactly what goes where. Using that, I was able to perfectly fit the stripes on the chicken, and place the stars where they aren't cut off. A few days ago I noticed BrightEyes started taking a few 4th of July retextures so I sent her my CotM on Twitter and once again she took it. This time, it was published. :)

Q. Could you explain your design choices to me with regards to the colours and textures used? 
A: I tried to make the placement smart and similar to the way the American flag is. I started by making the stripes on the top of the chicken red and white just like the stripes on the flag. Then I made the chicken's beak a deep red and the chicken body blue. I then drew a star shape that looks slightly indented into the surface. Next, I put a total of 13 stars just as the American flag had when there were the 13 original colonies. Finally, I added a nice rough texture to the blue part to add a nice 'Murica feel to it.

Q. What do you feel about the number of copies of your item that have been sold? 
A: I'm pretty happy that currently it's the rarest Chicken of the Month! I do expect this to change right with the next chicken as the price will jump up another 100 robux though, but 1101 copies is a pretty low number compared to the first few CotM's.


Thanks for reading! Make sure to check back tomorrow for the next part of this two-part series of 4th July retexturer interviews. 

-Arbirator
Editor of Roblox News