Category Archives: Super-Hero Stuff

General ramblings about anything super-hero related, from comics to films.

ReBirth!! The New, new, new, new, new, new DCU

Well apparently the folks over at DC comics are at it again with another reboot of the entire DCU! Coming this June and August the entire New 52 line of comics will be cancelled and all titles will begin at #1 following a special Rebirth issue.

You can find a little more information  HERE

Creators Club Poster 2015

(open in new tab to enbiggen)

download instruction links: Cover, wallpaper (warning clicking on characters in the poster/ wallpaper after following these links will result in rapid explosion of your skull, please make sure to wear a helmet before attempting. Oh and make sure you download the Zip file containing all the covers).

I have to say, MadJack seriously knocked this one not only out of the park, but possibly into orbit. Show him much love in the comments people. Also, I have to give a big hand to everyone who got themselves on the poster, everyones work looks incredible. Sorry that a few of you had to die during the creation of the poster, but just know that your sacrifice was not in vain and you shall be avenged.

We will of course be doing another one next year, so long as someone is brave enough to try and follow this, so if you didn't make it on to this years poster, make sure you're here next year.

But with that, once again thanks to MadJack for his work, and JR out.

Characters Of The Week: Anarchangel- Various Characters

Well, this week I'm reeeeeeeally gonna stretch my own rules. Whilst, there have been numerous artworks this week that I could have talked about (COTW regular RobM coming closest, go check out the latest work on his thread, it's pretty damn sweet), one person has been being consistently amazing with practically everything he's submitted this week that I felt I had to cover him. But when it came down to it, I'm an indecisive bugger, so guess what I'm gonna do.


 

Now, why am I covering multiple characters in a post that usually only covers one picture. Well, I have some very important points to make and Anarchangel is the best 'machiner to use when demonstrating all of those points at once.

First off we have a definite sense of style. If you look at all of these pictures together, it is immediately recognisable who did them, by certain defining factors. The shading style is very distinctive, very subtle, not overused or overshadowing the design, more of an enhancement of what is already there than a stand-out eye-catch. Which really works for Anarchangels style. He has a definite knowledge of light sources. If you look at his work you can see exactly where the light is coming from, because he's made it blatantly obvious.

Then we have inventive and well worked costumes. Two words I can use to describe these are cohesive and stylish. They look like they could actually be from comics or cartoons, even from a live-action movie. Anarchangel has a way of coming up with these really cool looking patterns with masking and insignias that other people wouldn't think of (best example here is Tokyo Rose). And then we have the colour schemes. Simple, clean and effective. You don't need to use more than 3 colours, maybe a 4th for detailing, but that's the limit. The only one of the above characters that uses that 4th colour is Aeon, and that is for two small aspects of the costume, and they all look fabulous.

Lastly, we have an attitude to the characters. You don't have to be the worlds greatest poser or face-maker to get across a character's personality, you just need to have an idea of it and see where it takes you. All of these characters has a definite character despite being in pretty much the standard face-forward pose and most of their faces covered, just by moving the hands a bit here, changing the position of the leg there and a bit of shading on an eye to finish it off. By just tweaking certain things you can change a characters personality from serious to silly, suspicious to incensed. You can imply action, movement or power through a simple hand gesture. All you need to do is look and think, "how can I say this with what I have".

A Very Big Question

Okay guys, I was thinking of doing a count down of my Top 10 Best Marvel Superheroes for my reviews profile on Deviantart as a way to celebrate the New Year, but I've run into a small problem. Who do I put on the list? There are some obvious ones; Spider-Man, Captain America, The Hulk, who have to be on it. There are some that you may not immediately think of who could qualify (Black Panther anyone? First black superhero, big deal) and then there are those who you'd never even consider, but still made a big impact on the Marvel universe (the original Human Torch or Ant-Man/ Giant Man). So, I've come up with a genius level solution. I'm going to let you guys tell me who to put on the list. Give me your list of the Top 10 Greatest Marvel Superheroes in the comments below, with your reasoning why they should be considered as one of the top 10 and their defining moment in the comics (it doesn't have to be their greatest triumph or what caused them to become a superhero, for example you could say that Spider-Man's defining moment was the death of Gwen Stacy because it was the first time that such a major character was killed off in the comics, or Iron Man's defining moment was when he became an alcoholic, because it made the super-rich, super-handsome, super-heroic Tony Stark more relatable as a normal human being).

So, over to you. Who are your Top 10 Marvel Superheroes (they don't have to be in any order if you want) and why?

Community Submissions: Superhero Movies You’ve Never Seen (And Why You’ve Never Seen Them) with Skybandit

Ok guys, time for the first of our Community Submissions, this week brought to you courtesy of Skybandit. Submissions next Thursday are now open. You can find the rules and other submission information here: Link

Anyway, I will now go away and leave you with Skybandit.

Continue reading

The Big Question Special: What Is Going On With Marvel?

Okay, so we all know the editorial staff at Marvel have been making some…… let's be kind to them and say, interesting decisions over the last 7 or so years, but really I don't know what to say about this one.

http://time.com/2987551/thor-marvel-woman/

So, there is a precedent for this, al-be-it a veeeeeeery flimsy one. After the events of the Ragnarok storyline in Thors comics, Loki possesses the body of Sif for a while. But that's a very weak precedent for this sort of thing. I mean Thor is Thor, big bloke with a hammer. The only time in the original Viking legends he comes close to going TG (that's transgender for those of you who don't know) is when he cross dressed in order to sneak into the hall of some giants who had stolen his hammer from him. One has to wonder why Marvel are doing this. I'm all for having more major female heroes, but this doesn't strike me as the way to do it. I mean Thor isn't a title it's a name, it's a character. Captain America is a title, The Hulk is a title, Thor is not (not that I'm saying they need to replace Cap or Hulk with female versions, we already have one for the Hulk in She-Hulk and the last time Cap was replaced it lasted all of 5 seconds before Steve Rodgers was back in the spandex). Or we could do the smart thing and just introduce more female heroes, without screwing with established characters.

But that's not the only thing I have for you guys today. Nope from movie land we have this piece of absurdity.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136178-Fantastic-Four-Reboot-Movie-Wont-Be-Based-on-Any-Comics

So, let me get this straight, you're going to be making a comic book based superhero movie, right, with characters with 50+ years worth of backstory and history, right, but you're not going to be paying attention to any of it? Plus, to stick a dagger right into the heart of all the fans, you're not even going to be using the team name at all outside of the title? Really?

Really?

I'm done. Bye. I have nothing more to say on this matter.

Creators Club Poster 2014

Ok guys, I've finished putting together this years Creators Club poster. First, I'd like to thank all the creators who entered, seeing all your work was really awesome. Sorry, a few people didn't send me the text files for their entries so they didn't end up on the poster (I struggled to fit everyone on as it is).

You might want to open it in a new tab to see it in more detail. Funny thing is, the poster was much bigger than it ended up whilst I was creating it, something must have got compressed during the export, so sorry about that.

If anyone else wants to do next years poster, I'm ok with that, but otherwise I'll try to come up with an interesting theme for this time next year.

Jackrabbit Cover Design: Costumes

I've done a couple of covers for Friend of HeroMachine and author Ian Thomas Healy. The next book up in his "Just Cause" series is a more humorous super-hero story titled "Jackrabbit". We thought it might be fun to include you all in the cover design process, so over the next couple of weeks I'll be making posts here about how it's going.

Continue reading

The Big Question ♯23

Now, some of you may remember back in the summer, I ran this series called "The Big Question" here on the blog, where I'd give you guys a topic, give my thoughts on it and then let you guys discuss it. It got dropped by the wayside because I ran out of topics that really interested me, but recently I've been going back through them and something sparked my interest. It was one of the earliest BQ's, on the topic of why Batman is so popular. Some of the answers I got were very thought provoking, so I started wondering, what about other characters. So that's what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks. Discussing the reasons for the popularity of two of the greatest and most popular superheroes in existence. Starting with this guy.

Wolverine-Wallpaper-wolverine-3508352-800-600

Continue reading

“Just Cause” free today!

Friend of HeroMachine Ian T. Healy has made his existing "Just Cause" novels free for the Kindle today only in preparation for his upcoming "Deep Six" release. Check out the trailer (featuring some HeroMachine art, by the way):

If you're looking for some entertaining super-hero fiction, this is a great opportunity.