Hi from Tony (aka. Tonnichiwa) {Now with actual pictures}

Tonnichiwa

Hi everyone, I'm not really sure what to put in here so maybe some random things about me.

Random Thing #1. I was kidnapped when I was five years old and travelled around the country with my kidnapper until he hit a motorcyclist with his truck and I was rescued by the police. To this day I see pictures of places I have never been but I could swear that I've seen those places in person.

Random Thing #2. I joined the United States Navy right out of High School and went to Asia for my tour of duty. I participated in lots of military drills at sea, particularly the ones that make North Korea so mad. My ship was the most well armed Guided Missile Destroyer in the US Navy. We participated in supporting the Philippine Insurrection of 1988 when Ferdinand Marcos and his wife Imelda, the shoe hoarder, were replaced in a peaceful insurrection by Corazon Aquino . I also got to go to Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Brunei Darusalam.

Random Thing #3. At one point I had a job within my community watching child molestors who had been let out of prison but were not trusted to be alone in public. So what I was hired to do was watch them all day long to make sure they never had a chance to hurt anyone again and keep my community safe from them.

Random Thing #4. What do I do for a living? This one is fun. I'm an armorer. Yes, an honest to God Armorer. I quite literally make armor for a living. I make body armor for the United States Military and police forces around the United States of America.

Random Thing #5. I'm a twin. Yes, there are two of me running around. Scary thought right?!

Random Thing #6. I've been playing various versions of Dungeons & Dragons since 1978. I used to draw maps of dungeons and fantasy lands all the time when I was younger, especially when I was sitting in church with my mom and bored out of my mind. So I have always had an interest in making maps and pictures and things like that for my games. So when I was at a friends house in 2013 he showed me a version of Campaign Cartographer 2 that he had sitting on his gaming shelf. I was, of course, immediately interested, and jumped online to have a look at the company. Shortly after that I got my own copy of CC3 and started working on my first map, the Inn of the Globefish from the Dungeons & Dragons Oriental Adventure module called "Night of the Seven Swords".

Anyway, here are some of the maps I have done. I admit though, I haven't really made a map in a while. I still love doing it, but I just haven't sat down to do so.

Medio

Another Navy man! At this time we could charter a boat!! :D

[Deleted User]

What a life story - fascinating (and scary) right from childhood. So glad to hear from you again Tony.

Loopysue

Hi Tony! :D

What a very strange adventure you've had so far.

Thanks for sharing. I remember some of those maps when they were new.

Monsen

Thanks for sharing Tony.

I just love that the occupation of armorer is still a thing.

Is your twin anything like you?

Tonnichiwa

@ Medio

Yeah, we could! What I used to do for the Navy was Operations Specialist. That's the guy that runs the surface radar, the air traffic controller radar, receives all of the top secret communications and translates them back into English, navigates the ship using Dead Reckoning Tracers and other navigating equipment, and too many other things to list.

@ Quenten

Lol, yeah, that was a strange time. Nothing in my childhood was normal, well from an American standpoint anyway. Good to hear from you too Quenten.

@ Loopysue

Yep, very strange. Story of my life it seems. Yeah, I need to get to mapping again. But I keep getting distracted because I am still trying to learn to code. I've got most of the HTML language down and the same with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Now I'm working on learning Javascript. Sometimes I wonder how all of you computer coders out there were ever able to learn all of this stuff!

@ Monsen

I do too Monsen, it tickles me every time I think about the fact that I actually get to make armor for the military of an actual country. It is a very old tradition and now I am part of that tradition. But, to be honest, I did make a suit of armor for myself when I was in my 20's, though it was made of hot rolled 16 gauge steel and in the style of the Samurai. A guy I knew back then saw me wearing it and asked me to join his painting group as a model wearing the armor. So I went to the studio, which was a very rich persons house in the Seattle area, (yes, they had servants and everything) and went upstairs to sit for a portrait. When it was done, the person who painted the best one actually gave me the painting, so of course I gave it as a gift to my mother.

My twin brother and I used to look more like each other when we were younger, but things changed when we got older. But sometimes we still finish each others sentences and say the exact same thing at the exact same time that we were both thinking. It really freaks out his wife and grandchildren.

Monsen

@Tonnichiwa wrote:

But I keep getting distracted because I am still trying to learn to code. I've got most of the HTML language down and the same with CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Now I'm working on learning Javascript. Sometimes I wonder how all of you computer coders out there were ever able to learn all of this stuff!

Ah. Coding is great fun. I remember I started back when I was about 8, had just gotten my first computer, a Commodore 64. Those were the days. Plugging away in BASIC.

Once you've grown up from this web stuff, you should learn C++, then you can follow my XP tutorials and learn how to program addons for CC3+.

JimP

I don't know javascript, and barely understand CSS. I used to hand code my web sites, but didn't understand all of it. My biggest html site was about drive-in movie theaters. Thousands of them. People started copying my work, and claimed it was theirs. So I took the site down.

Tonnichiwa

So here is my suit of armor and the portrait. So now you all know what I looked like in my 20's.

@ Monsen

I've actually got a C++ learning course from Udemy so I can learn it eventually. I wish I could have gotten into computers way back when the commodore 64 was around. I was very poor then and could not afford a computer. It wasn't until the 386 came out that I was able to finally start learning about computers.

@ JimP

Wow Jim, that's really amazing! I don't know how you do it! Sorry to hear people started stealing your work, that really sucks! But building a site without actually knowing what the code means must have been hard. I know it would be for me.

JimP

Copy and paste the html. Once I had a page I liked, I just changed the picture link, the title, filename, and uploaded it.

Changing the site menus became a pain. Never had a need for javascript back then.

My first computer was a Sinlcair ZX-81 which had 1 kilobyte of ram, with token BASIC. Later I bought the 16 kilobyte ram pack.

Monsen

Love the painting, that's really cool.

Tonnichiwa

@ JimP

Oh, yeah, that is the way a lot of web developers do things. Basically they don't like to rewrite the same code over and over so they will just copy someone elses code, especially if it is something basic. Great idea Jim.

@ Monsen

Thanks. I just wish I really was in the environment that this person painted me in. It would have been a nice relaxing day. As it actually turned out, it took well over seven hours to paint that and I had to sit there the entire time. By the time it was all done my leg muscles were really sore from sitting in the exact same position for so long. Overall though it was not too bad.

Barliman

That first map, the one of the mountain town, is one of my favorites you've done. Didn't you also do a video on creating it? I seem to recall thinking it was very helpful.

Loopysue

That's not good. The models in our college Life Classes were allowed to go into their own little private room every half hour and come back after a 10 minute break. Mind you - they were nudes, so I guess you couldn't really expect them to sit there all day without a break to freshen up a bit every now and then :)

Tonnichiwa

@ Barliman Yeah, back when I had my video's on Youtube I did a video of techniques I used to create a map like that.

@ Loopysue Wow, lucky students!

[Deleted User]

I still have all your videos. You also did a brilliant desert type city for Cartographers' Guild, and a beautiful city you did on an estuary - any chance of putting them in a gallery here - they are very inspiring. Also, your Tudor isometric buildings, and painting-like Empire of the Sun style maps. You have much to offer in way of inspiring maps.

I have kept a copy of all your maps as reference for my future efforts and inspiration (never any plagiarism, or sharing with others though).

I hope to do a city like the ones you have done, for the Atlas some time. Can I persuade you to do some too? Nearly all maps I make for my world, I also adapt for the Atlas, and vice versa.

Tonnichiwa

Wow Quenten, I had no idea you kept all of my video's. I don't even have them anymore.

I thought about starting that back up again but with Ralf and Monsen doing their videos I am not sure I would be able to offer any more than they already do. I also had no idea you kept copies of those maps. That's really cool!

Yeah, I have been wanting to get them up into the gallery, I just haven't done it yet. And so you know, I've been secretly working on the city of Nyxotos in the Kalliochos Republic of the atlas. But I keep seeing flaws in my work that I want to fix so I haven't even come close to finishing it yet. It is done in the style of Mok Torkan so it should look really good when it's done.

EDIT: Ok, I've added a few more maps to my gallery.

Monsen

@Tonnichiwa wrote:

I thought about starting that back up again but with Ralf and Monsen doing their videos I am not sure I would be able to offer any more than they already do.

More videos are always welcome. We all have different ways of presenting things, and there are lots of topics out there not covered by anyone yet. And time is always an issue for us all, so the more people making videos, the more topics can be covered in a reasonable time.

Ralf

I agree with Remy, there can never be too many videos. :)

Lorelei

Fascinating life-so-far story, Tony. It's nice getting to know y'all a bit more with this thread after all the years some of us have known each other via the forum ?

Tonnichiwa

@ Monsen & Ralf

Hmm, good point. I'll have to think about if I have the time to do them anymore. Though I did recently think enough about it to find a way to show where I've clicked something in the vide0. That was one of the biggest complaints about my videos last time. People apparently couldn't see where I would click my mouse. So now if I make a video there will be a big circle that focuses down onto my pointer. It is an interesting trick to watch.

@ Lorelei

Thanks Lorelei, It is kind of funny the we didn't really know that much about each other when we were helping each other learn this program way back when we first started. It's really nice to see how far we've all come from when we were beginners in this program.