Category Archives: Meta

Back to the old look

As you can tell, I've moved back to the old theme -- the new one was woefully underperforming. Sorry for all the changes, but I reckon this one will remain for quite a while, as it's certainly proven itself to be ... superior.

superior-spider-man

Design Update

Hey all, I'm giving the new design another few days, but at this point it has cratered ad revenue. If it doesn't start to equalize a little, I'm going back to the old design. Just a heads-up so you don't get whiplash too bad if it happens.

New Site Design

Hello HeroMachiners! As you may have noticed, I've just launched a new site design to hopefully make your browsing and creating experience more enjoyable. The home page now looks like this:

hm-new-site-front

 

The goals of the redesign were:

  • Make the site easier and more enjoyable to use by decluttering and toning down the riot of colors in general.
  • Get more in line with the design aesthetic of HeroMachine 3.
  • Widen the default page layout so you can see more on the screen without getting crowded.
  • Give direct and unambiguous access to two key features -- downloading HM2 and using HM2 online.

You can still find your favorite links like the forums, the Hall of Fame, and the blog in the one central drop down menu right in the middle at the top, labeled "Explore".

I hope you enjoy the new look and feel. Please let me know in comments or through the contact form (the envelope in the header) if you have any suggestions or feedback.

Have fun creating!

No Gallery Grabs This Week/ The Big Question ♯30

Ok guys, unfortunately there isn't going to be a Gallery Grabs this week (I'll explain why after the jump), but instead of just leaving the slot empty this week why don't we get some discussion going. And my question for you guys is, who is the greatest villain of all time?

Now you can choose from any medium you like here, I'm not just asking about comics. You can go books, TV, film, animation, video games etc. so that's a whole lot of villains for you to choose from. My question isn't who would win if all of them had a massive fight, it is who is the best at being bad. Answers below please.

Continue reading

HeroMachine 2 Desktop Edition Now Available!

download-screenshot

After way too long and a lot of requests later, I've finally bundled all of the most current HeroMachine 2 items and the larger-canvas, no-ad layout into a downloadable bundle! This used to be an option back in the day when the program was available on a very smart-looking CD. Now it's a digital-only download, making it possible to use HeroMachine 2 without an Internet connection on your local computer.

It will come as a ZIP archive, just extract it into whatever folder you want on your computer, then double-click heromachine2.html to launch it in your favorite browser to enjoy always-available, no-ad character creation.

Note that since it still requires the Flash Player plugin, it will not work on iPads or iPhones. Desktops and laptops and Android devices are of course fine.

Click here, just $9.95!

Caption Contest Returns next week!

I do not plan on writing a post this week as I am not feeling all that well, but like the topic says I am planning on bringing back the caption contest next week and see how that goes. I might go back to weekly caption contests or just make them a once a months feature not sure which yet. Anyway sorry for not writing this week and hopefully you are all eager for some caption goodness next week.

Creators Club 2015

Hey guys JR here, bringing you the formal announcement of this years Creators Club poster, something which we are trying to get to be an annual thing.

This years poster will be done by MadJack who came up with the idea of doing a Days Of Future Past cover themed poster. Since we haven't done a superhero themed poster, I thought this would be a good theme (especially considering a certain film that came out last year). So, the idea is this; you guys have to create a self-portrait, either realistic or idealised, of yourself as a superhero. You can show powers and have poses other than the standard straight-on pose if you wish (zypping is also optional), but we must insist on two things. 1: Your character's face must be forward facing and 2: No Masks, we want to see all of your wonderful faces. Also, no backgrounds, MadJack will deal with all of that stuff when he puts the poster together.

For your entry to be acceptable you must complete the following criteria. If you don't then you don't get on the poster.

1. Your entry must be in .png format. You must title it in standard contest entry style i.e. Username- Creators Club Poster (for example I would title mine JR19759- Creators Club Poster). Don't screenshot the picture and send that in, export it as a .png please.

2. You MUST include the text for your entry. Mandatory. This is incase MadJack needs to re-export any of the files in a bigger or smaller format. You can include it as an attachment in the email or just paste it into the email, but you have to have the text accessible.

3. Your email has to be titled something applicable to the Creators Club, so its easy to recognise as not-spam.

4. You only have one entry, so make sure you're happy with it before you send it in. It doesn't have to be the worlds best creation, this is only for fun after all, but we don't want endless revisions.

Once you've met all of those criteria, send your entries to MadJack at madjack@starnberg-mail.de. Submissions will be open from today until February 10th 2015. This is open to everyone in the community, you don't have to be especially prolific or a Power User or anything, you just have to be a part of the Heromachine community. And remember, this isn't a challenge, so just have fun with it.

If MadJack wants to add anything, then I'm sure he'll do so in the comments, but other than that. JR out.

HeroMachine Hall Of Fame Nomination Reminder!

Greetings everyone, I would like to take a moment of your time to remind you all that we are looking for Nominations for the HeroMachine Hall Of Fame . Please take a moment to nominate your favorite HeroMachine creations from one of our community members! Find out what you need to do to nominate in the Link Below

HEROMACHINE HALL OF FAME OPEN NOMINATIONS  

 

Open Nominations For HeroMachine Hall of Fame

Greetings fellow Machiners! This post is being made to enlist your aid. You see we here at Heromachine have decided we need some additional members of our Hall of Fame. Now here is how this is going to work, JR, myself, Linea, and dblade are each going to select One image made by a member of our community to be entered into the hall of fame, but we want to bring the total number of entries up to 10. JR will be holding a Character of the year poll which will bring the number up to five. This is where you all come into play. I am asking you all to nominate a piece of artwork (HeroMachine creations only) for the hall of fame, preferably not one of your own pieces, though doing so will be allowed if you really feel the need to. Nominations will be open starting today December 2nd 2014 and last until December 22nd 2014  9 am Eastern Time.

 

Once the nomination process is closed I will take all  your nomination and place them in a giant poll which will Run from December 23rd until December 30th. On December 31st the 5 nominations with the most votes will be honored with a place in the HeroMachine Hall Of Fame!

 

Please post your nomination for the Hall Of Fame in the comments below by providing a link to the artwork in question. We will accept nominations posted here on our forms, posted to the Heromachine facebook page, or from Deviantart, all I ask is that you inform the owner of the piece that you have nominated them  here so that if they wish they can request to be removed from the poll in the event they do not following the happenings of the Blog.

 

I want to give you all a big thank you in advance for your assistance in this from the entire HeroMachine team!

Bugs?

Hey, everybody,

I've got some time out aside for working on HeroMachine site and forum issues -- not issues with HeroMachine itself. Please use the comments below to list any bugs you've encountered.

Thank you!

PS: This is not for feature requests. I already have a list of those to work on -- this thread is specifically for "stuff that isn't working properly."