Author Archives: AFDStudios

HM3: Male spandex update

With Mark Shute's advice, I have refined the way Legwear is apportioned and, accordingly, have updated the Legwear-MaleSpandex set of items for HeroMachine 3. I've added roughly double the number from before, and you can see how I'm breaking them out here:

When I first did Spandex, I was on my high horse about the "right" way to use HeroMachine 3, using layers and masking and patterns with just a handful of the basic items to make pretty much whatever you want. Since then, I've moderated my thinking and understand that not everyone wants to work that hard, even the hard-core users who know how to do it the more advanced way. Also, the true vertical and horizontal patterns don't always look right when laid over the angled legs. So I ported over the most popular legwear patterns from HeroMachine 2, including the fishnet, the stars, and the hand-drawn chain mail.

Mark helped me set on a template for how to divide the leg up per the online discussion we all had, so hopefully it will be easier and more visually persuasive to manually position these pieces for alternate poses.

Due to the tapering of the bottom of the thigh, it's harder to make different length "shorts" with these spandex items than it will be when I give Pants the same treatment, but the idea is the same.

Anyway, hope you like this update. I'm now going to return to Pants to try and get those in line.

RP: Then kiss me, you wicked savage!

(From "Captain Flight" number 2, 1944.)

HM3: Rifles and Heavy Weapons

All-around All-Star Mark Shute has completed the ItemRight-Rifles set of items for HeroMachine 3, and it is now available for your shooting pleasure! He wanted me to pass along the following notes on the set:

  1. There are four empty slots at the end of the rifles set in case a contest winner wants a special rifle.
  2. A few items were moved from Rifles to Heavy Weapons to make extra space. That's why I wanted to hold on to the final rifles set until the HW set was ready to debut. I didn't want any items to disappear completely.
  3. There are LOTS of empty slots in the heavy weapons set. I have like items grouped together (seriously, I must have some sort of OCD). Hopefully there will be enough requests to fill in the gaps.

But that's not all! The careful reader will have seen item 2 and thought "But there IS no Heavy Weapons set!", and thereby be led into confusion. Never one to foster confusion (except for tonight during my fantasy football draft, when I will encourage our new members to draft all kickers and defensive backs in the first four rounds), I am very happy to announce that Mark has ALSO started on the ItemRight-HeavyWeapons set, AND the first batch of items is already posted and ready. How's THAT for coming back strong from a holiday weekend!?

OK, granted, all I did was delay Mark's hard work by a week, but still.

Here's a preview of those Heavy Weapons items Mark has produced to date:

This is your chance to request specific items to go in this new set for Mark. He prefers links to images showing exactly what you mean, and ideally they should be in the correct side-on orientation -- he can't produce these from photos with, for example, the barrel pointing mostly at the viewer, they need to be seen from the side.

Be sure to thank him for all his hard work, these are great items that I would have been much (much) slower at producing and which probably wouldn't have turned out half so nice. Great job, Mark!

RP: Larry Flynt, super-hero

(From "Silver Streak Comics" number 1, 1939.)

Caption Contest 83 Winner!

Lately I've been putting the Caption Contest Finalists up in visual format for you all to vote on one as the winner. But this week, I just thought one was so clearly the best, I'm going with it. Congratulations to the winner of Caption Contest 83, and any item or portrait he wants in HeroMachine 3, Bob Loblaw!

Other ones I thought were also funny included:

Nick Hentschel:
BOX: “American Idol’s” ratings continue to decline….
BALLOON: “If you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it…”

Phatchick:
Box: Bender’s secret weekend gig…
Balloon: “Welcome to Robo-Hooters!”

Mr. Q :
Box: The results of the FBI saving J. Edgar Hoover’s brain speak for itself.
Balloon: Who wants to kiss the briiide?!

Gregg:
BOX: But now, driven to the final extremity, Skynet unleashed the most dastardly enemy John Connor would ever face…
CAPTION: HASTA LA VIVA LAS VEGAS!!!

Mr. Q:
Caption box: The worlds first robotic Rocky Horror Picture Show fan.
Balloon: LETS DO THE TIME WARP AGAAAAAIIN!!

Bribo:
Box: New to the CW’s Fall lineup…
Buuble: Hillbillies In Spaaaaaccceeee……

joel:
Box: by the last season, Battlestar Galactica was just getting desperate.
Balloon: I’m a Cylon!

Congratulations to Bob and thanks to everyone who entered! You can enter the character contest going on now, or you can wait till next week for another caption contest if you prefer.

RP: Dating made easy

(From "Silver Streak Comics" number 1, 1939.)

Character Contest 43 – Laborer

In honor of the American holiday of "Labor Day", your character creation challenge for the week is to come up with a character who in some way incorporates the concept of a laborer, your basic person who works with their hands and tools in some ways. Ditch diggers, brick layers, construction guys, assembly line workers, the people who go out and toil away in the hot sun getting their hands dirty.

Only in this case, they do it with super powers.

Some examples from the comics would be "The Absorbing Man", who has a demolition ball and chain as his weapon, or the "Bulldozer", or even the horrible "Truk".

The rules are the same as always:

  • All entries must be submitted as a comment to this post;
  • Each entry must have a link to a publicly accessible web site (i.e. the UGO Forums, ImageShack, whatever) where the image of your character is posted;
    • Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension]. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his "Bayou Belle" character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
    • If possible, please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). If you see "preview" or "rotate" somewhere in the link you're probably doing it wrong.
  • The contest ends next Monday, whereupon I will choose an overall winner, who receives his or her choice of either any item they like, or a portrait, to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 version.

Good luck, everyone!

Final Dragon*Con 2010 update

The last few pictures from the Con.

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RP: So very, very wrong

(From "Wonder Boy" number 17, 1955.)

Dragon*Con Ewok sketch

Collaborative marker sketch by Mr. Hartwell and myself.