i can't get over how shitty this thing looks now that it's finished. i spent frigging eleven hours on it and it came out looking like complete crap.

But whatever. Here's Vladimir "Tonkin" Ioseyfivich. He's twenty-four years old. A Loner, meaning he's not part of any one Stalker faction. He was a member of Freedom a while back, but while he still agrees with their goals (allowing free access to the Zone for everybody and if possible propagating its growth in some way), he had a very minor serious falling out with the leaders of the faction when it started to attract what he termed undesirables--people who were so stoned or drunk on a daily basis they could hardly stand up without help, much less pick up a gun and fight Duty incursions. Sickened with the self-destructive open-door policy his former faction adopted, Tonkin stole away in the middle of the night one stormy evening and began working alongside the Mercenaries (a secretive and efficient faction composed mostly of private contractors trapped in the Zone from an earlier military operation), severing all ties to his old friends and often shooting them without remorse when his new job required. A few years later, Tonkin left Mercenary service and assimilated himself into the "ranks" of the free Stalkers. While his contractor-blue Sunrise suit sets him apart visually from his companions, his quiet and unassuming manner and the way he quickly and capably solves any given tasks ensures people leave him alone. Quite recently, he has joined Genka Popov's Stalker crew and works alongside him (her?), searching for valuable artifacts near the once-forbidden center of the Zone. As the Mercenaries let nobody in on their secrets and most of his Freedom associates are dead, he lives a relatively untroubled life with his new friends.

Tonkin's Sunrise suit is the blue and black scheme of the Mercenaries and has Merc patches sewn into the sleeves and hood, although given the free-for-all nature of Zone politics everybody assumes he merely "liberated" the suit from somebody else. It has ample Kevlar and leather protection and the tarpaulin bodysuit underneath the vest is properly rubberized and protected from radionucliedes via electrostatic coating elements. Tonkin carries a Heckler & Koch 413 assault rifle with a cold-steel forged barrel and integrated suppressor, and often uses a "Mera" SUSAT scope in conjunction. The firing pin has been weighted in a manner unusual for NATO firearms and strikes with less frequency but a much higher amount of force, resulting in faster bullet travel and less trajectory degradation. He also carries a Heckler & Koch USP with an anatomically-fitted grip and an ample supply of extended magazines, although it has no technical modifications to it. Tonkin's anomalous activity detector is a third-generation "Veles" class with a backlit LED screen that actively tracks the signatures of over five hundred different artifacts and warns of anomalous and radioactive signatures within twenty meters with an allowance of less than half a foot. Four F1 defensive hand grenades round off his arsenal and ensure he never goes into battle unprepared.