Category Archives: Challenges

Your character design challenge for this week is to come up with an image with HeroMachine based on the idea of the Zodiac sign "Gemini". Now, it just so happens that Gemini is my sign, so you better make it good! Pretty much anything around the idea of "twins" would make sense, or you could play off the NASA Gemini space program, or you could make a psychotic killer with multiple personalities, or you could play up the Roman origins of Castor and Pollux, upon whom the sign is based. Or something totally different, the possibilities are endless and creativity is worth bonus points!

The point is, you should use the concept of Gemini as a springboard for character creation, rather than feeling unduly bound by the restrictions it imposes. Let that imagination run wild, child!

To help you out, here's a bit on the history of the name from Wikipedia:

[Castor and Pollux] were both excellent horsemen and hunters who participated in the hunting of the Calydonian Boar and later joined the crew of Jason's ship, the Argo. During the expedition of the Argonauts, Pollux took part in a boxing contest and defeated King Amycus of the Bebryces, a savage mythical people in Bithynia. After returning from the voyage, the Dioskouroi helped Jason and Peleus to destroy the city of Iolcus in revenge for the treachery of its king Pelias.

The contest rules are the same as usual:

1. Use only a HeroMachine applet (no PhotoShopping except for basic cropping) to create a PNG or JPG of your entry, named as [your name]-[character name].[file extension]. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his "Bayou Belle" character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
2. Post the image to a publicly accessible website (ImageShack, PhotoBucket, the UGO Forums, etc.).
3. Enter the name of your entry and a link directly to the image in a comment to this post. The image cannot have been used in any previous HeroMachine character design contest.
4. The link to your image should 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.
5. I'll choose a winner next Monday, who will receive his or her choice of any item or a portrait to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 program, or a "Sketch of the Week" style black and white illustration (you pick the subject and I draw it up however I like).

No limit on entries this week, so knock yourselves out. Good luck everyone!

In honor of our last contest featuring Timberwolf, your Character Design Challenge this week is to create a new member for the Legion of Super-Heroes!

For those of you who aren't aware of this inspiring futuristic super-team, the version I'm most nostalgic for is the one featuring a group of 24th century teenagers who band together to fight super villains threatening either the Earth or one of the innumerable other planets in the Federation. Or whatever they call their goody two-shoes planetary league, you can't expect me to go through all the trouble of looking something up!

More importantly than that, I loved the Legion growing up, although I am sure it has been ruined by future generations just like everything else anyone my age ever loved. For instance, have they ever introduced anyone else since then with the awe-inspiring nature of "Matter Eater Lad", whose power is to eat stuff? I kid you not, my friends, that was the incredible power of my creative cohorts while growing up. And it's probably a good insight as to why we're leaving you such a hosed-up planet. Oops.

Arguably the best thing about the Legion was how 1950s their entire team was, despite allegedly coming from far in the future. The haircuts, the costumes, the logic-defying awfulness of their original rocketship headquarters, and -- above all -- the apparently iron-clad early rule that your name had to end in "Lass" or "Lad". Or sometimes "Girl" or "Boy". Apparently in the future the adults completely lack the spines necessary to either fight for themselves or to enforce good taste on their ill-begotten offspring.

Regardless, you must come up with a suitably futuristic and super-powered member to fill out their already over-bloated ranks. You can play it straight (as I said, I did love the Legion) or you could go silly, and note that your character is slotted to join the "Legion of Substitute Super Heroes". Yes, that really existed, too. The next time you're wondering how we let the polar ice caps melt, take a look at Polar Boy and Plague Girl. I shit you negatory.

I'll be judging on the usual "Is it awesome" criteria, but also for suitableness to a futuristic super-hero team. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that the rifle-festooned zombie corpse of the Punisher's 24x great-grandson would be a fit Legionnaire, for instance.

Otherwise the rules are the same:

1. Use only a HeroMachine applet (no PhotoShopping except for basic cropping) to create a PNG or JPG of your entry, named as [your name]-[character name].[file extension]. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his "Bayou Belle" character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
2. Post the image to a publicly accessible website (ImageShack, PhotoBucket, the UGO Forums, etc.).
3. Enter the name of your entry and a link directly to the image in a comment to this post. The image cannot have been used in any previous HeroMachine character design contest.
4. The link to your image should 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.
5. I'll choose a winner next Monday, who will receive his or her choice of any item or a portrait to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 program, or a "Sketch of the Week" style black and white illustration (you pick the subject and I draw it up however I like).

Since this sort of contest might be interpreted by some to be a license to spam everything they ever came up with in the past, we're limiting entries to no more than five apiece.

I look forward to seeing what all you lads and lasses come up with!

(Image ©1958, DC Comics, Inc.)