Author Archives: AFDStudios

Green Lantern vs. Green Lantern

A fundamental part of costume design for super heroes is to reflect the character's origin and story. Just like in the real world, what they wear should tell you something about them. Today I'm going to take a look at one of my all-time favorite outfits, told in two parts -- Green Lantern.

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When a guy's ready for action, he's ready for action!

(From "Captain Courageous" number 6, 1942.)

Data vs. Robocop

If you haven't heard, they're remaking "Robocop", the classic Eighties movie about a policeman cyborg with pouty lips and a literal chrome dome. Why, except for the robot parts and the penchant for violence, they could be talking about me!

Anyway, it got me thinking about the old character, and combined with the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" stuff at Dragon*Con, I came up with this concept for a versus:

Now, Data's not inherently a warrior, but he can hold his own, while Robocop's not exactly an intellectual. I'm not saying he's dumb or anything, but they just hustled him out of Home Depot for hitting on a toaster oven.

We'll set aside the technological advantage Data would have from his century with the phasers and the transporters. We'll give them both Robocop-era weaponry, then set them down in the rocky desert, all Gorn-style. Who would win?

[polldaddy poll="6543331"]

However he DOES like long walks on the beach

(From "Captain Courageous" number 6, 1942.)

Caption Challenge 129 Results!

We had some great entries for our last Caption Challenge, thanks everyone! You were tasked with coming up with a funny caption for this random comics panel:

Without further ado, my personal favorites were:

  • Gero: Not all the New Gods were better off after Infinite Crisis…
  • chrisglen: Unfortunately for Highfather, he hasn’t seen Super Size Me. Can Morgan Spurlock save him in time?
  • Daniel: Darkseid’s latest ploy to hide the Anti-Life Equation in Happy Meal puzzles didn’t go according to plan.
  • JWMan: This week on Undercover Boss…
  • Twiggy: Grimace gets an upgrade
  • Herr D: Complaints mysteriously stopped at one location.
  • BenK22: You’re going to get it his way.
  • Myro: “Despite knowing the Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid was not trusted with the recipe for the secret sauce.”
  • Calvary_Red: I hope you appreciate, Kal-El, that everything that happens from this point is on your hand. The grills will rain fire, the grease will boil, the streets will run red with the ketchup of billions served.

My overall top line, however, has to be from JWMan, "This week on Undercover Boss ..." I do like that show, and I think Darkseid going undercover at the Apokolips McDonald's is hilarious.

Thanks again for entering, everyone!

Character Design Contest One Hundred!

The very first Character Design Challenge/Contest was held on April 21, 2009, more than three years ago; it's a little stunning to me that it's been going on for three years. Wow. The theme on that initial foray was the randomly chosen word "Capstan", and the winner was the legendary Imp:

I bring it up now because after all this time, we are at the One Hundredth Edition of this bi-weekly exercise in creativity! That's right, 100 times I've thrown out an idea and you all have owned it, coming up with awesome image after awesome image.

I wanted to do something special to commemorate this centennial edition, so here goes:

I want to see your best HeroMachine work of all time.

Every person gets one, and only one, entry, with the exception that it cannot have won a challenge before (to keep it fair). You can have entered in a contest in the past, though, it just can't have been the overall winner.

I want this to be as much a gallery of your awesome work as it is a contest, a celebration, if you will, of your creativity and artistic vision. I am sure I will be blown away as always.

Next Monday I will put all submissions into a big huge poll that everyone can vote on. The following Monday, the top five vote-getters will each win a custom character sketch, drawn by me, of the winning character. That's five, five, FIVE winners, people!

The usual guidelines for submitting entries apply, of course:

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Meanwhile, in the Bat Cave

Pop Quiz 27 Results!

Thanks to everyone who was willing to take a swing at the new items for our last Pop Quiz. Without further ado (and with thanks to the free Wi-Fi at the Denver Airport), here they are:

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HeroMachine 2 Companions

A request was made to import the Companions from HeroMachine 2 into HeroMachine 3. I'll be honest, I'd forgotten how many items there were in the old one that don't have an analogue. But before I go whole-hog into this, I want to check in and make sure this is a) something you want, and b) how you would want it.

The reason I didn't import these wholesale is that the art style is so drastically different between the two iterations. I can redraw them all, but in the process they're going to look a lot different. Here's a sample:

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Cops and Crowds

The Companion-Humanoids set has just been updated with the following items:

Let me know if you like the way the silhouetted group turned out. I wasn't sure what to do with Color2, so I drew in the skin areas. If it works well, I have probably four more silhouette groups I could give the same treatment to.