Artifex

Artifex's official commencement occurred on August 12, 2006. It started with the vague idea of penguinman that designers should be able to complete basically every part of an expansion pack and essentially make their own. He and two of his friends, Koala Komander and Mikaboshi started it up, and soon after Littlemog came to help out with modeling. Littlemog's time was, unfortunately, short, but from her help we managed to make new models which was a key part of making it seem like a new expansion pack. From there, Nique was added to the group to help out with the scenery objects, foliage and a few animals and a bit later SilesianTomcat joined to help out with models and coding. And the final member to join for the creation Arabian Nights was ShenTirag who helped out with a few of the scenery objects as well. Budgielover101 joined after the completion of Arabian Nights to help test and then work on the second expansion pack.

Unfortunately, two members have not been able to work on Island Excursions due to real life, Nique and SilesianTomcat. They, of course, are still on the team and welcome to continue working as soon as they are free.

Artifex's membership has already seen many colors, and we expect that to continue. We also assure you we have a lot of exciting features in store, so sit back, relax, and enjoy what we have to offer!

Penguinman was born in Washington State but now lives happily in Colorado, USA. He is very interested in animals, particularly animal behavior, and plans to peruse a career in this field. Due to this, he found and played both Zoo Tycoon 1 and 2, and found ZA shortly after getting ZT2. He has always enjoyed solving problems and using creativity, so the idea of user made animals was an instant attraction. Following the release of APE II and with help from SilesianTomcat, he managed to complete his first few animals. From there, he has taught himself all about coding and has traversed through more difficult terrain and continues to trek through more of it with each project.

Mikaboshi is a college student from Michigan in the United States, where she studied Graphic Design for three years and has finally decided to go into Zoology. She has always been a lover of animals, having two dogs, a cat, and a bubble-eating goldfish named Conan, as well as many other fish. She hopes that her love of animals will allow her to work with them for a career, much as it lead her to Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Admin. While browsing the forums one day, she was ready to take on the challenge of designing when someone requested a Przewalski's Wild Horse variant, and has been designing ever since. Recently Penguinman and her have teamed up to make projects under the Team name "Penguika" where she is able to skin animals without the "hassle" of having to code them, a dream come true for her. She is extremely excited to be working with some of the community's best designers through Artifex, and has high hopes for the group and its projects.

ShenTirag is a university student from Britain currently studying History. She shares her home with three cats and some fish and her love of animals led her to play both the Zoo Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon 2 series since their release. She was attracted to designing for ZT2 by looking at the wonderous collection of Current Project threads at Zoo Admin. Despite starting out in the deep end with an animal, she quickly settled on enjoying developing new scenery for ZT2, with a strong desire to enhance the realism and range of scenery available. Her involvement with Artifex is the first time she has worked on a large scale project with other designers, and is enjoying every minute of it.

Steenbok28 is a student born and raised in York, Northern England, and has lived at the same address since. Always around animals, his household has always had at least 5 animals in it at any given time. He currently has two dogs, a cockatiel, four rabbits and two horses.
He originally discovered Zoo Admin in 2004, but was quite daunted by the idea of designing! However, in 2007, he remembered the Zoo Tycoon community, and made a more successful foray into ZT2 designing, with the Brown Pelican being his favorite work so far.
He joined Artifex partway through Island Excursions, and looks forward to working with such talented individuals in a group.

Budgielover101 was born and still lives in Queensland, Australia, with her family and 3 budgerigars.  She has always loved animals, and became interested in Zoo Tycoon and its expansions from a demo.  Soon after its release she got Zoo Tycoon 2, which led to her finding Zoo Admin.  A while after joining and seeing all the amazing user downloads members were creating, she began creating animal variants and has been hooked on designing ever since.  She is very excited to be working with Artifex on their many projects, and hopes to continue learning more through every new idea.

Gloria is a visual artist, writer, crafter, and avid birdwatcher currently residing with her husband in Wyoming. She first became interested in ZT2 a few years ago after seeing user-made downloads at the Zoo Admin website. She purchased the game and immediately knew she wanted to design animals for ZT2. She doesn't have any pets right now, though she kept cats, dogs, guinea pigs, rabbits, hamsters, gerbils, and pygmy hedgehogs as a child. When not working on ZT2 projects she enjoys wildlife watching and other outdoor activities, playing DDR, drawing comics, reading, knitting, playing music, traveling, and several other hobbies.

Catc currently (happily) resides within the Los Angeles area in California, USA. He first discovered ZT2 after playing an old strategy role playing PC game, called Caesar III. He quickly fell in love with the genre, mostly due to the building a city aspect of it all. Wanting to learn more about games of this type, he scavenged a few shops and viola, he found ZT2! Getting stuck on a difficult scenario, he decided to search for help on the 'net. Not too long after the click of the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, he found ZA, a dedicated ZT forum. He was inspired by quite a few downloads ranging from many experienced ZT2 designers, and just knowing what they could do made him want to learn to design. Luckily, with the wondrous amount of help he received from Penguinman, this was easily a possibility. He was very excited upon hearing of his invitation to join Artifix and is very honored in helping out in any way he can!

Koala Komander is the youngest of the group. She lives in California with her family and her dog. Koala Komander's brother first introduced her to Zoo Tycoon, which has sparked her interest for all zoo tycoon games ,and then later on when it got released, she got Zoo tycoon 2. A few months after finding ZA and joining, she got hooked on making variants and skinning some animals. After all this time creating things for Zoo tycoon 2, she jokes that she still cannot code. She is also Administrator of a Zoo Tycoon fansite called Zoomania.

SilesianTomcat is the oldest member of the group Artifex. He lives in heart of Europe - Czech republic with his nice wife and two cute daughters. He always wanted his personal zoo, and his dream came true when he bought Zoo Tycoon and next Zoo Tycoon 2. His first user made animal was the Somalian Wild Ass in May 2005. His presently mostly amuses himself with the creation  of new models - meshing.

He has pets at home, of course; Two guinea-pigs and a big malawi cichlids tank.
His English is, unfortunately, bad. He uses 3D and painting programs but cannot create personal web, which he claims is a dishonor, so he is glad that gone among people who it can.

SilesianTomcat is currently absent from Artifex.

Nique is the 'oldie but goodie' of the group; a stay at home Mother who lives in Michigan now with her husband, two children, and a small zoo. The motto of the household: "There can never be too many animals." Currently, they have 3 dogs (2 Shih Tzu’s and a beagle/dalmation mix), 2 Parakeets, a Hamster, 2 turtles, 2 mini-crabs named Jack and Jill, a Leopard Gecko, and numerous fish!

Her real life love of animals made Zoo Tycoon a natural fit and the moment her oldest daughter introduced her to Zoo Tycoon 1 - she has been hooked on the game. She became interested in designing once she happened upon Zoo Admin and saw the beautiful creations others were making and soon was on her way to becoming one of the few designers specializing in scenery and foliage. "Each new project just opens doors to new and better ideas."

Nique is currently absent from Artifex.