HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

Random Panel: How not to hire a chef for young soliders

Posted on September 10, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

(From "Amazing Man" number 24, 1941.)

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Real life costuming

Posted on September 9, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

In lieu of my usual "Bad Costume Wednesday", I wanted to take this chance to show you some of the stellar outfits I saw while at Dragon*Con this past weekend. I was really blown away by the time, dedication, hard work, and imagination people put into assembling these costumes. What struck me the most was not only how good they looked, but how much fun they were having. Almost without exception, they were eager to stop for pictures, and were happy to strike the most super-heroic of poses.

When you see comic-book clothing brought into the real world, you're immediately faced with problems you never have to consider when you're just drawing lines on a page. How do you hide the seams of a soft boot top as it joins with the shoe? Where does Flash's zipper go? How do you keep a cloth face mask from slumping off your cheeks? These guys and gals have dealt with all of that and more (don't ask me how they go pee, for instance, I'm pretty sure it involves some sort of complicated AMA-certified device).

So without further ado, I bring you the Best of John and Jeff's Magical Mystery Dragon*Con Tour in photos.

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Posted in Cool Characters, Meta, Randomosity, Super-Hero Stuff

Random Panel: Bad times at the disco

Posted on September 9, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

(From "Amazing Man" number 24, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Character Contest 16: Progression

Posted on September 8, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

We're all familiar with the way characters are "revamped" from time to time, with their original costumes and character backgrounds being radically revised to suit a more modern audience. The most classic cases came when DC took its stable of pre-existing "Golden Age" characters and ushered in a new "Silver Age":

Your challenge for this week -- and it is going to be a challenge, I readily admit that -- will to be the same. Give us two designs for the same character concept, one that was (supposedly) introduced in the Golden Age and then its modern reinterpretation. You can either post the images separately, or put them together like I did above.

You have one week, starting today and ending next Tuesday. All entries must be left as links to an image or images in the comments to this post, and all images must be 100% HeroMachine-generated. The winner will get to choose either any item he or she wants, or their caricature, put into HeroMachine 3 for all to see and love.

Good luck everyone, I look forward to seeing what you come up with!

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Posted in Challenges

Caption Contest 60 Winner!

Posted on September 8, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

I am happy to announce that the winner of Caption Contest 60 is ... Niall Mor!

The other entries that I thought were particularly good this week were:

Hakoon: Ok, ok, I’m sorry. You have a lovely tan.
Hammerknight: “I do”
Ben Trafford: “Jocasta? But I thought you were a -good- guy?!”
Danny Beaty: My head isn’t the only thing she shaved!
marx: I believe you about the dolphins, but really, I’ve NEVER been able to see those 3-D posters, no matter how I focus.

Those were all original and good takes that I'd not have thought of, so hats off to you guys. Extra bonus points (not currently redeemable for anything) go to Ben Trafford for "Best Comic Book In-Joke". I also really liked Halloween Jack's version of the lubricant joke, but didn't think it was appropriate for the space. Funny, though!

As the winner, Niall gets to pick either any one item or a caricature of his face to be part of HeroMachine 3's final release, so congratulations to him!

I'll also take this opportunity to note that if there's a pistol you really really wanted to go in (say, the Desert Eagle, which I still don't see making a separate slot for since there's something very very close already), winning a contest is the best way to go. So start thinkin'!

Thanks to all our entrants, and good luck with the next one, which should be posted shortly.

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Posted in Challenge Favorites, Challenges

Poll Position: Sweet rides

Posted on September 8, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

The Poll Position for this week is pretty straightforward:

{democracy:99}

Discussion to follow ...

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Posted in Versus

Random Panel: And he hates barristas!

Posted on September 8, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

(From "Amazing Man" number 24, 1941.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

META: We’re back!

Posted on September 7, 2009 by AFDStudios | Comments Off

Sorry for the outage, folks, a combination of a changed DNS table and a vacation at UGO HQ resulted in a site outage -- the main host couldn't communicate with the MySQL server, in a nutshell. How they got computers in a nutshell is beyond me, but there you have it.

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Posted in Meta