Well, I’m afraid to say it, but circumstances in my life are forcing me to go on hiatus for an unknown amount of time. It’s a number of things and personal issues that I have to deal with. I’ll still be around though, helping Jeff occasionally and answering questions that show up in my old posts, but for now I’m not going to be able to run weekly blogs.

I don’t know what Hammerknight has in mind yet, but he’s agreed to step in with Hammerknight’s Recipes, which so far seem to be geared more towards what people are asking for anyway. So good luck, HK!

For those needing a quick reference on (useful) things I’ve already written–

Introduction to Human Bodies In HeroMachine 3

Masking Cool Animal Legs and Custom Heraldry on Shields

Queer Eye for the Superhuman Guy! (the weird superhero story)

Studly Male Poses and Looking Different Directions

Alluring Female Poses and Provocative Hair-Masking

The Official Masking Tutorial Work-In-Progress

Yes, “questions” includes requests for step-by-steps, but those take awhile to make, and until my “State of MY Union” post, I wasn’t as aware that so many people wanted it broken down like that. I’ll do my best to serve!

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Sorry I’m so late today! As promised last week, here’s is the follow-up to my Super-Sizer Poses Post. I have to say, I felt kinda dumb neglecting the larger and more detailed problem of creating females.

Oh, and just so there’s no puzzlement from Thursday’s post, Hammerknight is doing some work or something for his stuff and asked that I go this one solo instead. Just so you don’t think that I’m neglecting him.

So without further ado, let’s begin! (more…)

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The one thing I wish I’d done at the beginning of this would be to give a basic art instruction course on the human form. I’m not terrific at drawing a human form, mind you, but I remember enough from those classes to teach it to you on here. And who knows, maybe some of you WILL use some of it to go draw, who knows? (more…)

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This is Damien, back from my “vacation” at the inlaws, and I decided to ask a very important question.

How am I doing in my job here? I know there are people who like my stuff  and my efforts on Jeff’s behalf, to keep comments posting regularly and stuff like that. But what of you nay-sayers? Are there those among you who don’t like me, or think I’m a hack writer? Maybe think I’m too pretentious? Obviously those who are ignoring me wouldn’t be reading my posts much, so I’ll ask right here. Am I doing ok? What needs to change?

(Loyal fans, please let them have their say and not start a flame war, okays?)

Next weekend or before is going to be a special “Females ONLY!” Poses Post, so tune in next time!

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Damien here with the super-giant post on how to make the head-on views of HeroMachine 3 work in your favor! (Or at least not hold you back too much.) So give a big hand to Violodion for suggesting this…almost a week and a half ago, I think? It’s been awhile!

Anyway, when Jeff first unveiled HM3 with the new “full-frontal” view, many people including myself were somewhat disappointed.

“Why the change?” we asked and complained.

Well, to be honest, as I’ve helped Jeff out for the month-ish I’ve been working with him, there is one very noticeable flaw in creating HeroMachines:  (more…)

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Sorry to make this one so much shorter, but I’ve had a busy week, done a whole other new Masking tutorial (see right, over…no, up now…there ya go, Quick Links! Check it out and let me know if I missed anything!) and a super-awesome Saturday post still in the works. So here we go with the unofficial Finding Inspiration sequel from last week! (more…)

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Damien here!

All right, apparently we still haven’t gathered all the relevant information into one blog post. So I’ll give you, right here, a comprehensive list of the abilities and faults concerning Masking. Mostly, it will be a reiteration of everything I’ve said on the subject in other posts and comments. (more…)

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That’s right, today is a BONUS Mechanics of Creation, requested by Whit and seconded by RSC5 within literal seconds of each other. So any brain damage or seizures should be blamed on them. I don’t know if they have a really good RSS feed or if they’re stalking me. But either way, I am bound by the rather fuzzy terms of my contract with Jeff to write about whatever the dwiddle I care to, so here we go!

(Edited to add: Hey you two, I am so sorry that it turned out like this. I had no idea it would grow into this abomination. Forgive me?)

Today’s subject is going to be MASKING. Apparently there’s a whole lot more people having trouble with this  than I thought, and certainly others who must want some pointers. So I’m going to tell you a little story about a guy named Mr. Blank. Blankey here is a normal guy who wants to be a cool superhero like Ratman, The Green Batterin’ or Sliderman (patents pending.) But he has no way of doing all this without a spiffy costume, so it’s time for Queer Eye for the Superhuman Guy Damien’s Masking Tutorial! (more…)

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Time for the latest DamienBlog! Today we’re going to look at the idea of “What you see isn’t what you get.” Now, for many of you who’ve been with this site for awhile (especially you contest finalists!) there’s a certain familiarity with the program that allows you to make stuff up from items that weren’t intended. Now, I’ll help pass this idea on to those who may be struggling with it. (more…)

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Sometimes it’s difficult to find a new source of inspiration for a particular project. I find that happens both as a writer and an artist. (I use the term “artist” loosely, since I haven’t really drawn anything since HeroMachine 2 came out…) But there is inspiration waiting for you everywhere you look, if you just find it. I recommend taking a notebook to work, assuming you don’t have anal-retentive bosses who hate notebooks. (I’ve had a few…) Jot ideas down as you go through your day, no matter how ridiculous. (I once had an idea with little meadow creatures who dueled with feathers, but I ended up dismissing it for its similarity to Redwall. You know, that immensely popular series with little critters acting medieval…?)

Orson Scott Card, the famed author of science fiction, fantasy, and dabblings in other genres once said that a good story starts with two radically different premises that work against each other to create conflict. (No, this is not a direct quote, I’m just typing it the best I can remember.) His book Ender’s Game pitted a plot of teaching children to be military geniuses against a plot of invading aliens. And he included at least two major plot twists towards the end whose consequences reshaped the story entirely for the reader. His story has since won numerous literary awards and is studied by military academies for its insightful look into military training techniques. The point is, he created an awesome story with two opposing ideas, neither of which would have been promising material without the other. (more…)

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