HeroMachine Character Portrait Creator

Thanks to everyone who entered Character Contest 24: Super Enemies! Before I get into the Honorable Mentions and then the overall winner, I wanted to say a quick word to recap how I go about judging these things.

1. On Tuesday morning, I save all the image files that were entered into a folder, renaming them with the entrant's name and the character name. This can take quite a while.
2. Eat lunch, because come on, right-clicking and typing is hard.
3. Scroll through the entries one at a time and if an image piques my interest, move it into a new folder called "Finalists". This is mostly a gut-reaction kind of thing. Characters that show a solid sense of design and that make good illustrations are what I go for. Sometimes it might be one particular element or effect that has been done very well that makes me save it, other times it's just an overall impression.
4. Once the Finalists are all ready, I go through those one at a time more carefully. Some will get moved back to the general folder at this point for a variety of reasons, whether it be there were too many other ones like it (one of which maybe was better), or because it just doesn't hit me the same way, or because I just have too many Finalists and so the weaker ones don't make the cut.
5. Start writing the post. I usually haven't yet decided a Winner yet at this point -- something about the process of writing the summary of each one, along with why I liked it, helps crystallize the decision for me. Of course, other times one just jumps out at me right from the get-go and there's no doubt it's going to be the winner. But not usually.
6. Pick the winner and finish the post.

Note that the main criteria is "How good an illustration is this", with "How well does it fit the contest theme" coming in second. The point is to make a good picture, of a cool character.

I struggle sometimes with how arbitrary it all is, and how it's really just my own personal opinion, but there's not much I can do about that and still have a timely event. And hey, it's my site, so I get to be judge and jury, I reckon. That's one reason I was keen on Friday Night Fights, it gives someone besides me the chance to decide what looks good.

Anyway, on to the results for this week!

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