Create A Character 3: It’s Not Stealing PER SE…

Sorry to make this one so much shorter, but I’ve had a busy week, done a whole other new Masking tutorial (see right, over…no, up now…there ya go, Quick Links! Check it out and let me know if I missed anything!) and a super-awesome Saturday post still in the works. So here we go with the unofficial Finding Inspiration sequel from last week! Continue reading

Random Panel: Super-heroes on PBS

thrilling-comics-14-1941-culture

(From “Thrilling Comics” number 14, 1941.)

There but for the grace of God goes the UN

I bet whoever designed those sky-blue UN helmets for their “Peacemakers” was also behind this delightful piece of headgear for the similarly-named “Peacemaker” from DC Comics:

peacemaker-helmet

The sideways metal croissant is bad enough, but when you add in the stylized dove and the bedroom eyes, the whole thing devolves into farce. “Come hither, baby, I’ve got a head for peace and a body for loooooove … ” The helmet got progressively worse, as you can see from this full-body shot:

peacemaker_comic

I wonder if maybe the croissant waxes and wanes in accordance with how peaceful he’s feeling. Like, when he’s at home watching “The Bachelor” sipping on some Courvoisier it’s all small and limp, but when (as on this cover) he’s gripping a hard-barreled revolver, charging down a runway intent on blowing the crap out of some bad guys, it’s all puffed up and angry.

We’re still talking about his helmet, right? Right. Good.

Later, DC Comics bought the rights to the character and “updated” him so he’d be more modern which, as we all know, involves leather thigh boots and hand grenades and a mask with no nose hole:

peacemaker-3

Because nothing says “Peace” like a lovingly delivered hand grenade by a man with a variable metal helmet and leather thigh boots who can’t breathe, because that’s a dove on his helment y’all, and doves mean love. You can look that stuff up.

Random Panel: On loving your work just a little TOO much

thrilling-comics-14-1941-pleasure

(From “Thrilling Comics” number 14, 1941.)

Character Contest 8: YOUR character!

Your challenge for this week is to make an illustration of a character you either currently play, or have played in the past, in an RPG of some sort. It could be a guy from a computer shooter, or a classic D&D campaign, or a current online super-hero PBeM, or anything like that. Obviously I don’t have any way of verifying that yes, this is a character you really played, so we’re just going to have to go on the honor system here.

In your post, please put the game the character was played in, their name, and a brief little bit about who they were, or why you made them, or your favorite recollection of them, or anything else that will give us a little flavor of why you like the character enough to remember them now. The other rules are simple:

  1. Entries must be left as comments to this post;
  2. Each comment must have a link to an image hosted online someplace where I can get to it without having to register (UGO.com forums are fine, or PhotoBucket, ImageShack, whatever);
  3. You must use some version of HeroMachine for the image (preferably 3.0 Alpha) — no PhotoShopping except for basic cropping;
  4. The character cannot have been entered in a HeroMachine.com contest before.

The winner as always will get to choose either to request one item, or a caricature of their head, to be included with HeroMachine 3. Good luck everyone!

Character Contest 7 Winner

Many thanks to everyone who submitted one of the 69 entries for the most recent Character Contest! I really appreciate your creativity, hard work, and willingness to share your creations with the rest of us. After the jump I’d like to show you the illustrations I thought were most deserving of an Honorable Mention and of course the winner.

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Random Panel: Now let’s have a “case” with “Righty”!

thrilling-comics-14-1941-dames

(From “Thrilling Comics” number 14, 1941.)

“The Official Masking Tutorial Work-In-Progress”

Damien here!

All right, apparently we still haven’t gathered all the relevant information into one blog post. So I’ll give you, right here, a comprehensive list of the abilities and faults concerning Masking. Mostly, it will be a reiteration of everything I’ve said on the subject in other posts and comments. Continue reading

Poll Position: Super-pols

Our Poll Position this week deals with super-heroes transitioning to new roles in their professional lives:

{democracy:87}

Discussion after the jump.

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Random Panel: At least til we’re out of prison

thrilling-comics-14-1941-holdyou

(From “Thrilling Comics” number 14, 1941.)