Character Contest 25: Masthead!

Do you recognize this character:

That winged cow-head fellow appears in the banner right at the top of this here site, on every single page.

I hate it. And I want you to make a better one.

Therefore, whoever submits the best HeroMachine-created illustration to replace the redoubtable minotaur will have that character appear from here on out in the actual HeroMachine.com banner instead. It's practically immortality! Well, at least til UGO redesigns the whole thing again, anyway. But close!

Here are the rules:

  1. The character submitted cannot have been entered in a HeroMachine contest before.
  2. Submissions must be made as comments to this post, including a link to the character image on the web someplace (UGO Forums, PhotoBucket, whatever).
  3. No more than three (3) entries per person, with a deadline of Monday night at midnight.

Good luck everyone!

Caption Contest 67 Winner!

I had a tough time deciding the Caption Contest 67 winner, there were several that I thought were really funny. To wit, these ones!

  • Ian: Aaaaah! Butt-palm!
  • Rick: Give me an…A!
  • AbecedariusRex: “Is that a Brakash in your pocket or are you just happy to see me.”
  • Runt82: Noooooo! It’s Roid-Rage Willie Nelson!
  • Rob W: No, I will NOT tell you where I hid your steroids!
  • Deadpool42: FOR THE LAST TIME I DONT WANNA HERE THE GOOD NEWS!!
  • Frankie: “Oh, no! It’s the Alphabet Brigade. And this is only the beginning.”

After much hemming and a little hawing, I finally settled on Your Winner, The Inestimable Ian!

contest67-winner

Thanks to everyone for participating, and to the Honorable Mentions above especially for giving me an extra chuckle or two. Well done!

Ian wins an item of his choice, or a portrait of himself, to appear in the final HeroMachine 3 product. Congratulations once again Ian!

RP: Quick, to the Disco Ball!

master-comics-51-1944-humansnake

(From "Master Comics" number 51, 1944.)

Poll Position: Facials

Setting aside all pretenses of intellectual discourse, I would like to divert this blog temporarily to judging truly weighty matters:

{democracy:116}

I confess this train of thought left the tracks at Chris' Invincible Super-Blog, where he often refers to his favorite classic Jim Aparo Batman scene of the Dark Knight knocking a criminal out with a car battery.

So no drawn-out analysis of the options this week*, just sit back and think about various ways of jacking someone up, Caped Crusader-style, and inner nirvana will be yours.

*By which I mean the clear answer should be "Aquaman".

HM3: Body thoughts

I'm working on new alternate body types starting today, and am sort of feeling my way along here. My thinking (such as it is) is that I want to do up a series of complete bodies in a whole new set called BodyMaleAlternate. These will be completely integrated bodies that are greater or lesser departures from standard human norms, and which will NOT work with many (if any) of the clothing items in the program already. But, they'll be fun changes of pace and will allow you to make some really bizarre monsters.

In addition to the piece-parts broken out from these complete figures, of course, there will be other distinct arms or legs or torsos or bottoms (like ghost tails, mermaid tails, etc.) that aren't part of a bigger set.

How does that sound? Useful, not useful, good, bad, indifferent? Here are the first two samples to give you an idea what I am talking about (the ghosted-out images in the background are the standard male figure, for reference):

bodyalt-1
bodyalt-2

I'll also probably put in a couple of regular-looking human bodies like a dedicated dwarf and an adolescent. The key thing to remember is that I am not -- repeat NOT -- redrawing any of the clothing items to fit on any of these. If you can Transform them to make them fit, great, but I am not redrawing everything to fit a dozen different styles.

RP: On smooth lines with the ladies

master-comics-52-1944-radareyes

(From "Master Comics" number 52, 1944.)

HM3: That crazy hand-jive

I've just uploaded 27 new items for the HandRight-Standard set in the HeroMachine 3 Alpha incorporating many of your suggestions. I think I hit all the high points, but just in case I am going to hold off on converting the items over to HandLeft while you all take a look.

Speaking of which, here is a quick peek at some of the new stuff:

hands-new

Let me know in the comments if there are glaring omissions you'd like to see, bugs you find, or anything else that strikes you about the new release. Once this gets squared away, I'll probably go ahead and do the Bodies. I haven't yet decided to do just one big release with everything in it, or something like MaleBodyTorsos, MaleBodyArms, MaleBodyLegs, FemaleBodyTorsos, FemaleBodyArms, FemaleBodyLegs, etc. It's that old trade-off between too many options in a menu and too many items in a set.

RP: Marvelous

marymarvel-1-1945-spanking

(From "Mary Marvel" number 1, 1945.)

RP: Scenes from William Shatner’s future funeral

master-comics-51-1944-rug

(From "Master Comics" number 51, 1944.)

HM3: Limb suggestions

It looks like most people want non-human limbs next, so let me know in the comments to this post exactly what it is you're wanting from a set like that. Links to actual images are the most helpful, but just words are fine too if you can't find a good image.

Note that leaving suggestions for anything not related to non-human limbs won't be a lot of help, since by the time I get to whatever set you're talking about, I will forget what you asked for.