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We had a ton of great entries for "Character Contest 47: Weather, weather, everywhere" that really blew my socks off, so thank you all for your creativity! Also, practically everyone got the direct-link url stuff right, which given how aggravating my Internet connection has been was a huge deal. So thanks for that, too!
And now, without further ado, let's get to your Finalists and overall Winner.
Comments Off on Character Contest 47 Winners!
Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges
Your challenge for this week is to create the coolest character in the best illustration possible using any version of the HeroMachine that has something to do with the broad category of "weather". You could just use a name of a meteorological phenomenon like "Zephyr" or "Hurricane", or you could design a weather wizard from a fantasy role playing game, or simply a super-hero with some sort of weather-related powers. Classic examples would include "Weather Wizard" from the Flash comics, "Iceman", "Storm", or "Emma Frost" from the X-Men, the Red Tornado from DC Comics, or so on.
Poor examples would be something like DC's "Geo-Force", who can control the Earth, but not weather; the Human Torch, because fire isn't really related to weather; or The Hulk, who's a force of nature but not a force of weather.
The person with the winning entry as selected by our expert panel (i.e. me) will win their choice of either a portrait or item to go in HeroMachine 3, or a custom black and white "Sketch of the Day" style drawing (also by me). The rules otherwise are the same as always:
Good luck everyone!
(Storm character and image ©Marvel Comics.)
Comments Off on Character Contest 47 – Weather, weather, everywhere
Posted in Challenges
I was really impressed with the entries for Character Contest 46 (Clerics), you all did an outstanding job. As a result, we have a lot of Finalists to go through, so I want to get right to it.
Before I do, though, we have some unfortunate business to address. I was unable to count the following entries due to bad links that went to a jump page instead of directly to the image:
Remember, for ImageShack or PhotoBucket, you want the link listed in the "Direct Link" box over on the right or left, and NOT the URL from the address bar of your browser. I couldn't even get PicasaWeb to load this morning to tell you want link to use, but I think the way to do it there is to right-click on the image and use "Copy Image Location".
And now, on to our Finalists!
Comments Off on Character Contest 46 Winners!
Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges
I've just uploaded the following new prize items.
Comments Off on HM3: More prize items
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, HeroMachine 3
For his Character Contest 40 prize, Haz requested that the vertical gradient from the "Patterns" tab be turned into an item in the "Patterns-Standard" set so you could do a two-tone effect, mask it, rotate it, size it, etc. I had no clue how to do such a thing, but I gave it a whirl and what do you know, it worked! I've now updated the file and you can use it immediately. Here's a screen shot of what it looks like:
The top color is color 1, the bottom one is color 2. I am excited this turned out to be so easy! If I get motivated I need to do it for some of the other ones too ... although I suppose with just this one and some masking, you can put a two-color gradient going any direction onto any item, more or less.
I am working on prizes now, and have already sent out several for approval this morning. Sadly Haz didn't get the chance to approve it, I was too happy and figured I nailed it, so this is the first he's hearing of it. Surprise! Haz, if you don't like it for some reason let me know and I'll make changes.
After the jump I am going to put a list of the outstanding contest prizes -- if you see your name and haven't gotten your prize yet, let me know. This is particularly critical for Steve, Cory, Fishpants (x2), Frankie, ArtfulDodger, Violodion, Brons (x2), MercWithAMouth, and Bixlord as starting tomorrow I am going to forfeit your prizes and instead turn them over to the community at large to vote on items THEY want instead.
Comments Off on HM3: New pattern
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, HeroMachine 3, Previews
We haven't done anything fantasy-specific in a long while, so your character design challenge for this week is to create a totally cool image around the idea of a Priest, Holy Man/Woman/Other, Cleric, Shaman, or some other variation of a being who lives to serve the divine (or demonic). You could cast this as a super-hero if you like, or you can keep it in the fantasy genre.
Your servant of the almighty might be a pacifist healer, or a gibbering servant of the Lords of Hell slinging chaos about like a scythe, or a righteous soldier of the Warrior God, or even a mystic tights-wearing super hero like Dr. Fate. Good, evil, chaotic, orderly, it's all up for grabs, just make sure your illustration is the best you can make it. And make sure you're not creating a god -- this is for those who serve the gods. Or demons, whatever.
The person with the winning entry as selected by our expert panel (i.e. me) will win their choice of either a portrait or item to go in HeroMachine 3, or a custom black and white "Sketch of the Day" style drawing (also by me). The rules otherwise are the same as always:
Good luck everyone!
Comments Off on Character Contest 46 – Holy Moley
Posted in Challenges
Many thanks to everyone who entered Character Contest 45 - The Kirby Train. Before getting to the fun stuff, I have a bit of bad news to report -- the following entries were not considered for stated reasons. I feel particularly bad for those with multiple entries like kyle and venomfang666, but the state of my internet connection just doesn't allow me to process characters that are not directly downloadable from the link. In some cases, I could see from the name that the character wouldn't qualify, as they were supposed to be a color and a mode of transport.
The number in parenthesis is the comment number on the original thread.
Since most of these are bad links, here's how to get good ones.
Most of the time the bad link is from copying the URL in the address bar of your browser, but that won't work for right-clicking on the link and saving the image directly because it usually has some other bits of data in it for you, the image creator, that no one else can use. If it has something like "?action=rotate" in the address, then it's useless to me.
PhotoBucket: PhotoBucket puts a big giant box over on the left side of the image screen labeled "Share this image". You want the link in the "Direct Link" box. That goes directly to your image without all the other PhotoBucket crap loading around it.
ImageShack: ImageShack has a set of boxes on the right side of the image viewer screen. In the one called "Links to Share This Image", you want the one labeled "Direct".
Those are the two major culprits, hopefully that will help for next time; I'm sorry I wasn't able to use your entries this week.
Now that we have the unpleasant bits out of the way, on to the happy news!
Comments Off on Character Contest 45 Winners!
Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges
I've just added the "Background-Standard" set of items, consisting of 8 of the "Floor" items and about the same number of walls. I needed to do a brick wall background for Gargoyle323's Character Contest 41 win anyway, and realized I didn't have a "Standard" set there yet. I needed a logical place to put the brick wall, and figured this would be a good time to set up the set. Then when I started looking at walls, I got motivated to do some extras, too.
So this one is just a placeholder for now until I can flesh it out a bit more.
The idea of those first two is that color1 fills the center of the hole, and that's what is masked to. So you could put whatever item you want on stage, mask it to this hole, and it would look like the item was peeking through. Color2 is the brick pattern, so if you didn't want bricks you could set that to the same color as color1, or remove it entirely, and be left with just the hole fill.
If you don't see the choice come up, clear your browser cache and try again.
Comments Off on HM3: New backgrounds
Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, HeroMachine 3, News & Updates
Congratulations to Morzan for winning the run-off for Character Contest 44! Morzan can choose either a "Sketch of the Day" subject (like the recent Ms. Marvel one for the Pop Quiz), or any item or portrait to appear in HeroMachine 3.
And once again, thanks to everyone who entered, to the other Finalists, and to Me, Myself, and I and Blue Blazer for their hard-fought vote as well.
Comments Off on Character Contest 44 Winner FINAL
Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges
In a bit of a changeroo, I'm substituting another Character Contest for the usual Caption Contest this week. I was talking with my buddy John Hartwell (of the epic Kirby Villain Sketch of the Week on his Facebook page) about Jack Kirby this morning, and we started laughing about how when the King was completely unedited like he was later in his career, the results were a little ... odd sometimes. For instance, his New Gods sometimes went off the rails a bit, like with "The Black Racer".
Which led to a comparison with "The Silver Surfer" (image from the immortal Fred Hembeck):
Which made us wonder, what other color slash mode of transportation characters Kirby might have come up with had he the time.
Which leads us to today, and your Character Contest for the week: Come up with the best Jack Kirby style character combining a color and a mode of transportation. His classics are the Silver Surfer and the Black Racer, and alternatives might be the Purple Locomotive or the Red Rocket or the Indigo Ice Skater or the Chartreuse Caboose.
I'm doing this on an "off week" because it's so specific, whereas with the on-time contests I'm going to try and stay broader and more general to give you more latitude. But I hope this will be entertaining, anyway, and a bit of a challenge to come up with something new rather than dusting off one of your creations from months ago.
The rules are the same, although the prize this time around will include the option for a "Sketch of the Day" as well as the more traditional HM3 item or portrait.
Also, I'm getting more serious about the links to your characters; last week there were quite a few I simply skipped if I couldn't get to the image directly. I hate to do that, but my connection is simply too aggravating. So be warned.
Good luck everyone!
Comments Off on Character Contest 45 – The Kirby Train
Posted in Challenges
Three middle-aged nerds (including yours truly!) review all of the MCU movies in chronological order. Short, funny, and full of good vibes, check it out and let us know what you think!
Nerdmudgeon.com
