HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

Caption Contest 99

Posted on May 23, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

With hearty thanks once again to Glenn3's "Say What? Pictures", your challenge this week is to come up with the best replacement dialog for this comics panel:

This is a toughie as you have two different balloons for which you must provide dialog. Be sure to not in your entry who's saying what, as in:

Man: I'm marrying Miss Piggy and I don't care what you say!
Woman: Pork you!

You can see why it's a good thing I can't enter these, I'd just embarrass myself. Anyway, the best entry (as judged by yours truly) wins the author's choice of either any item they like or any portrait to be included in HeroMachine 3′s final release, or a custom black and white “Sketch of the Day” style illustration (you pick the subject, I draw it however I like).

All entries must be left as a comment (or comments) to this post. Keep ‘em clean (appropriate for a late-night broadcast TV show), but most importantly, keep ‘em funny! That might be a challenge given the nature of this week's panel, but I'm sure you can pull it off.

This week we have a cap of no more than five (5) entries per person, so make 'em your best!

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Posted in Caption Challenges, Challenges

Character Contest 64 Winners!

Posted on May 23, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

Thank you to everyone who participated in Character Contest 64, which asked you to come up with prospective new members for DC Comics' "Legion of Super Heroes" (or its alternate group, the"Legion of Substitute Heroes"). I had a lot of fun reading and viewing the submissions; the Legion was arguably my favorite comic growing up (along with Green Lantern and The Flash) and this was a welcome walk down memory lane.

I do unfortunately have to take a quick moment for some housekeeping duties: Alphaalpharomeo, Dan, directawesome, Jordan_Xord, Yurasagi, and MrMatt220 all posted links that went to jump pages rather than directly to the image itself. In the future that may disqualify your submissions, so please post better, direct links in the future. In PhotoBucket, there's a box over to the right that specifically says "Direct Link" -- that's the one you want. In Picasaweb, right-click on the image and use "Copy Image URL" from the flyout menu. Thanks -- it makes downloading these much easier and faster for me.

Now, with that out of the way, on to the many wonderful Finalists!

Continue reading →

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Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges, Character Design Challenges

I THOUGHT her face rang a bell!

Posted on May 23, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

amazing-mystery-funnies-v2-12-1939-bellringer

(From "Amazing Mystery Funnies", volume 2, number 12, 1939.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

SOD.231

Posted on May 22, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

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Posted in Sketch of the Day

The only way to defeat the Inanimate Army is to … step slightly away

Posted on May 22, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Power User Profile: Ian T. Healy

Posted on May 21, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

When I first thought up the "Power User Profile" idea, I envisioned a way for us all to find out more about the people who we see posting on this and the UGO Forums routinely. Over time it's turned more into "People who make kick-ass images using HeroMachine", but that's not what I really intended.

This week, for instance, I wanted to highlight Ian T. Healy, a really interesting guy who has been a HeroMachine user almost since the beginning. He's a gifted writer of super-hero novels (which was just picked up by a publisher!), and has used the program in the past to help visualize his characters and keep their descriptions consistent. He creates good visuals with the app, but is not as prolific or out-of-the-box as previous Power Users. Regardless, he very much fits the definition of an active, interesting, creative HeroMachine user, and I'm extremely glad he's part of the community here.

Without further ado, therefore, I give you Mr. Healy!
Continue reading →

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Posted in Power User Profiles

Fantoman’s cruise of the British Isles did not go well

Posted on May 21, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

SOD.230

Posted on May 20, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

Superman in the style of Max Fleischer by way of Chris Samnee, Steve Rude, et. al. Still trying to figure out that whole style.

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Posted in Sketch of the Day

Open Critique Day #18

Posted on May 20, 2011 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

It's time once again 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:

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 any 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.

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Posted in Open Critique Day