Like a "dead" super-hero, Friday Night Fights is back from the land of the unliving and crashing into your computer! Wait, maybe that's zombies I'm thinking of.
Regardless, the time has come again for an all-out, knock-down, drag-out fight pitting your creativity directly against other HeroMachine faithful in a week-to-week slugfest.
Here's how it works.
You have two weeks to come up with five HeroMachine creations. Starting on Friday, November 5, I will post all of the "Play In" entries in one big cage-match poll. On Friday, November 12, the top 16 vote getters will face off in a series of head-to-head matchups in traditional tournament bracket fashion. On Friday, November 19, the eight winners of each bracket will face off in another round of head-to-head matchups, and so on until we have one overall winner.
This is a bit different from last time, in that instead of just doing a "first come, first in" qualification process, this time everyone has a shot at getting into the tournament. Who actually does will be decided by the community at large, removing me as the gatekeeper.
Which brings us to the subject of "Theme". Your challenge in this Friday Night Fights is simple:
Create Robin Hood in Space.
That's right, you will come up with five Robin Hood characters, designed to work as a cohesive team in the same space-based setting. You might choose to go with a space opera look like "Star Wars", or a gritty techno-grunge "Firefly", or mech-dominated "Robo-Tech", or a magic-infused "Spacejammer", or something entirely out of your own imagination.
Will you design their look as a cohesive team, like the Fantastic Four, the original X-Men, and the Doom Patrol? Or will you go with a team of highly stylized individuals like the latter-day X-Men, the Justice League, and the Avengers?
Whichever way you go, Robin Hood and his Band of Merry Men must all come from the same shared, space-based creative universe, and they must include Robin Hood himself; Maid Marian; Friar Tuck; Little John; and their nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
Here are the rules:
- By the close of business on Thursday, November 4, you must provide to me via email (afdstudios@gmail.com) five character images created via HeroMachine 3, that meet the following criteria. Note that your entry must include all five characters; incomplete character sets will be disqualified and will not be eligible for entry later on.
- Characters must include Robin Hood himself; Maid Marian; Friar Tuck; Little John; and their nemesis, the Sheriff of Nottingham;
- Images must be in JPG or PNG format;
- No outside manipulation by any image editor other than HeroMachine 3 except for basic cropping;
- Each submission must also include a brief description of the space-based setting the characters appear in, and a brief bio of each character.
- On Friday, November 5, all qualified entries of the Sheriff of Nottingham will be posted on HeroMachine.com in a single poll.
- On Friday, November 12, the top 16 vote-getters in the Sheriff of Nottingham poll will face off in a series of head-to-head match-ups featuring the Friar Tuck entries, with the #1 vote getter being matched against the #16 vote getter, #2 going against #15, and so on.
- On Friday, November 19, the eight winners of each Friar Tuck contest will again face off in a series of head-to-head match-ups, this time featuring their Little John entries. Brackets will be re-seeded at this time, with the #1 vote getter from the previous week matching up against the #8 vote getter, #2 vs. #7, and so on.
The eight entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Little John entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like. - On Friday, November 26, the four winners of each Little John match-up will face off again in a series of head-to-head contests, this time featuring their Maid Marian entries. Brackets will again be re-seeded according to overall vote totals from the previous week.
The twelve entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Maid Marian entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like. - Finally, on Friday, December 3, the last two contestants standing will clash with their Robin Hood characters, with the top vote getting as of Friday, December 10 being the overall victor, joining the previous FNF winner Kaldath in the Ring of Honor, and receiving a custom color character sketch of whatever they like (within reason!) by Jeff Hebert. The runner-up will receive a custom black and white character sketch.
The fourteen entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Little John entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like.
Hopefully that makes sense. To clarify a bit, here is the bracket, along with each week's character (not including the "Sheriff of Nottingham" play-in round):
To ease the burden a bit, I'll do a Caption Contest on Monday, December 1 instead of another character contest for those of you who don't want the stress of trying to do five characters and enter the regular weekly one as well.
If you have questions, please speak up in the comments. And good luck!
LET’S GET READY TO *RUM-BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUULE!*
my space version of THE SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM! hope yall enjoy!
http://s102.photobucket.com/albums/m109/ALOYSIUS09/?action=view¤t=shriff.png
@ Jeff Question: should I attach entries to the email or send links?
kidspazz09 (2): You’re doing it wrong. You have to have all five characters done, and you submit them via email all at once, not as links in comments here. In fact, I absolutely do NOT want links posted here or elsewhere, as part of the fun is seeing each entry for the first time on Fridays.
Haxxx (3): Either way is good, whatever works for you.
Good luck to those who enter this version of Friday night fights. I’ll not be entering this time around, mostly due to the fact that Robin Hood in space doesn’t interest me.
seeing that i am from Nottingham I HAVE to represent! Let The wild Rumpus start!!!
crap. am i disqualified then?
No, you’re ok. Just no more spoilers!
Jeff question….I leave in 2 weeks for boot camp. Should I just not do this, or can I enter and just tell you what I want in the case that I should win and am not around to tell you what I want?
Huh. Well this might give me something to do this weekend after I catch up on sleep. In addition to trying to work on sketching. Yeah, maybe I should just not sleep.
I have a bit of a gimmick I wanted to try to work in, but rather than ask if its okay, I might just go ahead and do it, and see if it jibes with you, Jeff. As long as I work on the 5 Robin Hood characters in question, and they’re in a sci-fi space setting, it’s cool, right? And they’re not based on previously copywritten characters. And done solely through HeroMachine.
Well, let’s see how this goes.
Interesting concept. I just might get in on this one. Wasn’t there a cartoon show called “Rocket Robin Hood,” back in the day? It ran on just this same idea: Robin Hood updated and transplanted to outer space.
Hah! I was right! All hail Wikipedia, source of all truth and useless pop culture knowledge: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Robin_Hood
@Niall Mor: I said the same thing when Jeff brought the idea up on FaceBook. That show makes me feel old. At least I’m not the only one that remembers it.
@Myro: Actually I heard about it via a podcast I listen to, The Decoder Ring Theatre. All the cast members are Canadian, and one of the guys was saying he got the inspiration for his announcer voice from watching Rocket Robin Hood as a kid. You probably know the show was produced in Canada and shown up there more often than it was shown in the States.
Yup, I remember watching Rocket Robin Hood as a kid too. The only part that really sticks in my memory is the intro where the Friar was sitting at a big feast, taking one bite out of everything and throwing it all over his shoulders. In retrospect, I really don’t know how it ever made it to 3 seasons.
Yeah, I used to watch it every Saturday when I was young, and being Canadian, I have the unique experience of soaking up Canadian TV.
Still, I wonder if I’m the oldest one here. Also, maybe should yell at those kids to get off my lawn
Whats the e-mail address we’re supposed to send the characters to?
Ya know…this is some BS!!! I can’t even begin to think of how I can even TRY to fit this theme! All my stupid ideas are from my storys and pre-existing concepts! D”””X<
WAHHH!!!! I can't even compeit!
Do we HAVE to submit ALL of them???? Still not 100% on that…..Couldn't the theme have been Nazi, Zombie, Werewolves from space or something?
Myro how old are you 40 36? Ya can’t be that old yet can ya?
>__> Hmm….thats makes me wonder who the youngest is….I might be! NOOOO!!!!
Quick question.
Is the Sheriff of Nottingham supposed to be on the same team as Robin Hood or does he keep his enemy status and just has to be part of the same Universe?
alphaalpharomeo (9): No problem, go ahead and submit your stuff and if you win we’ll get it taken care of. Service in the armed forces should never stand in the way of good things happening!
GalacticKetchup (17): It’s right there in the post, the very first rule — afdstudios@gmail.com.
Nicholas (19): Judging from your posts, I’m going to go ahead and agree you’re probably the youngest one here 🙂 And yes, the theme COULD have been anything in the world, but it’s not — it’s Robin Hood in Space. If you feel like you can’t enter, no problem, there’s plenty of other stuff going on.
Alan (20): Good question! My original thought was that The Sheriff would naturally be the arch-villain, but I reckon if you wanted to think outside the box he could even be the hero, with the Merry Men being the bad guys. Why not? So long as they’re all in the same universe it’s all good.
Eh, thanks Jeff…..:D
Nice challenge! Glad to have a little more time to submit entries. ;9
I’ll have to admit, I’m a CC / FNF junkie. But it’s been like… 4 weeks in a row? Sitting here with my little IBM ThinkPad T40… getting a little burned out.
Bonne chance, tout le monde!
Nicholas: All I’m going to say is I’m in my 30s. I’m not going any further because of…umm…protecting myself from internet identity theft. That sounds good.
On September 3rd I turned 50, so I’m probably the oldest person here.
September 3rd of this year (2010).
@Danny: I’ll bet Hammerknight’s got you beat. 😀
I was going to ask how much backstory we have to come up with for our entries, but I guess Jeff already has that up in the rules. Maybe if I went ahead and actually read them.
Danny: It’s all good. The forum as a whole seems relatively mature, which suits me. Having a yardstick to base my age against does help me feel more at home here.
I’ve got 36 bright and shiny years under my belt.
Fair enough Myro! Always good to watch out for web pirates.
Myro (#16) October 22nd, 2010 at 7:57 pm
“Still, I wonder if I’m the oldest one here. Also, maybe should yell at those kids to get off my lawn”
I doubt that. I’m old enough to remember Bashki’s work on ‘The Mighty Heros’.
This sounds great, let the gmaes begin
*games
Let me see if i have it straight; the characters are Robin Hood & Co. in space, or is it Robin Hood-inspired characters? I mean, a character based on Robin Hood or Robin Hood himself. Thanks!!
Jordan,
I don’t understand your question. You have to submit Maid Marian, Little John, Friar Tuck, the Sheriff of Nottingham, and Robin Hood, in space. Take that how you will.
Got It! Thanks.
Hey Jeff, how many entries are there so far? (Just out of curiosity.)
I’m assuming that we submit just one group of the five characters? I’m kicking around a few concepts and having a hard time settling on just one. Thanks.
Then, ones that I don’t submit, I suppose I can post on an Open Critique Friday. :9
Hey,
I sent my entry last night, so I just wanted to make sure it went through okay
Freaks_geeks was my email did you get my entries? i had sent 2 because i forgot some info.
@Imp, why would you think that I’m over 50? I’m 40 and loving every… What were we talking about?
@Jeff: I sent mine from freethespam@cox.net. Since you always mention that you have internet problems, I sent them as hyperlinks with the characters and their backstories (like I always post on the board). Didn’t want to bog you down with attachments.
The pictures do follow the recommended format (AtomicPunk-Character.png). As for a “brief” description… I spent more time on the backstories than designing the characters.
Thanks!
No problem Atomic Punk, I’m glad you took the time to write as well.
I keep trying to think about ways to incorporate the stories people do into the site better. There is a writing / RP type forum on the UGO/HeroMachine boards, but that doesn’t integrate here.
As an English AND Art major, I’d love to get that writing in somehow, if anyone has any suggestions.
Also, just as a heads-up, with now less than one week to go there are only eight (8) entries. So your odds are looking pretty darn good everyone!
They came in slowly last time too, so I’m not freaking out. Yet.
Jeff, I should probably have my entry done by the end of the weekend. Want to make a few changes to both my Robin Hood and Sheriff designs. Also I would have to agree about the writing aspect getting included (although bugger if I can figure out how to do that.) Just that having to do a certain amount of world building (or in this case, galaxy building), which has been instrumental in determining the look of my characters, it would be nice if that work carried over to the people who are judging my work. At the very least, when I do write this up, it would be nice if you weren’t’t the only one reading this.
And the sentiment goes both ways. I would also like to read the backstory id everyone else’s creations.
Interesting Contest: you may have the best overall entry, but a weak ‘Sheriff of Nottingham’ or ‘Friar Tuck’ could do you in early!
Mine is almost ready: another day or two.
As far as the background story goes: How about a simple poll to vote on the best story through the duration of the ‘main’ tourney?
know what’s awesome is I have been waiting for this forever, I made an entire crew with my robin and marian, and now my favorite characters from that crew(except little john and the sheriff who isn’t on the crew)Can be posted all at once!So just my two faves, just wish my Dresselian Mercenary could be included but he isnt big enough to be little john……
hey jeff could i possibly have an alternate little john or am i only allowed one ? if so my mercenary will come with an image and slightly different back story.
You know what I love? Having spent hours trying to type out back-story and bios on my characters, and accidentally hitting a backspace key and losing everything as my browser decides to back up to the previous page in my e-mail. Dammit!!!
I’m doing this again on word processing and then doing a copy/paste. Stupid e-mail!
Jeff: Just to clarify: Are all five characters supposed to be in a single picture or are you supposed to send a group of five pictures, each with its own character?
-not that I can change what I have already done (five characters in a single picture)!
In rereading the rules above: this doesn’t look right: Two Little John all-in cage matches?
‘The eight entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Little John entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like.’
‘The fourteen entrants who did not advance in the tournament will also have their Little John entries featured in an all-in cage match, with the winner receiving their choice of any HeroMachine 3 item they like.’
VonMalcolm,
Each character is supposed to be separate, since each archetype goes against the other examples of that archetype. So all the Maid Marians go against each other, all the Little Johns, etc. Putting them all in one image would be a Line of Duty No. If you can just chop up your all-in-one image into separate ones, that’s fine with me, even if bits of the others intrude.
I didn’t correct the cut and paste as you point out, sorry about that — basically the idea is that there’s a “loser’s bracket” every week, featuring the archetype from that week. The eight people who got eliminated in Round 1 have their Round 2 characters go all-in cage-match, while the winners from the week before go head-to-head in their brackets for the purposes of advancement.
Oh my goodness: I have a lot of work ahead of me! I am not sure I am going to make it!
It shouldn’t be much work at all, just take the existing JPG or PNG of all of them together, and hack it up in Paint or Photoshop or whatever. I don’t care if the individual pieces are odd sizes, as long as each is mostly of just one character. You don’t have to recreate the whole thing in HM and then blank out the others to export, just hack up the existing flat image you have.
The copying and pasting would work well with my Maid Marian and my Robin Hood, perhaps even my Little John, but my Friar Tuck and especially my Sheriff of Nottingham are pretty obscured. I’ll work something out! Hopefully!
I could clear a lot of territory out by keeping HeroMachine at ‘single’, then repicking say the Maid Marian head and Voila all of the other heads would disappear, then just repeat with each body part or item and, somewhat quickly, single out each character.
An ‘Are you sure you want to delete this character?’ warning screen would be nice: I have accidentally deleted the wrong character twice now.
OK, entries are now closed. I’ll have the poll and contest for the first round up in a bit.
Jeff (44) & Myro (46) I agree it would be nice to have the writing aspect included. I have an interesting little story to go along with my character concepts that would help sell the characters. (I’m apparantly biassed though; of course I think its interesting :))
I image it would be pretty bulky for Jeff though and I will certainly undestand if he can’t incorporate them.