Comic books are all about two sides fighting it out, and that kind of head-to-head battle has been sorely lacking here at HeroMachine.com. But no more! Because starting this week you'll have your chance to duke it out with each other in our new contest feature, "Friday Night Fights"!
Here's how it works. Starting next Friday, November 20, sixteen challengers will square off in a set of eight head-to-head battles. The highest vote-getter in each match will move on to the next round, again vying against one competitor for top vote-getting honors. We'll go four total rounds, going from sixteen challengers to eight, to four, and then to the finals matching the two bracket winners against each other:
- To enter, create one and only one image for each weekly theme -- super-hero, fantasy, sci-fi, and open (meaning it can be whatever you like) -- and email the four images (or a link to them) to Jeff Hebert at afdstudios@gmail.com by Wednesday, November 18!. Make sure I know which image is for which week and remember to email them, do not post them in the comments!;
- None of the submitted characters can have been submitted to a contest on HeroMachine.com before; you can only enter one set of characters, so choose carefully!
- If there are more than sixteen people who wish to enter, I will pick what I think are the strongest sixteen for the contest;
- When your character's match is open, tell your friends to come and vote vote vote! Each person can only vote once per day, but can vote every day of the week if they're so inclined;
- Each match will last for one week, with the winner being the top vote-getter of the two as of that Friday;
- The winner of each match will move on to the winner of the match from the appropriate bracket game;
- The final four will get to choose either a portrait of themselves or an item of their choice to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 program. The overall runner-up will receive a custom black and white character portrait of whatever they like (within reason), and the overall winner will receive a custom color character portrait of whatever they like (again, within reason).
I would like to thank my buddy John for coming up with this idea in the first place, and then further helping me refine it. Thank you Mr. Hartwell!
I'd also like to tip the hat to Bahlactus for starting the original comic-book Friday Night Fights. They're very different from this one, but any time you have super-hero types duking it out online, I think you need to warm the cockles of your heart (wherever those are) with thoughts of him.
Good luck, everyone who decides to enter!
Is it just characters, or is it scenes? Backgrounds?
Also, do you want stories?
I feel I ought to tell you — I used the Heromachine for an assignment this week! We had to do revamps of a fairy tale, and I did Snow White with superheroes. For one, Heromachine has helped my productivity instead of hindered it. XD
Jeff, I love this idea.
It’s up to you HK, trick out your submission however you like. No Photoshopping except for cropping, though, I should have mentioned that.
Stories are optional, but I’ll include it if you put one in.
Glad to hear I actually got to HELP productivity for once PhoenixTalion!
Thanks Legatus!
Only 5 days!!!! Holy sand-in-the-hourglass! Dunno if I can pull it off, but I’ll give it a crack this weekend…If I can pull myself away from CODMW2 long enough. 🙂
Bracket One is SuperHeroes, now I am sure this goes without saying and really doesn’t need asking but I am going to ask anyway just for clarification ,,, SuperVillians are allowed also correct ?
@Kaldath: Yes, villains as well.
@Gene: For me it’s Dragon Age: Origins but yes, I feel your pain 😀
Another issue came up — do you think the creator of each piece should be listed in the contest, or just the character name without the creator? Some feel having the creator’s name will influence things positively for some, negatively for others. I don’t have a strong opinion one way or the other, what do you all think?
If we’re voting purely on character design, then I’d say leave the creator names out. However, what’s to stop them from telling their friends who to vote for?
Are we voting on the costume or do we think the entrant would win a fight with its opponent?
I think leave the creator name out. Runt does have a point in that the creators will ask their friends to vote for them, but that will only make up so much of the votes. I think that seeing who made a certain entry will have too big of an effect on the votes it gets. Someone like HK could just enter the first item in the Male Standard Head slot, not even coloured in, and make it to the 3rd round if his name was on it ^_^
I like the premise but I have a question, For people with character threads on the UGO forum can they send in those characters if they meet the requirements?
@GreenBat: My thought was that you’d be voting on which design you liked best overall.
@TopHat: As long as it wasn’t entered in another HeroMachine contest, it’s fair to use one from a UGO thread. As long as it’s yours, of course 🙂
@Gero: Good point. Says a lot about the guy that Hammerknight is the one who brought up the idea of not putting the creator name on it, doesn’t it?
Ohh yeah… looks like my the characters for the Supreme Battle Arena will fulfill some use after all…
@Gero, thanks for the complement, but I don’t feel my name carries that much weight. If you notice I haven’t won a contest yet.
This is an outstanding contest idea. I guess I know what I’ll be doing after work on Saturday… 😀
My vote is leave the creator’s names off. More non-partisan that way.
Like Imp said, this is a fantastic idea!
is it like a battle royal: 16 enters and only 1 leaves
i bet theirs going to be tons of entries for this contest
@kyle, Jeff said only one set per person so that will narrow it down alot.
So, wait… are you having it with brackets or without? How you explained sounds like a free for all with all sixteen, but the picture shows one-on-one battles leading to the finale. Could you explain a bit more on that?
Yes, brackets, a set of eight head-to-head battles in the first round, with the winners advancing to face each other in four head-to-head matches in the second round, etc. leading up to the two finalists.
So to win, you’ll have to win four total head-to-head matchups. Just like the NCAA tournament.
If we don’t get 16 entrants (which is looking possible), then I’ll go with 8 or whatever.
Dang, I’ve only got two entries… entered. For those of us who are slackers- er, perfectionists, what happens if we don’t have the last two round entries yet, can we still proceed with the superhero and sci-fi round, as long as we have the later round submissions to you in time for later this week?