2018: A Retrospective

Well, everyone, I’ll admit I didn’t know what to write about. I haven’t done anything, haven’t seen anything (thanks, weather) lately. This was very close to just being pictures of and talking about my cat. But instead let’s talk about 2018 and what happened. Of course now I went from nothing to write about to lots to write about, but we’ll start here. So this is my year in review. Not really in any particular order, just the things that made an impact on me this past year.

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CDC #395 – Public Domain – It’s Magic – Prize for Ubiquitous Pixel

UP's version of Mr. Strange...

My version...

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CDC #395 – Public Domain – It’s Magic – Results

Runner Up this week is Kellkin for the Darkbringer; the effects are great and the modern take on the costume is really well done. Seriously man, this came very close to taking top spot.

But the win this week belongs to...

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CDC #396 – Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.

Pictured above is Stench, a villain I designed for a CDC eons ago. Stench started life as unpopular Toronto high school student Nathan Cooper, nicknamed Stench. due to his affinity for stink bombs. Ten years, and a chemistry degree later, he is now an expert in toxic gases which he uses with deadly results.

Your CDC challenge this week is to design a hero that will become Stench’s arch rival.

The winner will receive a HM3 rendering of their winning entry by yours truly.

Please follow the instructions below regarding the naming of entries.

You may enter up to three times.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. Please keep all submissions PG13: full or partial nudity is prohibited. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warning. Only post characters that have been created solely using Hero Machine, and that you know for certain have never been entered in a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine :,ImageShack, Deviant Art or whatever);Do not use Photobucket.

  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • No copyrighted characters please – they will be deleted.
  • Please name your filesas [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.

Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this).

This contest will close at noon Eastern on Monday, January 14th.

CDC #394 – Songs of the Season – Prize for Thundersong

Thundersong requested that I rework his character Lily.

The original...

My version...

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CDC #395 – Public Domain – It’s Magic

This week your CDC challenge is to re-imagine one of the public domain magic characters listed at the link below.

http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Magic_Characters

The winner  will receive a a HM3 rendering of my version of their winning character.

Please follow the instructions below regarding the naming of entries.

You may enter up to three times.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. Please keep all submissions PG13: full or partial nudity is prohibited. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warning. Only post characters that have been created solely using Hero Machine, and that you know for certain have never been entered in a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine :,ImageShack, Deviant Art or whatever);Do not use Photobucket.

  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • No copyrighted characters please – they will be deleted.
  • Please name your filesas [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.

Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this).

This contest will close at  noon Eastern on Monday, January 7th.

 

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey- First Thoughts

Hey everyone, time to ring in the New Year! And I’ll be doing it by telling you about Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, or, the game that might turn me around on this whole franchise. This first-thoughts-review was supposed to go up yesterday, but I of course got hung up researching Minoan and Mycenaean frescoes and well, you know how it is. But anyway, let’s talk about the game! No spoilers either!

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CDC #394 – Songs of the Season – Results

This week's winner is Thundersong who created this beautiful piece...

In order to turn you into a hero for your prize, please answer the following questions:

Gender? Favourite Colour? Second favourite colour? Favourite superhero? Least favourite superhero? Anything else I should know?

Your prize will be posted to the blog later this week.

New Cosplays!

Hey everyone! I was going to do an opinion/editorial-type post about Disney live-action remakes, but then I decided I didn't want to do something possibly quite negative right before Christmas. So instead I was just going to talk about some fun new cosplays that I'm working on/planning. Also hoping to show some of these off next year somewhere, although we don't have anything planned as of yet. So here we go!

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3D Items For Cosplay

The reason I started HeroMachine so many years ago was because I knew most people were bursting with creativity, but they just lacked the physical skill of actually drawing what their imaginations were inventing. A quick browse through the forums shows I was right -- you all do amazing work and I am continuously staggered by your work.

I recently found a guy online who brings that same philosophy to cosplaying. Nikko Industries provides downloadable files you can 3D-print to make creating awesome cosplays much faster and more accessible to those who -- like me! -- have vivid imaginations but lack the physical crafting skills to bring what I imagine to life.

I had a lot of fun taking a crack at trying to replicate one of his 3D items in HeroMachine 3:

Helmet in HM3 next to an actual 3D printed helmet

I think I got pretty close!

If you've ever wanted to get into cosplay but were intimidated by all the crafting involved, and you have a 3D printer, check out his stuff! He's a really cool guy and his files are fantastic.