Ladies & gentlemen and welcome back to our program. We from The GUN Insider have yet another great interview for all of you people to read. It's another duo interview from two known modders: Dogtooth and Unoctium.


GUN: Please tell us a little about yourselves. Where you live, how you got into gaming, your social security number and mother’s maiden name. What you do for fun in real life outside of gaming.

DT: Well, I’m Payton, or as most of you know me, Dogtooth! I currently live in Escondido, CA; a small town in San Diego county! I really didn’t play a whole lot of video games growing up thanks to my conservative upbringing, but my best friend Roman had the classics, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Prince of Persia, and eventually, being the gamer he was, Halo: Combat Evolved!  As for fun, well, I don’t really do a whole lot, but I love to hang out with close friends, many of which have been discovered through my work over the years.

RE: If I lived in America, I would tell you all of those things - but I live in the United Kingdom and we don’t have social security numbers. I live in Glasgow to be precise. Don’t have too much time for gaming, ever since I got into modding - but I can always slip into 4x strategy type games, as well as other RPGs like Bioware-like stuff (Though I’ve been on the first hour of Mass Effect Andromeda for half a year now.)

GUN: How did you end up working on mods together?

DT: We both worked on the New Vegas project, “Fallout: Lonestar”, where I was an artist. He just reached out to me one day and asked if I was interested in doing some work together.

GUN: Speaking of Lonestar, it appears from their Facebook that development of that mod has continued for F4. Are you still involved with that team at all?

DT: As of this moment, no; Chris operates on the basis, that as a group project, it can never truly be cancelled so long as a single member holds the torch. It’s an admirable goal, and I personally, would love the opportunity to work with Chris, Max, Jackie, Jack, and the rest of the original team again. But currently, Lonestar lacks the most important resource of all: time.

GUN: Was the T-60 for NV the first project you did together?

DT: The T-60 was definitely not our first project; it was our first project to release though! We’ve made maybe 10 or 11 other characters for companion mods, as well as armors and clothing (which I’m sure you’re all too familiar with at this point).

GUN: How was the reception for the T-60?

DT: I’d personally say the reception was a bit shitty; I had only been able to work from a single leaked image, which of course, skewed the perspective a bit (our T-60 was widely known as the “sad power armor” thanks to that. We also had some competition, another mod author Trahvin (excellent dude) decided to make his own interpretation of the T-60. I personally don’t really believe in the whole “better” thing, it’s more differences of interpretation in a concept, unless it comes down to fundamental things. But that didn’t stop the community from having a little fun and making “teams”. I do think that hurt the reception of both our projects, and lead to a reduction in overall interest in both.

RE: I kind of bail out and have already moved on by the time the user-base has decided to get all contrarian about our mods. Though I think I remember still working on the T-60 mere hours before the release of Fallout 4 - also the Riddick mod funnily enough. I definitely remember the reception to the T-60 being more positive and more patient than the initial reception to our FO4 mods.

GUN: I'm sorry to hear that the reception was not overwhelming positive. People say nasty shit on the internet so you expect a degree of that, but I think maybe people don't appreciate the difficulty of the task with which you were presented. To work from one concept image and bring them a suite of custom armors… and then to be teased for it, that’s just wrong. Is there anything in your experience that you would like the casual gamer to know that would maybe cause them to rethink negative comments like those?

DT: Personally, I don’t take major issue with people critiquing works; in fact, I encourage it. But I do believe that many people tend to dichotomize themselves into the “user” and “developer” sectors thus encouraging a bit of a strange mindset. The “user” does not have the knowledge to understand exactly how much work goes into something but the “developer” responds to user criticism thinking that they do have that knowledge. Kind of a funny little cycle there since people get pissed off and nothing really happens.

GUN: Can you tell us about your lesser-known projects for NV?

DT: Lesser known projects? Well, I’m sure there’s a lot! We did completely revamp Veronica (and honestly, my skills were nowhere near where they needed to be!). We made Brick, a dim-witted melee character, Annie the shotgun toting cowghoul, a wonderful pre-war Ghoul scientist who’d been locked away and gone mad (explosives expert), a prototype T-47 Power Armor, and an interpretation of the Athena Prototype Power Armor from the oil rig.

RE: There was also Chauncey, the Super-Mutant, who is also an NCR Drill Sergeant--not to mention a Legion assassin character.

GUN: Ah, I think you're both referring to the screens Dogtooth shared at one point for models that were never released. I remember those got tons of endorsements. Do you think you'll ever go back and finish up any of those NV projects?

RE: Definitely.

DT: I’d definitely love to revisit all of our old NV projects, now that I have refined my abilities even further.

GUN: And how about things you did on your own? For example, Dogtooth, you had Practical Portraits. You can still find pictures on the NV image share from time to time of the semi-ghoul race.

DT: I don’t frequent the NV imageshare very often, but it is definitely cool to see that my work is still so frequently used, even if things like Practical Portraits are relatively broken for the average user.

GUN: Can you tell us about your releases so far for FO4? How has the reception been?

DT: Fallout 4 has been a wonderful experience, and I’ve learned a hell of a lot since Bethesda so gratefully released their plugin! We started out bringing back the NCR Ranger armor from Fallout: New Vegas, which was a blast! It was sad to have suitable tools sooner, but we made do with what we had, and it was working in-game, with physics within two hours of Figment releasing the Niftools plugin! Than we made the self-labeled X-02. Forgive me for hijacking your interview for a second! However, the X-02 was in no small part an homage to the late Adam Adamowicz, the primary concept artist at BGS for a very, very long time. I’d appreciate it if y’all reading this interview would check out the links at the bottom of the page for more info on the incredible Adam Adamowicz. That project meant a whole lot to me, and was our first foray into the new way that Power Armor is handled. Looking back, there are many things I wish I had done differently during its development, but I am happy with how it came out.

RE: The reception has been good, especially since we were new to the Creation Engine - and we made a few mistakes that are easily rectifiable today. I definitely like experimenting with each new release - like for example recently, when we released the X-02 Cryo armor as an update to the X-02. Releasing something that was familiar, yet new (as opposed to release a whole new mod,) was an interesting experience - at one point, the update for the X-02 was keeping pace with the Hellfire in terms of endorsements and downloads. It’s the anniversary for Fallout 1 soon, and I guess this is a good place to announce that we are updating all our mods(except the Hellfire) with Fallout 1-themed additions. It would be interesting to see if the ‘familiar, but new’ effect happens.

GUN: Wow! You heard it here first folks  

Dogtooth, you have worked hard to promote yourself and get the attention of Bethesda Game Studios. Is your goal to eventually work for them? What progress have you made to that end?

DT: I have worked very hard to get their attention, that’s for sure! I got into 3d art because of the talented people at BGS, and I learned most of what I know from inspecting their artwork

GUN: Dogtooth, speaking of getting into 3d art, your modeling and texturing abilities have grown greatly over the years. Are you self taught? What advice do you have for others looking to learn your craft?

DT: Yes, I am wholly self-taught; the extent of my “formal education” when it comes to 3d art is sneaking out of my English class to make use of the Game Dev lab at the Media Arts Collaborative Charter School (my high-school, Hi Ms. Oya!). Nearly everything I know has been learned from reverse engineering the art of Bethesda games, as well as extensive googling for terminology. The Polycount community was also an incredible help over the years.

GUN: Dogtooth, we have been friends for quite a few years now at this point. I think we have both witnessed firsthand how easily players can forget that modders are people just like them. You've recently struggled with an eating disorder that not a lot of people are familiar with. Do you mind talking a little about that? How has this affected you personally and how does it affect your creative process and output?

DT: Sure thing man. So, obviously, that’s rather personal, but I try to remain abundantly transparent about everything when it comes to what’s going on with our work. Essentially, as some may have noticed, about a year ago, I stopped streaming (twitch.tv/dogtoothcg). At some point during those preceding months, I developed a random and overwhelming fear of swallowing; the simple act scared me. It began slowly, I was able to eat normally, but it was always succeeded by overwhelming panic; over time, I began to restrict my eating habits to times when I would be off camera, to give myself time to recover before going live, and before bed.

That, unfortunately was the beginning of a major hardship in my life. As many people who comment on videos in which you can see my face/body have pointed out, I look like I “don’t eat”, or “do crack”, amongst other observations regarding my weight and pallor. At the beginning, I weighed a very low, but stable, 98lbs. As time went on, my fear became more and more powerful, certain foods began to scare me, just thinking of them made me panic, my diet dwindled down to a very select few foods, namely, burritos, quesadillas, and Reese’s Peanut butter cups. I stopped swallowing entirely, I would drool everywhere to avoid it, burritos and quesadillas stopped. Roughly 8 months ago, I stopped eating nearly all solid foods entirely, and subsisted on Peanut Butter cups, coffee, and cigarettes alone. I stopped sleeping nearly entirely, and completely lost touch with any sort of emotions. Essentially, as many of my fans call me, I became a zombie.

I worked, for upwards of 18 hours a day to keep my mind of the overwhelming hunger pains, and terror associated with the thought of sating them. The coffee and cigarettes helped keep them at bay, but after months of that diet, I had dropped down to 86lbs, and could barely walk outside to smoke, or get out of bed in the morning. Six months ago, I stopped eating altogether--afraid of even the soft consistency of Reese’s cups--and subsequently collapsed on my first excursion outdoors in months. I was unable to walk for even a half mile before my body dropped to the ground in the middle of an intersection.

I was hospitalized for a month, and I spent the majority of that time itching to get out so I could get back to work... and it took a toll. It was so hard for me to accept that I had an issue. Despite the fact that the specifics of my eating disorder is disturbingly rare, and has no definite treatment, accepting that I could no longer sustain my life on my own and checking myself into a treatment center has truly saved my life. It’s been over a year since this fear developed, and while I still struggle to eat anything of any serious volume (Sorry Obsidian friends, the big burgers are out for now!), I am happy to say that I am currently the heaviest I have ever been, healthier than I have ever been, and capable of eating whatever I want with minimal effect.

And I want to also thank our fans that stuck around and were accepting of the lack of updates during that time; those of you on our Discord that asked, and those of you that made “Dogtoothcg Hospital” one of the top related search terms for my name!

GUN: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. I’m sure I echo the sentiments of the community at large when I say I am glad to know you are on the path to recovery.

Personally, I hope that anyone who reads this will be encouraged to do two things. First, if you are struggling with any kind of disorder, please have the courage to seek help. There is no shame in it and you should always feel empowered to pursue your personal wellbeing. Second, I hope the readers will be reminded that modders are people with lives that encompass much more than modding. Whenever you are asking for a modder to make or tweak something, you should never lose touch with the fact that it’s just another person you’re speaking with and not merely a resource for one’s gaming pleasure.

Getting off my soapbox now and back to the interview…

Two projects of yours that have gone over very well on the nexus are the Chinese Stealth Suit and Hellfire Power Armor for Fallout 4. There are now versions of both of these items on Creation Club. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Bethesda would have done something different if they'd realized you had free versions of these items available? Or, do you think maybe they knew about your mods and realized that there was a demand in the community for these models?

RE: As far as I know, it was all a coincidence - and Bethesda weren’t really informed about our mods. For e.g the CSS didn’t have as many endorsements as our first mods - it also made very little headway on Bethesda.net - so it might have gone over Bethesda’s head. Also while a lot of people knew the Hellfire was coming out, it’s impending release might have been missed by Bethesda. If they really wanted to muscle in on the demand, they would have released their version of the X-02 - a much more prominent armor than both the Hellfire and CSS.

DT: I don’t think they knew anything about it at the time. I believe the CC core is not composed of artists from the BGS core team (could be wrong), so they wouldn’t really be familiar with our work, unless they’re a fan (If you are, hello!). As far as doing things differently, I don’t believe they would have altered things visually in any form; it’s their IP that we were recreating, and they did an excellent job at reproducing those concepts extraordinarily faithfully to their original counterparts.

GUN: Tell us a little about “the road to liberty.” I'm a member of the Discord and mistakenly thought RtL was the team name for the FO3 mod. Can you explain the distinction for us?

RE: I was originally going to call our NV mods part of a series called ‘Road To Vegas.’ The name having two meanings. One, would be the idea of going on a ‘roadtrip to Vegas’ and kind of adding to Fallout: New Vegas. Two, it would be a public ‘roadmap’ where everyone can know what is coming out, and when. Unfortunately ‘Road To Vegas’ has not yet been realized - I did come up with the “sequel” name of ‘Road to Liberty’ not too long after though. I called it ‘Road To Liberty’ because of the revolutionary war theme of Fallout 4 (also because the game is very linear, and the ‘Road To Liberty’ would make it less so.) We’ve only made armors so far, but I hope to add quests and characters that will accomplish that original spirit.

GUN: Unoctium, your skills deal heavily in the scripting side of things. How did you learn the trickier side of the GECK?

RE: I started with machinimas - as you know, I made the trailer for the Courier’s Cache. I also made the trailers for Beyond Boulder Dome, the Inheritance and a handful of other New Vegas mods. I took up some simple scripting to make trailers more versatile, and more easier to do. I also kind of drifted through large projects like Fallout: Lonestar and Project Brazil learning more code - and generally how gamebryo games work. By the time, Fallout 4 came along it was easier to jump from Obscript to Papyrus, than from nothing to Obscript.

GUN: As a scripting illiterate, can you tell me a little about Papyrus and Obscript? What are they and how do they differ? Does Obscript help make F4 a more stable game than NV?

RE: Well, both F3/NV and Fo4 use obscript. Difference is, is that Fallout 4 uses Papyrus as a virtual machine to interface with obscript. The benefits are is that Skyrim or Fallout 4 can store properties (inputs that reference objects in the world) in this VM, and then execute them when needs be. Obscript operations would take up processing time, which is noticeable when inefficient scripts tank your frame rate - I’m sure many of us are familiar with that with our extensive mods in FO3/FNV.

Papyrus is different because the virtual machine acts as a kind of gatekeeper for the scripts. So if the script takes up an inordinate amount of processing time, it’s put aside, until Papyrus can decide when would be best to fire it. That way, script processes don’t affect frame rate or other processes in Skyrim and Fallout 4. One downside to this, is that there is always a small delay when it comes to Papyrus script - where with Obscript, you can execute any function immediately.

The best way to imagine it, is with Obscript you are a mechanic interfacing with the engine directly - Sure, you have complete access, but anything you do wrong can potentially cause a lot of damage - where Papyrus is the software which controls your engine from the safety of your driving seat. If you fuck-up, there is no issue - and you can even do a little extra - but there is something between you and the engine.

GUN: Not to pry, but I have to ask. What mods do you have on your to-do lists? Can we expect more classic armors or are you going to venture into original territory? Also, you said you hope to add characters and quests. Any hints as to what you have in mind?

RE: I’ll keep you updated

GUN: Enough said! Well, thank you both for taking the time to share with the GUN community. We are huge fans of your work and we are lucky to have you both in the community. Best of luck in your future endeavors. We can’t wait to see what you create!


There you have it folks another great interview brought to you by our very own interview team. A special thanks to @dragbody for doing the interview and setting it up again, to @keatit71 for his help with the spell checking. Ofcourse a great special thank you to our two interviewed Dogtooth and Unoctium. Stay tuned for another issue and this The Gun Insider signing off.

It was a pleasure speaking with these fine gentlemen! I hope you all enjoy the read as much as I did.

What a nice read for the night =3
Glad to see Payton healthy again! Good luck with the future projects guys.

Awesome fellas with awesome skills, I love this duo and I will always be happy to see new content made by them. I'm also glad that Payton is healthy now, your advice is really helpful to the many people out there.

These guys are absolute legends! Every time they put something out it drops my jaw how good it is. I'm just going to say it.... their hell fire armor was better than the CC one. Great interview once again guys.

This was an excellent read

It's great to get an insight into the minds and stories of some of the best modding talent out there - learning a bit about the people behind the mods is always interesting

On a side note I'm glad to hear DogTooth is on his way to recovery

Thank you to Dragbody for the interview, this one is golden

Great read, loved this article. Good to hear Dogtooth is recovering! Some awesome insight to their mods and modding. Love learning about this stuff!

That was actually a really Nice read, I was not aware of Dogthooth's condition but I'm glad he was able to get help and is recovering. and it was cool to hear about how Unoctium learned his trade. Also really glad to hear there working on new things as well as continuing with updates to the old one.

If you guys somehow see this, I solute you.

Wow thats crazy cool. These guys make so many mods together its like two people working as one. Really cool read.