Caption Contest 61: The whole truth!

Posted on September 15, 2009 by | Comments Off on Caption Contest 61: The whole truth!

Folks, your challenge for this week's caption contest (for which the winner will receive his or her choice of either any item they want OR a caricature of themselves to be included with HeroMachine 3) is not so much coming up with the funniest line to replace the missing dialog. No, the challenge is to come up with the funniest CLEAN line to replace the missing dialog that won't get your comment insta-banned!

superman-trial

The rules are simple:

  1. Keep it clean, appropriate for a prime-time broadcast network program;
  2. Only three entries per person;
  3. All entries must be left as a comment to this post.

That's it! You have one week -- next Tuesday I'll announce the winner right here at HeroMachine.com.

Good luck!

(Image © DC Comics, Inc.)

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Posted in Challenges

Character Contest 16 Winner

Posted on September 15, 2009 by | Comments Off on Character Contest 16 Winner

Many thanks to everyone who entered Character Contest 16! This was a tough contest to design for, and even tougher to judge, as there were a lot of high-quality submissions. You all did a nice job, and even if I don't include yours in the "Honorable Mentions" below, rest assured I still very much enjoyed it and you have my thanks.

Before getting to the more serious entries, I wanted to present Hammerknight's succinct summary of the biggest change from the Golden Age to today:

hammerknight-price-codes

And with that, awaaaaaaaaay we go!
Continue reading →

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Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges, Cool Characters

HM3: Polearm requests

Posted on September 15, 2009 by | Comments Off on HM3: Polearm requests

I'm moving on to Polearms for HeroMachine 3. Please make any polearm item requests in the comments below, and I'll see what I can do. As usual I'll be doing my best to port over all the 2.x items where relevant, so you can skip those. I'll be breaking each item up into at least three parts -- complete item, head, and shaft.

Finally, a few tips for making these requests to make sure you're not wasting your time.

  1. While you're free to request anything you like, any non-Polearm suggestions will likely be in vain, as I won't be working on any other sets and by the time I do, I'll have forgotten about this thread. So stay focused on Polearms for the best results.
  2. Requests which have a link to a specific image on the web somewhere are the most helpful. It's just a lot easier for me to click a link and BAM there's the item you want.
  3. Please take a few moments to make sure the items you post are something you'd actually want to use, and which you think a fair number of people would also find useful. Spamming in three dozen links to stuff that's either already been suggested, or already exists in 2.x, or which is just kind of silly (a big stick with the Pillsbury Dough Boy hanging from it!) are kind of wasting your time and mine.

I don't want to inhibit your enthusiasm at all, so please feel free to request at will. But I do want to make sure I've done my best to help you understand the most effective way to getting your requests turned into actual items, so you don't end up feeling I've wasted your time.

Thanks everyone!

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Posted in HeroMachine 3, Suggestions & Ideas

Random Panel: Miss Super-Hero Manners speaks

Posted on September 15, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Miss Super-Hero Manners speaks
amazingman-25-1941-grab

(From "Amazing Man" number 25, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Poll Position: Junior

Posted on September 14, 2009 by | Comments Off on Poll Position: Junior

Our Poll Position this week is a special sub-set of the "Whose sidekick do you want to be" question:

{democracy:100}

Junior super-heroes have a long history, from Kid Flash to Speedy (Green Arrow's buddy) to Aqualad and too many more to mention in between. They're mostly a legacy of the Silver Age, particularly the "Boy" and "Girl" versions. Even though Batman has arguably the best known sidekick, at least he's not "Bat Boy", which in addition to being silly would draw unwelcome comparisons to baseball flunkies.

The worst offender was DC, particularly with Aqualad and Wonder Girl. My theory is they just ran out of ideas and so had to resort to this, ultimately culminating in an entire team of Lads and Lasses with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

But let's say you have the chance to be a Mini-Me version of a popular character, with a cute little matching outfit (possibly with a different color scheme) and matching powers. Who would you rather Lad or Lass for?

Continue reading →

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Posted in Versus

Random Panel: Rarely seen ninja moves

Posted on September 14, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Rarely seen ninja moves
amazingman-25-1941-lumps

(From "Amazing Man" number 25, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Random Panel: What girl WOULDN’T love a toilet?

Posted on September 12, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: What girl WOULDN’T love a toilet?
amazingman-25-1941-toilet

(Advertisement in "Amazing Man" number 25, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

HM3: Possible female template

Posted on September 11, 2009 by | Comments Off on HM3: Possible female template

I still have a much better artist working on a female blank body template for you all, but in the meantime (since I seem to be on a body-drawing binge) I wanted to get your feedback on this:

femalebody2

The current Zombie body (not intended for prime time, but it was there, so ...) is on the right, the proposed new one on the left.

As for what I am working on now, I'm honestly taking this week and week-end to sort of play around with some ideas (like the toon body) that I've been thinking about. So in other words, no real item sets are being worked on at the moment, I'm tinkering. Which doesn't always yield results, but is still a necessary part of the creative process. There's also some behind-the-scenes corporate paperwork type stuff I am having to get together. Dull, but needful.

Next week is a short one for me as I have to go to Fort Worth to help my wife with a big event, but I'll probably be posting something on Monday giving the set I will work on so you can make requests. I don't want to clutter up this feedback thread with that, though.

So yeah, anyway -- let me know what you think of this basic template illo in general.

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Posted in HeroMachine 3

Random Panel: Oversharing, super-hero style

Posted on September 11, 2009 by | Comments Off on Random Panel: Oversharing, super-hero style
amazingman-25-1941-pleasure

(From "Amazing Man" number 25, 1941. Note that I avoided the easy "getting at seamen gives him pleasure?" joke. Look at me grow!)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

HM3: Toons?

Posted on September 10, 2009 by | Comments Off on HM3: Toons?

So I took an hour this morning to draw up an "animated style" male body template for the HM3 Alpha, and wanted to get your feedback. Here's a sample character made with the new body:

toonmale

Clearly there are problems with the hands, I'd need to introduce at least one pair of regular looking ones that would match the body. Ditto with the feet.

To get to the new body, go to Body - MaleToon. You have to move the hands into place and scale them, and the same with the other items, since the proportions are so different. And not all the items really fit, particularly the Tops and the Legwear.

Given all those limits, is this sort of alternate body worth doing? It takes about a day to put together the whole set of stuff that has to go with it, from all the pieces in the actual item set "MaleToon" to the special hands and feet, etc.

Also, I only did the first, full body, the rest of the items in that set are still the old Standard ones, so just ignore them.

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Posted in HeroMachine 3