You started with the Gladius. Tell us the story of working on the Gladius.

I'm just going to do a share screen then and I'll show you a few bits and pieces. So this was the first ship that I did working together with Mr. Jones. So what you're seeing on your screen now is one of the earliest attempts at what a Gladius might be. So obviously it looks a bit hacky looking at it now. I've got to say as well, this is what, six, seven years old, Paul?

Yeah, this is pre-metric, pre-everything really.

I mean, when we started, we had none of that stuff nailed down, did we? It was a wild west. It was just figure it out as we go forwards.

Pre-knowledge, we were just discussing, weren't we? I thought I knew spaceships because I'd built some previously, but I really knew nothing about spaceship design at all. So for me, it was a real trial by fire. But Chris was just like, you need a ship for Squadron. Just get one built, like a medium fighter, a light fighter, the Gladius.

So you see it quite quickly starts to get refined as we're working together. And you can see even right back at the beginning, the Gladius had a certain manifest destiny right from the beginning. But you can see the shape coming together quite quickly. I think one of the things I always loved about working with you, Paul, particularly, is that whenever we get our teeth into something, we get a lot of progress quite quickly, it feels like. We move when we work. And I always really appreciate that.

I mean, I think we have a good understanding now, basically. So it's like a support system. Obviously Gav does most of the heavy lifting and I sort of come in and just zhuzh it along in places.

It's a little more than that. This whole thing was pre-promo piece too. So when we were doing this, we weren't doing promo pieces. It was just to get a look at the ship. So my deliverable, I mean, it still is, but back then, my deliverable was these two images, this one and this one, to get a look at the ship. These look so bad and old now. I've got to apologize. I feel like I've grown a lot over the last six years.

It's just the wear, isn't it? We don't do wear like that anymore.

No. I delivered this and also the 3D concept mesh for the build team, because all this comes from a 3D model. But this is back before we did promo pieces, right? So this is just images to see.

No, I mean, I took this piece because there was a point that we did need to do some promo for it. But I think I did two images. It was almost like an old war piece, like a collectible you'd find on a desk and it'd be worn. It's got a coffee stain on it and stuff like that. I think that was probably the start of the promo.

I actually have that. I've just found that.

That was the studio's first ship. Once it got built, once it got put into production, that had a lot of love. There was at least six to nine months on that ship.

I think this is one of the things about it that bugs me too. The end result in the game came out so beautifully that I don't feel like my concept art shows that off. So I'd love to be able to go, look, I've got all my Gladius work, it's so awesome. And I've just got a couple of really cool scrappy little images to show. And the end ship's beautiful. And when the build was finished, it was gorgeous.