Author Archives: AFDStudios

Character Challenge 103: Zombies Scary Stuff

Posted on October 29, 2012 | Comments Off on Character Challenge 103: Zombies Scary Stuff

I am not a huge zombie scary stuff fan, but since it IS Halloween, I figured we might as well give it a whirl.

So your challenge this week is:

Create an awesome zombie!

Make Something Scary!

It could be a shambling zombie or a spooky ghost, a cackling witch or a disgusting pirate. Take a classic kids' Halloween costume and give it the really scary treatment. I'll pick my personal favorites when the week is over, with the one I like best being featured in the right column for the week. The rules otherwise are the same as always:


(Click to embiggen.)

No limit on entries this week, so knock yourselves out. Just make them good!

(ETA: Apparently people hate zombies, so I changed it to a generic Scary Stuff Halloween type challenge.)

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Posted in Challenges, Character Design Challenges

Pumpkin Pop Quiz Results

Posted on October 29, 2012 | Comments Off on Pumpkin Pop Quiz Results

All righty, after many hours of server woes, it appears we are back up and almost functional. Wahoo! As a result, here are the entries for our last Pop Quiz, which challenged you to come up with a cool Halloween pumpkin design:

As you can see, there were some fun and cool entries. My personal favorite is Jack's snowman-style grim homage. It reminds me a bit of what Calvin would get up to, an equal mixture of fun and frightening.

Thanks again to everyone who entered and Happy Halloween!

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Posted in Challenge Favorites

META: Site issues

Posted on October 29, 2012 | Comments Off on META: Site issues

As you could tell, the site had a lot of issues yesterday, and I sincerely apologize. Believe me, I am just as frustrated as you. DreamHost informed me that the hardware hosting HeroMachine.com (and lots of others) failed, and they had to move everything to a new machine. They are restoring everything from backup.

I am able to get on just fine now both as the WordPress admin and as a general visitor, so please let me know in this thread if you cannot or if there's something missing.

In the future, you might also want to bookmark the HeroMachine Facebook page, as that's where I post site status updates when it's down.

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Posted in Meta

Moar Punkins!

Posted on October 27, 2012 | Comments Off on Moar Punkins!

HeroMachiner NHA247 sent in some super-hero related pumpkins he carved for this Halloween. I love 'em! If you have your own real-world sculpted vegetables to show off, by all means post a link or send 'em to me.

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Posted in Things I Like

Pop Quiz: Jack-O-Lantern

Posted on October 27, 2012 | Comments Off on Pop Quiz: Jack-O-Lantern

It's Halloween Weekend in the U.S., and while last week I challenged you to make a mask, this week I'm inspired by Blue Blazer's nifty Justice Pumpkin. So I'm tasking you to:

Make your own Halloween Pumpkin in HeroMachine 3!

If you don't feel like making your own basic pumpkin shape, there's one in Head-Zombies (both with and without pre-cut eye, nose, and mouth openings). If you prefer an alternate pumpkin shape, one of the tips in Hammerknight's recipe card from a while back might come in handy as well.

You only get one entry -- that's right, just one! So make it your best. Most of the other rules are the same as for a regular challenge, but instead of a whole week I'll announce my favorites some time tomorrow. Here's how to make an entry:


(Click to embiggen.)

I'll pick one entry as my personal favorite, which will get to be featured in the side bar to the right for ultimate* glory! As a bonus you're allowed to say you won the Internet for a few days.

Good luck!

(*For very narrow definitions of "glory" only. See box** for details.)
(**There is no box.)

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Posted in Challenges, Pop Quiz

I had a hunch he'd say that.

Posted on October 27, 2012 | Comments Off on I had a hunch he'd say that.

(Hunch, Igor, see what I did there?! Apparently I've been thinking about "Young Frankenstein" in light of Frankenstorm too much. From "Cat-Man Comics" number 2, 1942.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

Sharing Day: Your Feedback

Posted on October 26, 2012 | Comments Off on Sharing Day: Your Feedback

For today's Sharing Day, I would like to ask you to sound off about three things:

  • Your overall opinion about the blog portion of the site -- are there things you enjoy, things you hate, things you want to see done differently? Basically anything you want to say about the non-app part of what we do here.
  • Your opinion about comic-book reviews McKnight57 has been posting. Are you interested in what's currently being published in the comics world or are you indifferent?
  • What is your favorite Seinfeld moment?

If you respond to all three, you can request a One Minute Sketch of whatever you like, and I'll do a sketch in one minute or less of it and post it as a comment.

Ready, set, SOUND OFF!

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Posted in Sharing Day

Clearly super observation skills are not his forte´

Posted on October 26, 2012 | Comments Off on Clearly super observation skills are not his forte´

(From "Cat-Man Comics" number 2, 1942.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel

We're dead.

Posted on October 25, 2012 | Comments Off on We're dead.

With only one entry in our "You're Going To Die" series, I think we will have to call a halt to the endeavor. I really enjoyed it, I just wish it had picked up more momentum and participation. Oh well. Thanks to the handful of folks who were chiming in and / or following along.

Feel free to use this space to discuss why you think it didn't work, if we should keep doing something like it, or if we should go back to a generic "CYOA" story. Or if we should do nothing at all.

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Posted in RPG Corner, You're Going to Die

And wear a stewardess uniform! Something pretty.

Posted on October 25, 2012 | Comments Off on And wear a stewardess uniform! Something pretty.

(From "Cat-Man Comics" number 2, 1942.)

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Posted in Daily Random Panel