Artist Joins Wingnuts to Remember The Darkening

Three-dimensional environment artist Michael Paul Cottam recently stopped by the CIC to share some of his wonderful history in the games industry. Mr. Cottam started his career in the mid '90s with EA Manchester working on Darklight Conflict and Erin Roberts' Privateer 2: The Darkening. The team eventually became Warthog Games, where he added Starlancer and Star Trek Invasion to his resume, among others, before moving to the US, Canada, Australia and Singapore to create art for other titles. A lively discussion is currently in progress over at the CIC Forums as Wingnuts recollect their experiences with some of these games. In addition to some of the fabulous Privateer 2 art shared below, quite a few cool & unused Starlancer art assets have been uncovered that Mr. Cottam created in tandem with Paul Jones. You can check out more at the Forums here!

Hi to all on Wing Commander CIC!

It's great to see a strong interest in the work we did so long ago. Reading your forum has resulted in a wave of modelling memories. I did a little modelling on Wing Commander when I was introduced to game modelling by Paul Steed during a visit to Origin in Austin Texas in 1993.

I worked on Privateer II the Darkening, Dark-Light Conflict and Starlancer later. I'm still making games at 50 and feel exited when I see Chris Roberts new game 'Star Citizen'! (Best wishes with that Chris)

We worked very hard on Privateer back then. Also, the equipment was not as good as today. Using an old ball mouse was painful after hours of use.

Can't believe you guys still play these games, it's great!