Category Archives: Challenges

Just a reminder, you can vote for your favorites in "Friday Night Fights" once per day, every day, until Friday, so if the ones you like best aren't doing as well as you would like, head on over and vote again, and tell your friends to do the same!

I am pleased as punch and giddy as a schoolgirl to announce the first round of the first ever HeroMachine Friday Night Fights! Below you will find eight head-to-head matchups featuring never-before-seen titans of the Super Hero genre. Choose which one you like best in each match to decide which creator moves on to Round 2 next Friday!

You have until midnight, Thursday, November 26 to cast your vote, and to exhort your friends to do the same. All Round 1 Winners will get their choice of either a portrait of themselves, or any item they like, to be included with HeroMachine 3's final release.

Good luck, everyone, and spread the word far and wide throughout the Internets to come and vote! Click on any of the actual images to see them in their larger size.

Finally, some housekeeping details ...

• I had eighteen actual entrants, so since I hadn't announced any sort of selection criteria ahead of time, I had to unfortunately go with the first sixteen submitted. The remaining two will be guaranteed as pot in the next competition, assuming we do this again.
• Matchups were decided in inverse submission order, so the first one submitted got matched up with the last one, the second submission got matched up with the second-to-last one, etc.
• All of these details are definitely open for discussion and change next time around, assuming we do this again.
• I also want to figure out something to do with all of the submissions that won't have the chance to be seen because the creators got knocked out in later rounds, so any ideas on that are very much welcome.

Once again, good luck to all, and thanks very much for your extraordinary creativity!

Remember, your deadline for e-mailing me your four entries for the Friday Night Fights Tournament is tomorrow, Wednesday, November 18, so if you haven't done so already, be sure to get your submissions in!

Comic books are all about two sides fighting it out, and that kind of head-to-head battle has been sorely lacking here at HeroMachine.com. But no more! Because starting this week you'll have your chance to duke it out with each other in our new contest feature, "Friday Night Fights"!

Here's how it works. Starting next Friday, November 20, sixteen challengers will square off in a set of eight head-to-head battles. The highest vote-getter in each match will move on to the next round, again vying against one competitor for top vote-getting honors. We'll go four total rounds, going from sixteen challengers to eight, to four, and then to the finals matching the two bracket winners against each other:

• To enter, create one and only one image for each weekly theme -- super-hero, fantasy, sci-fi, and open (meaning it can be whatever you like) -- and email the four images (or a link to them) to Jeff Hebert at afdstudios@gmail.com by Wednesday, November 18!. Make sure I know which image is for which week and remember to email them, do not post them in the comments!;
• None of the submitted characters can have been submitted to a contest on HeroMachine.com before; you can only enter one set of characters, so choose carefully!
• If there are more than sixteen people who wish to enter, I will pick what I think are the strongest sixteen for the contest;
• When your character's match is open, tell your friends to come and vote vote vote! Each person can only vote once per day, but can vote every day of the week if they're so inclined;
• Each match will last for one week, with the winner being the top vote-getter of the two as of that Friday;
• The winner of each match will move on to the winner of the match from the appropriate bracket game;
• The final four will get to choose either a portrait of themselves or an item of their choice to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 program. The overall runner-up will receive a custom black and white character portrait of whatever they like (within reason), and the overall winner will receive a custom color character portrait of whatever they like (again, within reason).

I would like to thank my buddy John for coming up with this idea in the first place, and then further helping me refine it. Thank you Mr. Hartwell!

I'd also like to tip the hat to Bahlactus for starting the original comic-book Friday Night Fights. They're very different from this one, but any time you have super-hero types duking it out online, I think you need to warm the cockles of your heart (wherever those are) with thoughts of him.

Good luck, everyone who decides to enter!