Monthly Archives: July 2013

Character Design Contest ♯29- Winner

Run away winner of this week's CDC was Scatman for Catequil. Excellent work from everyone, especially (but not exclusively) our five finalists.

Character Of The Week- 6th July

So, for this weeks COTW we're going to look at one of the most creative and unique creators still active on the machine, Harlekin (/Harlequin/ Tarkarra/ Tarkabarka). Here's the piece in question.

Now, of course there are many things to talk about here, so we'll focus on a few things.

First off, the perspective. Harlekin is very good at doing weird perspectives, birds eye view is one he's very good at. A very good way of doing unusual perspective/ position parts of limbs (such as thighs and biceps) is to use female-heads and then resize them, as you can see with the biceps here. This can also be used for foreshortened arms and crossed legged thighs.

The bike is very well made, out of numerous different items, a good example of thinking outside the box when using items. In the construction here I can see items from headgear, items-right, body-mech and insignias. I'm not sure about how the front wheel and handlebars line up, but still, it's not that noticeable, and it still works.

The main thing, apart from his posing skill, that is interesting about how Harlekin does characters is how he does faces. The manga/ anime style is very hard to do on heromachine with conventional items. The way this is done is by using insignias to create every aspect of the face (which he shows how to do in this series of tutorials http://www.heromachine.com/forum/tips-tricks-how-tos-and-guides/lick-and-tricks-with-harlequin/).

I'm sure we'll cover Harlekin again, because there are other aspects of his art that aren't best demonstrated in this piece that I'd like to talk about, such as his shading and clothing design, but for now I'll just end with that.

Pop Quiz – July 6 – This Day In History

Archangel-future-aircraft-Dirigible-Hotel-flying-Restaurant-17

On July 6, 1919 - A British dirigible landed in New York at Roosevelt Field. It completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

Your challenge this week is to create a dirigible. Maybe it is a classic airship, a steam punk war machine, or a futuristic monolith. Your choice, use your imagination.

You only get one entry so be creative, and above all else, have fun!

All entries must be in JPG or PNG form (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (like the HeroMachine forums,ImageShackPhotoBucket, or whatever);

  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • The image must be new and designed specifically for the Pop Quiz;
  • Please name your files as [your name]-[character name].[file extension] before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his “Bayou Belle” character image as DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
  • Please make the link go directly to the image (like this) and not to a hosting jump page (like this). See this post on how to get the direct link for most sites.

The contest closes at 9:00am eastern on Sunday, July 7.

Make It Sew – The Costume Blog – James Acheson

Three time Academy Award Winner: Restoration, Dangerous Liaisons, The Last Emperor.

The SciFi Connection: Dr. Who

The Superhero Connection: Spiderman, Daredevil, Man of Steel

“Every moment is a moment of research. The more curious you are about everything the more enriching life is and also the more information you have when you try to come to design something. It might be the way the light falls on this spoon, it might be a reflection, it might be something really subtle and sensitive. But the thing is you have to try and stay open to those things.” – James Acheson

COSTUME DESIGN CREDITS

2013 Man of Steel

Man-of-Steel_Spotlight-On-Page

2010 The Warrior's Way

2007 Spider-Man 3

2004 Spider-Man 2

2003 Daredevil

2002 Spider-Man

spidey2_fall

2001 The Mists of Avalon (TV movie)

2000 The Little Vampire

1998 The Man in the Iron Mask

1996 The Wind in the Willows

1995 Restoration

1994 Frankenstein

1993 Little Buddha

1992 Wuthering Heights

1990 The Sheltering Sky

1988 Dangerous Liaisons

dangerousot

1987 The Last Emperor

the-last-emperor21

1986 Biggles

1986 Highlander

1985 Brazil

1985 Water (as Jim Acheson)

1983 Bullshot (as Jim Acheson)

1983 The Meaning of Life (as Jim Acheson)

1981 Time Bandits (as Jim Acheson)

1972-1976 Doctor Who (TV series)

Tom Baker sketch

 

Interview Excerpt:

Q: What about the long Doctor Who scarf? Was that your creation? How did it come to fruition?

A: The bloody scarf. It’s amazing how often it comes up. So extraordinary. There are these Doctor Who nutters and it’s the 50th anniversary this year. I’ve even been approached to dig out my old drawings of Doctor Who including, particularly, the drawings of him wearing the scarf. The story is, I thought it would be interesting to give this new Doctor Who a scarf. I don’t know why, it was such a long time ago. I didn’t know anything about knitting but I knew I wanted these colors so I went to this wool shop and bought all this wool in these different colors and I had a friend who had a friend whose mother could knit. Some Doctor Who nut even tracked down this woman, who’s still alive, Begonia Pope. So I went to Begonia and I said, “Look, start knitting. These are the colors, the repeats are here.” I went back a week later and the scarf was 22-feet long.

Q: So you didn’t ask for it to be that long?

A:.No, she just used all the wool up! The actor who was playing Doctor Who was very tall. He sort of wrapped it around him and was like, “Yeah, this is great, we could use this.” The image we used [to create the character] was based on a Toulouse-Lautrec poster so that was why he had the scarf. Tom Baker, the actor, thought he could use it as a prop. So it stuck. I think we shortened it a little bit though.

 

The Big Question ♯8

For this week's big question, I want to discuss ageing in comics books. As we all know certain superheroes have been around in the same continuity since the 50's and 60's (Hal Jordan's Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man etc.) and some since the 30's and 40's (Captain America, The JSA), yet they don't seem to have aged more than 10 years. So, my question this week is: What is the best way to deal with character ageing in comics?

To start off with, lets look at how it is currently done by the big two. Over at Marvel, they seem to have a delayed progression approach (yup, technical term), which means time in their comics progresses slower than it does in the real world. Now, Spider-Man is the best person to look at to figure out their time scale, because he's the only one to have a definitive dated timeline. He got his powers aged 15 in 1962 (according to Spider-Man: Civil War) so that gives us a starting point. When The Amazing Spider-Man reached its 200th issue, it is mentioned that 5 years have passed since Peter got his powers. So that would make him 20, but the 200th issue was released in 1980, 18 years later. So going by that he should now be around about 30. But he's one of the younger heroes, Captain America was in his twenties in the 40's and even with the super-soldier serum, he'd still be in his late 60's and slowing down a bit by now.

Meanwhile, over at DC, things are a lot more complicated in terms of working out ages, because some characters seem to age (Members of the Teen Titans and other sidekicks) whilst some don't (all the main heroes and their supporting casts). Yet DC do have a more realistic approach to what would happen when a hero is too old to continue, even if they never use it for that reason. By having sidekicks age to adulthood, they can replace the hero with someone the reader already knows and likes (see Wally West and Dick Greyson).  But of course, as soon as you're settled in to the new order, DC's screwy continuity comes in and reboots the whole thing, leaving you with the guy they just got rid of, only younger.

It is a really hard one this, because on one hand, you don't want to screw around with a tried and tested formula and end up putting of the fans, but ageing and replacing characters would save having to reintroduce them to a new generation and in some ways would be more interesting, because the hero could grow with the reader. What do you guys think?

(I was originally going to include TV and movie series into this and talk about replacing actors in the Doctor Who way or the James Bond way, but I didn't want to over complicate things too much. If you want you can discuss that as well.)

Kaldath’s Caption Contest #6

It is time once again for a new Caption Contest, and so this week I want you to give me your funniest, wittiest, and or your more sarcastic dialog to replace what was originally in the following image.

 

GA and BC

 

As always I expect you to keep your entries clean I will be deleting any objectionable entries from the comments without warning. You are Limited to Three ( 3) entries per person and have until Tuesday July 9th 12:00 noon to get those entries in.

Anime Talk: Blassreiter

This weeks "Anime Talk" is a mini review of Blassreiter a 2008 series which ran for 24 episodes is a very dark and violent Anime. The story takes place in Germany and revolves around what at least in the dubbed version of the show are called Amalgams which are reanimated human corps that have mysteriously contracted a condition that turn them into monstrous humanoid bio-mechanical creatures that go on mindless killing sprees once they transform.  The Amalgams are opposed by the members of the XAT ( Xenogenesis Assault Team) and a mysterious man named Joseph who himself is able to transform into an Amalgam. As the plot thickens and the causes of the Amalgams is discovered the real action begins and chaos over takes all of Germany and threatens to spread throughout the world.

Blassreiter as I mentioned before is very violent anime with tons of action and plenty of blood shed, however it also contains a very compelling  story, a number of interesting and entertaining plot twists as well as TONS of character development where even the motives of the "good guys" are questionable. The  animation I my opinion was very well drawn to the point I found myself really drawn into the dark and moody setting of the story. The characters are really well fleshed out to the point I found myself careing about what would happen to some of them. In the end I rate Blassreiter a 8 1/2 on the scale of 1-10 and If you are not opposed to extreme violence I highly recommend this series and think you will enjoy it.

So who wants to be next to question her costume choice ?

Poll Position: Movies #2 – Watchmen vs V For Vendetta

Taking the suggestion by JR from my request last week for poll position topics this weeks poll position question is which is the better movie Watchmen or V For Vendetta?

[polldaddy poll="7219440"]

 

Character Design Contest ♯30- 50 States Of Play

map-of-united-states-of-america-depicting-stars-and-stripes-flag-atomic-imagery

 

Apparently, there is a special celebration coming up for you guys across the pond. So, I thought it might be a good time to do a contest that I'm surprised hasn't been done before (just a take a few minutes to let the irony of an Englishman giving you a fourth of july contest sink in).

This week I want you to design a character that represents one of the 50 states that make up America. Doesn't matter what you do, just so long as it is connected to a state in some way. I know a few people have done things along these lines already, so I know this should be good.

There is a limit on entries this week, but I doubt anyone will reach it. You can only do ONE ENTRY PER STATE PER PERSON, so you can only do each state once (so there's a limit of 50 entries, but I'm not expecting you to do them all).

It'd be nice to see every state represented. If we do I'll make a map using my favourites for each state at the end of the week. But anyway, good luck and have fun.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.