Flowers aren’t scary

I think making your helmet look like some sort of animal eating your head is a bad move when it comes to crafting a good super-hero outfit, but at least animals actually eat other things, a lesson seemingly lost on the Court Seamstress at Casa de Jade Flower:

firejade

For the record, walking around looking like you're being eaten by a flower is not -- repeat, not -- intimidating to your opponents. Anything that makes you look like something The Joker would shrink and stick in his lapel should, as a rule, be avoided when putting together your costume. Whenever you walk out of the house and people start pointing and/or laughing, you should probably turn back around and slip into something fishnet just to be safe.

In other words, that headpiece is appallingly bad.

The rest of the outfit is standard super-fantasy-villain fare and perfectly serviceable, and I by all means encourage more leggy females to saunter around in hot Robin half-boots and two dishrags joined by a bikini top, but anyone wearing anything on their head that makes me want to pluck them ought to be hung.

Finally, I get that all of the Amethyst nobles are named after particular gems, but that makes me wonder where Fire Jade is hiding her fire jade and why she went for the flower angle in the first place. And why there's no fire on her.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'd like to lead the expedition to discover the location of that fire jade on her person, although we'd probably end up as just fronds and I'd have to leaf her alone, back-petaling away like made to try and stem the flow of derision and insults and things in that vein.

(Character and image ©DC Comics, Inc.)

Random Panel: Great moments in self-awareness

blue-beetle-13-1942-thatsme

(From "The Blue Beetle" number 13, 1942.)

Character Contest 15: Knights to Remember

Call him a tank, call him a barbarian, call him a noble plate-clad defender of all that is virtuous, or just call him Bob, whatever his class or character, he's a Fighter. Spells are for weenies, guns for cowards, and faces are made to be kicked, so strap on your Man Pants and design the baddest, toughest, rootinest tootinest Fighter type character you can imagine.

That's right, it's Character Design Contest time again, kids! Come up with the best submission that matches the theme of a Fighter and you'll win everlasting fame and glory. Or at least, the option to have any item you like (within reason) or a caricature of your head included in HeroMachine 3. The rules are simple:

  1. You can enter as many times as you want, but to be eligible, you must leave your entry as a comment to this post, and include a link to view the image on a public web server somewhere (i.e. ImageShack.com, PhotoBucket.com, the UGO Forums, etc.).
  2. No PhotoShopping or other image manipulation allowed with the exception of basic cropping.
  3. You must use some version of HeroMachine for your image.

Good luck! The contest will end next Tuesday, with the winner announced on HeroMachine.com.

Caption Contest 59 Winner

The winner of Caption Contest 59 is ... Danny Beaty!

contest59-winner

You'll notice that all of the Honorable Mentions and Danny's entry as well have one thing in common -- they all consist of a statement that will immediately be followed by plate hurlage. Which makes me laugh, given the expression on her face. Speaking of which, here are those Honorable Mentions!

  • Jose Inoa: “…control? A woman’s place is in the kitchen, right Xena? Xena?”
  • Bixlord: Do a good job and I’ll let you wear shoes.
  • Mike: Dear what did I tell you about getting the red china mixed in with the white china. Now all that china behind you is pink!
  • Oquies: “You do know we have a dish washer right?”

Many thanks to all the fine entries! Danny wins either any one item of his choice (within the bounds of reason) or a caricature of his head to be included with HeroMachine 3. I still owe Danny a custom illustration as well for a previous win, hopefully I can get them all wrapped up sooner rather than later.

I'll be putting up a Character Design Contest in a bit, so be on the lookout for that and YOUR chance to win!

Random Panel: I do not think that word means what you think it means

blue-beetle-13-1942-gasgratify

(From "The Blue Beetle" number 13, 1942.)

Poll Position: BSFF

Our Poll Position for the week involves Best Super Friends Forever:

{democracy:97}

Discussion after the jump.

Continue reading

HM3: Next on the agenda

By a narrow margin, it looks like Blunts have beaten Firearms, so I'll be working on that next. Then I'll go immediately into Firearms, as I do think that's a glaring omission.

Feel free to post specific Blunt requests. Next week I'll do the same for Firearms but for now, please keep it to hand-held blunt-trauma weapons. Comments with links to an actual image of the requested item will get preferential treatment because, let's be honest, I'm lazy.

Edited To Add: Guys, as usual, all items (or close to it) from 2.5 will be included, so you can lay off those.

Random Panel: Great moments in bad answers

blue-beetle-13-1942-gang

(From "The Blue Beetle" number 13, 1942.)

Random Panel: Epic retcon fail

fail-owned-spiderman-fail

(With thanks to FailBlog.)

HM3: Coats soothe, relieve

I've just added the complete "TopsMaleCoats" to the HeroMachine 3 Alpha. I've broken each item down into four parts -- the complete item, just the chest portion, just the upper sleeve, and just the lower sleeve, as you can see in the samples below:

tops-coats

You can use the "multiples" setting and the "Flip" button to get matching sleeves on the other side. Some of the HM2.x items aren't here yet, as they were just vests, and I'll have a separate "TopsVests" set at some point.

At the end, I added in four elbow pieces that hopefully are generic enough to serve as "bridges" between sleeve portions for when you want to have a character with bent arms. Similarly, in the middle portion I added a few separated trenchcoat bits (one pulled back at the waist as if tucked behind a gun, one long vest portion just on the right, etc.) sine those seem like popular choices and mix well with the existing trenchcoat sleeves.

Let me know any bugs you find, missing items you hoped for but don't see, or anything else you want to say about the new bunch of stuff. Also, what would you like me to work on next? Popular suggestions in the past have been more hand-held items (probably either guns or Blunts), more Tops (vests, probably), more Legwear sets, etc.

Hope you like the new stuff!