Category Archives: Challenges

We're going to mix it up a bit this week and try something new with the character creation contest:

Your challenge is to create a member of the elite super team known as the "Dinomarines" (with thanks to Seventh Sanctum for the name)!

Next week I'll pick what I consider to be the best, coolest looking, most creative submissions who will form the Dinomarines, and you all will get to vote on which of them you think is the best, and thus the leader of the team. I have to admit, I am almost giddy with anticipation about what you all will come up with! Are they humanoid dinosaurs in military garb hunting down Terrans? Or are the Earthlings whose mission is to hunt down dinosaurs? Or just regular elite marines who took the nickname Dinomarines in honor of their ferocity?

How should I know, that's up to you!

Otherwise the rules are per usual:

• You must upload a JPG (good) or PNG (best) of your character(s) to a publicly accessible web site like PhotoBucket or ImageShack or whatnot;
• Links to each entry's image must be left in a comment or comments to this post, preferably with a name for the character and a brief sentence or two about who they are, why they're in the Dinomarines, and possibly just what the heck the Dinomarines are in the first place;
• All submissions are due by whenever I get around to checking them on Monday, July 19.

No limit on entries this week, so let 'em fly. Good luck!

One last special plea: please check your links before you post them, in a browser where you're not logged in to the site (like I'll be doing). A lot of times the links you give go to a preview mode instead of to the actual graphic, and I have to try and figure out how to get to the image. Or with Facebook links, sometimes links are to pages where no one but you can get to.

Also, please save your image with the character's name before posting it to the site, it makes keeping them all straight much easier for me. So instead of the default hm3beta-1.png or whatnot, name it DinoMarineJessie.png or somesuch. If you want super special extra suck-up points, you could do what I do, and name it with your user name and then a dash and then the character name, like TopHat-ColonelTRex.png.

Neither of those last two points are "rules" per se, they just make it easier on me on Mondays when I'm cataloging all the submissions. Thanks!

With many thanks once again to the inestimable "Glenn3", whose "Say What? Pictures" keep me well stocked with Funny, your challenge for this week is to come up with the funniest replacement dialog for the following random comic book panel:

Leave your entry in the comments to this post by next Monday, at which time I'll pick the funniest one, the author of which will receive 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!

We haven't done one of these in a while, but it was so fun the first time around I wanted to try it again.

Whoever comes up with the best character based on a random name generated by Seventh Sanctum Superhero/Villain Name Generator will win his or her choice of either any item they like, or a portrait, to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 version! The rules are fairly simple:

• Go to the Seventh Sanctum Superhero/Villain Name Generator and choose "10" from the number of names to generate. Leave the other selection boxes at their default and hit "Generate". Your character(s) must be based on one of these generated names. Try your best to limit yourself to one spin of the wheel instead of generating names over and over till you get one you like!
• Post an image of your character(s) to any publicly accessible web site (i.e. PhotoBucket.com, ImageShack.com, etc.) and put the link(s) and any commentary in a comment to this post.
• Check back on Monday to see if you won!

No limit on entries this week, so knock yourselves out. Just make them good!

Thanks both to everyone who entered Caption Contest 78, and (belatedly) to Glenn3 for her excellent work assembling one of the strangest and most entertaining collections of comic book panels with their dialog removed ever.

The main challenge this week was coming up with something funny without being dirty, and I must say I was very impressed with how well you all pulled it off (ahem). I thought the following nine entries were the best; please vote for all the ones you think would be worthy of a win, and next Monday the top vote-getter will get his or her choice of either any item they like, or a portrait, to be included in HeroMachine 3. Click on any image to see it at a larger size.

Thanks again to everyone who entered, and congratulations to the following Finalists!

Your greatest challenge with this week's Caption Contest will not be coming up with funny replacement dialog for the following panel, it will be keeping your entry clear of the censors:

As always, here's how the contest works:

• Write a funny bit of replacement dialog for the blank balloon and leave it as a comment to this post;
• Make sure you keep it clean, appropriate for inclusion on a late-night broadcast television show only, you know, actually funny;
• Next Monday morning I will choose the ones I think are funniest and open a poll for the community to vote for the overall winner.

No limit on entries this week, so knock yourselves out. Not like the guy in the panel gets knocked out, because that's a horrible way to go, but ... well. You know what I mean.

Good luck everyone! Oh, and of course, the winner will receive their choice of any item they like, or a portrait, either of which will be included in the final HeroMachine 3 release.