Anyway, taking a break from the current series, because of a special occasion. I do believe I’ve just hit 2000 posts. And when I reached 1000 posts I did a run down of my top 10 favourite creations that I’d made on heromachine up to that point, so I thought I’d do the same again. So lets take a look at my favourites in the last 1000 posts and thank you to everyone who has commented on this thread, whether it be complement or critique, I appreciate every comment.
Anyway.
10. Alyria
This one is the earliest on this list, from my Manokindd series. It was the first time I’d tried multiple colour blending on one item and I was inspired by AlexanderOfLimbo’s Mummy character, especially the colour fade that he made on the skin, going from white to normal skin tone, the first time I’d ever seen that effect, so I took it and ran with it. Plus, using those eye tattoos was fun.
9. Grawrp
Oh. My. God. This took AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGES to shade, I think that it was about 4-5 hours (at a very conservative estimate) altogether over 3 days. I loved doing the entire Galactic Guard team, but this one just pips Mira Abina as the best of the bunch, because basically everyone said so. But I’m so not doing that much shading ever again.
8. Butterfly Dress
I’m going to go on record and say that the Fashion Contest I hosted on the blog for CDC41 has to be my favourite contest we’ve ever had on the blog, the quality of entries was just stellar, it was so hard to choose a final 5 (which is why it was the only time I’ve done an honourable mentions section afterwards) and this was the result of seeing all of those entries. Inspiration overload. I have to give a big shout out to Trekkie though, because I completely ripped off the shading style from their entry. I never realised how much you do on your works until I tried to copy your style, how do you do it?
7. Colours Fade
I feel that this piece is probably the most under-rated of my works, in terms of how much attention it got (two comments I think, and one of them mostly focused on the lyrics I posted along with the picture) compared to how proud I am of it. Maybe it’s just the fact that I made it and I know what inspired it, but this picture just bleeds emotion to me. The character is blind in case anyone was wondering, and if you notice the blood stained bandages behind her back, presumably in her hand, as well as the bloody tear from her left eye, you can start to form a picture about what happened, but I’ll leave that up to you. Either way, I have to include this one, because whilst it may not be my best, this is my FAVOURITES list and this should actually be higher up if I was just basing it solely on emotional pride, but there are others Im more proud of technically (if that makes any sense). This list was so hard to decide.
6. Rainbow Wings/ Guardian
Now lets talk about one that got a lot of attention (and so far my only HOF nomination, although it didn’t get in). I think that at least 4 people are going to steal these wings at some point and I will admit, that is a bloody brilliant effect, even if I do say so myself. And it’s not that difficult to do.
5. Little Black Dress (+Little Black Dress 2 by Jeimuzu)
This one had to be on here didn’t it. So far to date, my only “collaboration” with another ‘machiner and boy did it work well. I’ve talked at length at least twice about how much I love Jei’s style, so I won’t go into it again (go and search Character Of The Week on the Blog if you’re interested), but I will talk about my half. I totally stole ideas from Harlekin for the dress, he managed to do silk/ velvet perfectly, so (as with Trekkie earlier) I just studied every little detail. And then we have the face and pose, they turned out perfectly from my perspective, giving off just the right shy aura with that touch of mystery. This is a good ‘un.
4. Kira Saiban
Speaking of good ‘un’s, ever had a creation that you just randomly started with no plan at all, that then ended up being one that blows peoples minds. Well I’d say that sums this one up. Also Atomic Punk wrote a truly brilliant duologue companion story on his Tell My Story thread (what ever happened to that AP, did you run out of submissions? I loved reading the stories you came up with). Just everything about this one turned out right, the expression, the tattoos, the pose, the costume. Pretty proud of this one.
3. Higher
Now this one has a backstory. This piece was very cathartic for me. I was at the time going through one of the worst periods, if not the worst period of my life. My cat had just died, then a week later my Grandad had a stroke and I was going through a pretty bad bout of depression. I can’t even look at the page in my gallery that this piece is on because of the feelings the other works on that page bring back. Fortunately the song that inspired this piece helped me through it and I felt I had to turn the feelings the song gave me into a piece of Heromachine art. I don’t know if I captured them perfectly, but it really helped, so it has to go on this list.
2. Meditation
Up until recently, this was my favourite piece I’d ever done and I still feel it’s probably the best work I’ve ever done, especially the red girl. Everything I did here is the best I’ve ever done. It’s all very minimal in terms of the character design, but it contrasts well with the backgrounds. Plus it’s another music inspired one, this time the English progressive rock band Anathema, who do very relaxing, chilled out stuff, so that’s what I was going for and I think I succeeded, and most of the comments I got would suggest others agree.
1. Angel Wings
If you’ve been on the blog recently, you probably knew this was coming, but I will say it again, this is my favourite thing I’ve ever done on Heromachine. I had this idea in my head for months, but I could never get it to work, because none of the wings we had in Heromachine at the time worked for what I wanted. But then comes along MadJack with these wings and it all just clicks. New favourite item ever. I couldn’t really explain why I love this one so much, especially not in the way I’ve explained the last two. I don’t know what it is about it, everything just feels right. I seem to have a thing for doing tattoos, and this is probably the best example of that (I managed to sneak those wings in twice there), plus the shirt just rocks. By the way, did I mention that I love those wings.
Anyway, that’s my list, now over to you guys. What’s your favourite of my creations and why?
Here’s to the next thousand.
