Heraldic Shields

Thanks to Hammerknight for another couple of recipes in his Heraldry series, focusing on creating patriotic coats of arms for shields (click on either for a larger version):

Great job again, thanks HK!

RP: More like sausage, apparently

(From "Police Comics" number 10, 1942.)

SOD.166 – Avast!

Prickly design decisions

While the animal kingdom contains many fearsome models upon which a super-powered individual can base their identity -- the mighty lion, the speedy leopard, the swift-striking falcon -- you have to be very careful which you actually choose. After all, who wants to go around known as The Slug or The Sloth or ... um, the Porcupine?

Porcupines (motto, "Third largest rodent!") are slow and completely non-aggressive, which isn't ideal for a super villain. On the other hand, they do have sharp pointy bits, which puts them ahead of many other potential candidates. So I'll give him a pass on the inspiration (barely). And they did give him the ability to fire his quills, along with a host of other powered-armor options. So he wasn't a wuss or anything.

However.

If you're going to base yourself on a barely-qualified animal, it's imperative that you not walk around looking as if your outfit were woven from wicker.

I've owned wicker furniture. I have sat upon wicker furniture. And I have seen wicker furniture utterly destroyed at the paws of a ravenous puppy. Not a big puppy either, but a tiny little furball.

And if you do slip up and find yourself in a costume that resembles wicker, based on an animal that's more or less a highly irritated ground sloth, by all that's holy please do not -- repeat, do NOT -- also weave yourself a wicker hairpiece that looks like a refugee from a bad "Little Lord Fauntleroy" production.

On the other hand, from the page in question he appears to be a flatulent wicker-woven prickly ground sloth, which I admit is pretty intriguing.

(Image and character ©Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)

HM3: Minor color update

At PsyckoSama's request, I have updated the HeroMachine 3 Alpha to show the hex value for a color swatch when moused over. I also made the box selectable, so after you click the color, you can highlight and copy the hex value in the name box, then paste it into the Custom Color hex box as a base for starting your new color. I'm not sure how helpful this is to most people, but it was easy enough to do and might help alleviate the pain for those who find the color swatch box hard to use for whatever reason.

RP: BZZZT! Survey says "RINGO!"

(From "Spidey Super Stories" number 54, ©1981, Marvel Entertainment Group, Inc.)

SOD.165

Poll Position: Top Dogs

Cross-universe publishing house fights have been a staple of the dedicated fanboy for decades (and, not incidentally, also a source of profits from the blockbuster team-up issues). Our intellectually demanding question for this week tries to figure out what would happen if you took the most powerful "every day" super-hero from four of the biggest historical publishers and pitted them against each other:

{democracy:138}

Discussion after the jump.

Continue reading

RP: Ken, the later years

(From "Police Comics" number 10, 1942.)

SOD.164 – Forest Elemental