HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

Please join me in congratulating Cliff on the win this week. It was a squeaker as HerrD’s Adam and Eve entry was pretty awesome!

Cliff – your prize design will be posted here…as soon as I get my FNF entries done. Good job!

On May 21^st, 1819, 1819 – Bicycles were first seen in the U.S. in New York City. They were originally known as “swift walkers.” 

Your Pop Quiz challenge is to re-imagine this revolutionary mode of transportation as it might have looked in an alternative period in history. And just to be clear, the future is not a period in history. Maybe a caveman’s or a Pharaoh’s wheels intrigue you. Or perhaps Henry VIII’s bicycle is more your style.

You only get one entry so be creative, and above all else, have fun!

The winning entry will receive a custom costume/uniform design  for the bicycle’s rider by yours truly. Not a remarkable prize, but better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine :,ImageShack, PhotoBucket, or whatever);

• Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
• The image must be new and designed specifically for the Pop Quiz;
• 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). See this post on how to get the direct link for most sites.

This contest will close at 6pm Eastern on Sunday, May 22^nd.

Please join me in congratulating HermanSmellville on a truly creative – and vaguely disgusting – entry. Well done and thanks to all who entered. See you in a week with a new quiz which will actually have a…gasp…prize.

Hi all! Marx here, once and future contributing artist. It has been… Wow!It’s been two-and-half years since my last post when I introduced a series of new suit coats. Apparently, I am still on a contemporary fashion kick because I’m back – this time with shirts.

I’ve found that HM simply does not offer enough button-down shirts that coordinate and layer well with other HM options. While there are plenty to choose from, either they don’t fit with a coat over them, or with a neck tie, or tucked into pants, or untucked, or the sleeves were the wrong length, or the collar was too open, or not open enough.

So I put together a collection of 24 items that can be used to create pretty much any kind of contemporary button down shirt. You can mix and match any of these pieces. They conform to the standard body, so you can layer coats over them, or use them with pants either tucked in or untucked. They all use the same sleeves, so you can also customize the sleeve length and shape. And there a options for customizing the pocket(s).

Best of all, I created all 24 items for both male and female. You’ll find these new items in Tops > MaleStandard and Tops > FemaleStandard. (As usual it’s strongly recommended to clear your browser cache to see the new items – but be careful when doing so, since you could be loosing all your saved files. Better if you save those externally as text files beforehand.)

Yes, admittedly the collars should have gone in Neckwear, and the pockets in Insignia, and the epaulets etc. in Shoulders, and the cuffs in Gloves. But these items were all designed to work together, and so I felt it was worth while to group them all together.

Just to inspire you, I’ve put together a montage of various contemporary looks that you can assemble with these pieces. Hopefully, I got these out in time to see a few more in the first round of JR’s Friday Night Fights.

Enjoy everyone. I’ll post again in another year or two.