Building a WORLD with Battle Axe
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Battle Axe makes industry-leading tools for working artists. Battle Axe created Overlord, you know, the tool that Adobe somehow never thought of, or somehow couldn't crack. They cracked it, and everyone uses it. Battle Axe created Rubberhose, you know, the tool the entire industry used to pretend they knew how to animate characters (myself included).
Battle Axe is Adam Plouff: perpetual tinkerer, Lightning fast adaptor of all techs (niques & nologies), master of take what sticks and lose the rest - even if incredibly difficult to implement, fear-free iterator, modern-day genius, google alumni... they still haven't figured out how he did it, years later.
Battle Axe is a gem to the industry, a labor of love, and a foundational cornerstone in my own career and development as an artist.
In 2019, Adam began outsourcing the testing of a new tool meant to serve a different niche in the motion industry, hand-drawn animators that use Adobe Suite. TIMELORD. The spiritual successor to Overlord, and the 180º pivot from Rubberhose. Allowing cel animators to import your animations into Ae much more seamlessly, as well as useful timeline tools to bridge the gap in Photoshop, animate, etc.
I was lucky enough to be in the email chain of a handful of testers for the new tool. It was perfect timing, as I was recently deep diving into my animation practices and systems, and slowly leaning towards Photoshop as the dominant tool. The perfect storm in other words, as this tool actually changed and influenced my daily workflow for the better, right away. This also allowed me to be really thoughtful about what it is I wanted to see in the tool itself, and led to many suggestions for Adam. Some of them made it to the final, some didn't of course. It was so cool to see the app shift and shape around how I was using it. All these years later, still feels as essential as It came to be in that testing phase.
This raw excitement about Timelord, mixed with my previous years of admiration for Battle Axe and Adam, led to a cold email one dreary morning, in hopes of making something cool WITH Adam, not just on the sidelines:
Honestly, sometimes this works - most times it doesn't. In this case, it really was a linear continuation of that perfect storm described earlier. It just made sense, I felt it, Adam felt it. We were on like Donkey Kong.
The TIMELORD promo was one of the earlier directorial efforts in my transition to directing. That, plus ultimately tons of creative freedom, was so motivating. I find I do my best work when I'm driven by a passion for the idea, and vision. I've tried to manufacture this emotion, and that can suffice, but when it's really pure is when my best work comes. Definitely my favorite piece at that point in my career, and absolutely a high point all these years later.
As these things rarely do, this collaboration blossomed entirely into a prolific professional relationship as well as a real personal friendship.
Additional tool promotional films, Anubis, and then Rubberhose 3. Both of which I am also extremely proud of and had just as fluent a time working in collaboration with Adam - and his efforts building these tools. Not to forget a complete site refresh, with secret illustrated maps, custom animated hovers and breakdowns, newsletters with old animated computers, dungeons, spinning interactive logos, and general art direction for the Battle Axe brand.
We have worked unrealistically hard, spent thousands of hours refining what Battle Axe is, and it goes beyond just the tools. Its more than a brand that sells to working artists, it puts its money where its mouth is - and invests back into that art. Battle Axe is its own creative world. I think that shit is so cool, and you don't meet many people that are willing to invest deeply, rather than run away with the profits.
How could I not be grateful to have gotten to play a role?!
ADAM: Yeah. it’s like Timelord was an apartment in NY where your bedroom/bathroom/kitchen were the same thing. Then as you grow into a new place, you realize that you don’t have to keep your spatula next to your toothbrush. because you have a real bathroom now.
REECE: That's the best metaphor that could possibly exist. Putting that in my article.
This quote doesn't make sense here, but it's a beautiful peak into Adams's brain. Value, knowledge.
Adam and Family, illustrated by me as a tribute!
RIP Dahlia.