Recently we talked about revisiting past contest ideas, so this week that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Way back in June of 2009, we held Character Design Contest 6: Animalia, and now’s your chance to do it all over again! Here’s how the original announcement read:
Your character creation challenge for this week is going to be a bit more focused than last time: you must create a character (or characters) based on the animal kingdom. That might mean a super chimpanzee, or it might mean The Battling Beaver super-hero, or it might be a space-zombie-fighting intergalactic robot horse, or it might be your take on the Beastmaster, or a fantasy ranger with his wolf companion, or or or anything else you can think of, so long as it relates in some way to an animal.
We’ve updated the rules a bit since then, though:
The person with the winning entry as selected by our expert panel (i.e. me) will win their choice of a) a portrait to go in HeroMachine 3, b) an item to go in HeroMachine 3, or c) a custom black and white “Sketch of the Day” style drawing (also by me).
For old times’ sake, the original winner of the first Animalia contest was Friday Night Fights Winner Martian Blue’s “Eagle:
Good luck, everyone!
Posted in Challenges, Character Design Challenges
Many thanks to everyone who entered Caption Contest 110, featuring an epic example of Superdickery. Your challenge was to come up with a headline or off-panel caption for this cover:
We had a ton of great submissions, so without further ado, here are some of the ones that I thought were particularly funny:
Having just recently re-acquired my WoW addiction, I sympathize completely with TheNate’s first entry. Oi. And I think “Superhero Jenga” should totally be one of DC’s “New 52” launches, that would be awesome.
However, as the overall winner I am going to have to go with … Nick Hentschel! That one made me laugh every time I read it, and I thought it was a very clever way both to explain the scene and to be an ironic comment on it. Well done, Nick! Let me know what you’d like for your prize either in the comments or via email.
Thanks again to everyone who entered, and congratulations to all of these fine Finalists.
Posted in Caption Challenges, Challenge Favorites, Challenges
(From “Spectacular Feature” number 11, 1950.)
Posted in Daily Random Panel
Folks, it’s time for another Open Critique Day!
If you have a HeroMachine illustration or another piece of artwork you’ve done that you’d like some help with, post a link to it in comments along with your thoughts on it — what you think is working, what you’re struggling with, etc. I will post my critique of the piece, hopefully giving some tips on how to improve it.
Of course everyone is welcome to post their critiques as well, keeping in mind the following rules:
That’s it! Hopefully we can get some good interaction going here and help everyone (me included!) learn a little bit today.
Posted in Open Critique Day
I wanted to try something in a different genre from our Lone Wolf adventures, so I decided we’d go for a post-apocalyptic Road Warrior scenario!
You are Cal Phoenix, the Freeway Warrior, champion and protector of Dallas Colony One. A murderous gang of HAVOC clansmen, led by the psychotic Mad Dog Michigan, are bent on destroying your fragile colony as it crosses the wastelands of Texas on the first stage of a life-or-death exodus to the California coast. These bike-riding clansmen are a formidable enemy: armed, cunning, and extremely dangerous, capable of launching a lightning raid at any time, day or night. You will need all your wits about you if you are to defend your people and reach your destination intact!
Ironically, my wife’s last name is Phenix, which is darn close. I’m going to start calling her Freeway Warrior, I think. And we come from Texas! It’s fate, I tell you.
This adventure comes to us courtesy of the awesome folks at Project Aon. The original material is copyright © 1988 Joe Dever (text) and copyright © 1988 Melvyn Grant (illustrations).
Before we can officially get started, we have some “bidness” (that’s how we say “business” in Texas, which I’m pretty sure not even the Apocalypse can change) to resolve. I went ahead and rolled our combat skill, getting an AWESOME two (out of ten), and an even more awesome ZERO out of ten for our Endurance. So, go me. But we have to decide what skills we wish to pursue, so I put together a poll. Vote for your top four and then vote for how you want the points to be allocated:
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
