The Faces Behind The Illustrator (from 1994)

[mikew]

I posted this on Facebook but after the interest in the Sterling photos I thought it might be appreciated by MCB members

These photos are from the 1994 NPPL World Cup in Florida. In the first photo you can see Mike Oaks (left) holding an F2 illustrator whilst on the right Ken Farrell is holding the then new armed forces training pistol. Mike handled marketing and sales whilst Ken handled design and engineering. I spent a fair bit of time with them during the World Cup. They were both very passionate about their products and a lot of fun to be around.

The second photo shows Mike and Ken at the 1994 World Cup after game dinner. Whilst the final photo shows an armed forces training pistol. The image behind the marker is on a promotional t-shirt that they were selling at the tournament. Both t-shirts and posters were available in a Terminator themed design featuring the F2 illustrator. Very nice! I snagged a couple of each but they are long gone now.

[Walker]

I still have my poster hanging on the wall.......

[mikew]

Nice to see one again!

[Brokeass_baller]

God, I love that hi-gloss early 3D-ness.

[MrKittyCatMeowFace]

I want that green one!

[infamoussmiley]

I wonder if the phone number still works.

Smiley

[Brokeass_baller]

Dear. God. I LOVE that green anno.

[Grendel]

I shot an F1 Illustrator for a long time, even after I got into Automags and HPA. They were light and well manufactured STBB markers way better then any later to come Spyder. The F2 was a great improvement except the barrel which while a good stock barrel ignored the aftermarket barrel craze. Sad that most players think of Spyders as the first mass marketed STBB when in fact it was a poor knock off of better markers.

Side note the F1 was vastly superior to Line SI's original Promaster. I was forever "fixing" two of my teammates' Promasters and all I had to do with the F1 was screw in a bottle with some air tool oil and hand tighten the cocking handle occasionally (or risk loosing it while playing).

[Pumpytrilly1]

Thanks for sharing!

[maggot]

Here's a pic of that shirt from the Tim Schloss collection.

[Brokeass_baller]

Tim Schloss? About when did he quit paintball? Because I swear, when I referee'd PSP, I reported to a Tim Schloss, or something very similar. Circa 2008.

[maggot]

He still plays and owns a field. https://www.facebook.com/Mikes-Paint...77034923996478

[The Inflicted]

Was the F1 ever considered "high end" or had the Mag and Cocker already cemented their place in the market when it came around?

[Grendel]

The F1 originally was directly competing with the Automag and Autococker for their part of the market when they first hit the market (as well as Line SI Promasters, kinda). On my team we had a mix of Automags, Autocockers, Promasters and lonely me with the F1 Illustrator. This is right around the time when factory teams (and HPA) started to be a thing and that is when the Automags and Autocockers started pulling ahead. The teams getting sponsors started pushing out the variety on teams and F1s and F2s got pushed to more of the secondary market.

I actually had a hard time choosing between the Automag and the F1 Illustrator. I had the opportunity to try both over the course of a tournament weekend and had issues with consistency with the Automag (CO2 was not the Automag's friend) where the F1 just purred along even when clouds of CO2 were coming out the barrel. I knew I could mitigate the CO2 issue with the Mag but like the lightness and CO2 friendliness of the F1. Later when HPA (N2) started to become more available I moved from the F1 to the Automag.

[Brokeass_baller]

That's a great story, Grendel

[SETHZILLA!]

Place marking for RuleofSines to post about the secret package he's about to receive from me....

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

[DocsMachine]

Was the F1 ever considered "high end" or had the Mag and Cocker already cemented their place in the market when it came around?

The original Illustrator came out, as I recall, in '90. And at that point neither the 'Mag nor the 'Cocker had earned anything like their eventual crowns yet. The 'Cocker was still suffering from unreliability issues, caused by the early LPRs (which were, in fact, terrible) and the 'Mag wasn't doing much better thanks to most people trying to run CO2 on a standard back-bottle setup.

Keep in mind the VM-68 was one of the 'kings' at the time, largely simply because it was reliable as an anvil. As long as you had CO2 and paint, it just kept going and going.

The Montneel guns were only a bit behind, but were harder to get, more expensive, and not everyone liked having to run siphon.

By the time the F2 came out, the 'Mag and 'Cocker, thanks to considerable support from the aftermarket (Palmer's "Rock" LPR almost literally single-handedly saved the 'Cocker) had solidly risen to the top, and blowbacks- including the cheap and crappy Poison, the even cheaper and crappier Stingray, and the cheap and slightly less crappy Spyders- started being relegated to "entry level guns".

So, yeah; it was considered "high end" for a few years, but the 'arms race' quickly put the bigger dogs out past it.

Doc.