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FOH John Hartwell and I took a trip to the mountain town of Telluride last weekend and this is what we saw:
>(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
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Posted in Daily Random Panel
(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
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Posted in Daily Random Panel
Folks, it's time for another Open Critique Day!
If you have a HeroMachine illustration or another piece of artwork you've done that you'd like some help with, post a link to it in comments along with your thoughts on it -- what you think is working, what you're struggling with, etc. I will post my critique of the piece, hopefully giving some tips on how to improve it.
Of course everyone is welcome to post their critiques as well, keeping in mind the following rules:
That's it! Hopefully we can get some good interaction going here and help everyone (me included!) learn a little bit today.
(Image © Baroquen.com.)
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Posted in Open Critique Day
(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
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Posted in Daily Random Panel
We're very lucky to have the indefatigable dblade drawing items for use in HeroMachine 3, and getting them to me in a format that's super easy to import. I've had quite the backlog of submissions from him waiting in the wings for a long while, and am happy to finally get them posted.
This also marks the debut of new contributor Zachary Hamilton, who provided the neat "Blades of Chaos" you see towards the bottom of the sample image.
From top-right to bottom-left, you can find these items in Male/Female-FantasyArmor; Tops-Female-Coats; Shoulder-Right; Tops-Male/Female-Coats; Foot-Right; Item-Right-BladesTwo; and Body-Zombies.
Be sure to thank dblade and Zachary in the comments! I did have to redraw the coats to fit on the female form, which is what took most of the day, otherwise they'd have been up very quickly.
Next, on to the Replacement Prize list!
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Posted in HeroMachine 3
(From "Samson" number 3, 1941.)
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Posted in Daily Random Panel
Finishing up Kytana's contest prize, I've just added the following two female heads in profile to the Head-Female-Standard set:
Note that I've left the eyes totally blank, so you can use the separate pupils and eyeballs from the Eyes-Standard set to make her look whichever way you want.
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Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, HeroMachine 3
Jack "King" Kirby had a very distinctive style, one that (love it or hate it) worked for the kinds of stories he told. You can tell at a glance a character that Kirby designed, and when put into one of his worlds those characters fit, no matter how ridiculous they might look in isolation. As an example, take a look at his New God, "Orion":
The guy's wearing magical flying slippers powered by hand-held vacuum cleaners, for pity's sake! Yes, it's a temporary transport device, but he wore it an awful lot.
Besides being literally harnessed to a massive metal contraption guaranteed to make him wobble like a Weeble and dressed in the ubiquitous circus trunks popular Back In The Day, the fact is, this guy rocks. When powered by Kirby's frenetic, kinetic, masterfully laid out pages, he almost jumps off the page and makes you believe someone in this ridiculous getup could actually be a bad-ass.
Contrast that with this Orion redesign from the Nineties:
On the one hand, the ironworks are gone and he's in something that looks slightly more mainstream. On the other hand, you have pointless giant metal head fins. What is he, a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado? The ginormous shoulder pads would restrict his movement even more than the harness would have, and in return you have a somewhat jarring primary blue, red, white, and yellow cacophony all mashed together.
I'm not sure if that ... thing ... hanging down from his belt is a mud flap, a loin cloth, a massively over-engineered cup, or just compensation for the fact that he's wearing a skirt, but it looks way too phallic to be taken seriously. Especially when combined with the nonsensical boots.
I've avoided talking about that face, because technically that's not really a costume part. But let's get real, that's insane. I mean, Orion has a penchant for fury and rage in battle, that's kind of his thing, but in this case he looks less like a berserker and more like someone desperately seeking a bathroom. Which may explain the huge yellow cloud of gas emanating in the background ...
Either way, this costume redesign stinks! You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask of the ol' Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with King Kirby.
(Images © DC Comics.)
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Posted in Bad Super Costumes
Three middle-aged nerds (including yours truly!) review all of the MCU movies in chronological order. Short, funny, and full of good vibes, check it out and let us know what you think!
Nerdmudgeon.com