Open Critique Friday #3

Posted on October 15, 2010 by | 66 comments

We’re closing on a new house today, so I will likely be pretty slow in responding to these. But respond I will! And hopefully all the other great, creative, intelligent folks who hang about here will also chip in with some commentary and feedback.

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:

* Make sure your criticism is constructive. Just saying “This sucks” is both rude and unhelpful without giving specific reasons why you think it sucks and, ideally, some advice on how to make it better.
* Each person should only post one illustration for critique to make sure everyone who wants feedback has a chance.
* I will not critique characters entered in the currently running contest, as that doesn’t seem fair to the other entrants. You can still post it if you like for the other visitors to critique, but I will not do so.

That’s it! Hopefully we can get some good interaction going here and help everyone (me included!) learn a little bit today.

66 Comments

Posted in Open Critique Day

RP: Now that's a headline

Posted on October 15, 2010 by | 2 comments

(From “Hangman Comics” number 1, 1942.)

2 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

RP: On being completely unaware of the job description

Posted on October 14, 2010 by | 2 comments

(From “Hangman Comics” number 1, 1942.)

2 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

The Nipple Clamp of Doom

Posted on October 13, 2010 by | 9 comments

Look, I get it, the Image Nineties were all about the Age of Excess, with heads getting exploded and “dark” heroes and guns and pouches and basically every gimmick that could get a fifteen year old boy to swipe three bucks from his dad’s wallet on the sly. But seriously, a cyborg zombie modern era Jonah Hex ripoff?*

Given that your editor comes to you and says “Hey, Mr. Big Shot Artist Guy, howzabout taking a few minutes off from the jeans commercials and knocking me out a cyborg zombie modern era Jonah Hex ripoff”, I understand that you’ve got to produce. I mean, hey, the Nineties aren’t going to last forever and those thigh pouches don’t fill themselves with ill-gotten loot, right?

But what in the name of all that’s good and decent would lead you to give any character a breast pump? Especially a male character?

Maybe that’s what’s going in the various pouches — baby’s gotta eat when undead Jonah Hex comes home, after all. Though given where that tube is leading after feasting off his engorged man nipples, I’m thinking it’s not a pouch that’s involved. And that’s disgusting.

* I know nothing at all about Deathlok, and am riffing off just this one image, because making fun of super hero costumes is what I do. I am fully aware that he is not a zombie, but I’m pretty sure he’s a cyborg of some sort and dead certain he’s got at least a little Jonah Hex DNA coursing through the ink in his veins. Or something. I’m just here to make you laugh, folks, and if “engorged man nipples” doesn’t do it, well then apparently you’re a lot less immature than I am.

(Image and character ©Marvel Comics, may God have mercy on their souls.)

9 Comments

Posted in Bad Super Costumes

Poll Position: HeroMachine prize items!

Posted on October 12, 2010 by | 77 comments

I’ve compiled all your excellent suggestions regarding replacement prize items for contest winners who never told me what they wanted — thank you all for the time and effort you put into the ideas!

I had to leave out a few for various reasons; either they were redundant, or I already had the item in question (there’s already a set of jodhpurs in Legwear-Standard), or they weren’t specific enough. In cases where you asked for more than one thing, I usually just took the first one from the list. If the person making the request provided a reference photo link, I added it to the choice — just click on an image to expand it. If there was no reference provided, you’ll just have to use your imagination.

So here’s how this will work.

Vote for as many items in the following list as you would want to see in HeroMachine 3. At the end of a week, the top ten vote getters will become HeroMachine items (eventually)! It’s so simple, even a bald hick like me could do it.

And so can you, so go do it already!

Continue reading →

77 Comments

Posted in Challenge Prizes, HeroMachine 3, Suggestions & Ideas, Versus

SOD.218 – Juggernaut

Posted on October 12, 2010 by | 9 comments

9 Comments

Posted in Sketch of the Day

SOD.217

Posted on October 12, 2010 by | 7 comments

Inspired by Mr. Hartwell’s most excellent recent take on the character.

I loved his imagined dialog between Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at the inception of the Super Skrull as well:

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the Marvel offices, circa 1963:

Jack: “Geez, Stan, we’re 17 issues into this book – who are we gonna have ’em go against *this* time? I’m all tapped out!”

Stan: “How about the Skrulls? Fans seemed to like the Skrulls from issue 2, yeah?”

Jack: “Those guys were stupid, Stan.”

Stan: “No, wait! What if we took one Skrull and gave him all the powers of the Fantastic Four! He wouldn’t be *just* a Skrull…he’d be…a SUP-AH Skrull!”

Jack: (rolling eyes) “Super Skrull. Yeah, right. Okay. Whatever.”

Stan: “Excelsior!”

7 Comments

Posted in Sketch of the Day

RP: Best. Super-power. Ever.

Posted on October 12, 2010 by | 8 comments

(From “National Comics” Number 4, 1940.)

8 Comments

Posted in Daily Random Panel

SOD.216

Posted on October 11, 2010 by | 10 comments

10 Comments

Posted in Sketch of the Day

Character Contest 47 – Weather, weather, everywhere

Posted on October 11, 2010 by | 186 comments

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:

  • All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like ImageShack, PhotoBucket, the UGO Forums, whatever);
  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • The image cannot have been used in any previous HeroMachine character design contest — we had an “Elementals” contest and a “Nature” contest a while back, for instance, and I don’t want repeats of stuff you already did for those;
  • Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension]. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
  • Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). If you see “preview” or “rotate” somewhere in the link you’re probably doing it wrong.
  • All entries must be in by next Monday, when I’ll choose a winner, who will receive his or her choice of any item or a portrait to be included in the final HeroMachine 3 program, or a “Sketch of the Week” style black and white illustration.

Good luck everyone!

(Storm character and image ©Marvel Comics.)

186 Comments

Posted in Challenges