Author Archives: JR19759

Power User Profiles: Suleman

Posted on September 22, 2015 | Comments Off on Power User Profiles: Suleman

So, as promised, Power User Profiles are coming back for a short run. Don't expect this to be very regular, on a weekly schedule or anything, I'll be posting these as soon as one of the people I've contacted gets back to me, though I'll try and have them up on a Tuesday like they used to be.

Anyway, this weeks featuree, what to say about him. Well, personally, I'd say he's probably one of the most overlooked creators in the community. His work isn't all that flashy, but his poses are always excellent, his shading atmospheric and his costumes manage to tread that oh so fine line of being visually appealing and believably functional in real life. Whether it be fantasy, oriental crime or wrestling, his work is never short of fantastic. Which isn't bad for someone who claims they don't know what they're doing. So ladies and gentlemens, please welcome to the Power User club, Suleman.

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Posted in Power User Profiles

Character Design Contest ♯140- Getting Emotional

Posted on September 21, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Design Contest ♯140- Getting Emotional

Okay guys, going all kinds of throw-back here, well, for me anyway. On the suggestion of Sabrina on last weeks CDC suggestions blog post, we're going to revisit the theme for what was my third contest in charge of the CDC's. What I want you guys to do is create a character or abstract piece that represents an emotion. It can be any emotion, so joy, fear, anger etc. but you can only portray one per picture, unless you're doing ambivalence, in which case, good luck.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

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.

 

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Posted in Challenges, Character Design Challenges

Character Design Contest ♯139 (Colourful) Poll

Posted on September 20, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Design Contest ♯139 (Colourful) Poll
[polldaddy poll="9086357"]

Honourable Mentions go to: Anarchangel, Cliff, RobM & Vengeance

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Posted in Challenge Favorites

Character Design Contest ♯138 (Am I Evil)- Winner

Posted on September 20, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Design Contest ♯138 (Am I Evil)- Winner

So, this weeks poll was all about villains right, so of course it would be greatly contested to see who would come out on top. But I never expected it to be this close. Coming into the final few hours of voting, there were ties for both 1st place and 3rd place, which, had it stayed that way, would have been both unprecedented and hilarious. But unfortunately, some voting happened and we don't have any ties on the board what-so-ever. And the person who stole away the win from under the noses of everyone (and, looking at the entry, quite possibly murdered them in the process) was AMS for his entry Johnny Crazy. Congratulations AMS and can we get someone to go and check to see if Yin, MadJack, Anarchangel and Vampyrist are alive please?

ams-JOHNNY-CRAZY

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Posted in Challenge Favorites

JReviews: Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 1- The Magicians Apprentice

Posted on September 19, 2015 | Comments Off on JReviews: Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 1- The Magicians Apprentice

So, a new series of Doctor Who has begun. And we all know what that means. I am back again to ramble on in a timer-wimmy wibbley-wobbley fashion about the episodes. And due to the fact that I don't have a TARDIS of my own, I guess that the beginning is the only place we can really start.

Oh and by the way, River Song alert (a.k.a SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not that River Song was in this episode, because that wouldn't be true. Anyway, getting on with it).

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Posted in Fantasy & Sci-fi, Things I Like

Character Of The Week: Linea24- Guide Arthasi Cerca

Posted on September 18, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Of The Week: Linea24- Guide Arthasi Cerca

This weeks COTW was very tough to choose. We had exceptional work from classic 'machiner's like AMS, Vampyrist and Vengeance, the usual high standards of COTW stalwarts like Anarchangel and Stulte and stunners from lesser recognised 'machiners in Angel of Chaos and Lef. We even had the return of the legend that is dblade. But I ended up choosing this piece by Linea because it had something that the others just lacked slightly. If you look at the Also Awesome section down below, all the pictures are quite static and standard pose, and I'm not belittling any of these guys in any way, I can't pose to save my life. But if we look at Linea's here, that raised arm on a sideways pose, the lowering of the hat so it covers one eye, the flowing dress. It sets the whole thing off. This picture has a life of it's own. The fact you can only see one of the characters eyes and that costume hides most of her face bar a slight glimpse of the top of her smiling mouth, gives the character such a mysterious and mischievous personality, it's hard not to love it. And that gets it character of the week for me.

Gallery: Linea24's Astra Universe

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Posted in Character of the Week

Character Design Contest ♯139- Colourful

Posted on September 14, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Design Contest ♯139- Colourful

So, very simple idea for this weeks contest. What I want you guys to create is a superhero or villain that has a colour themed name and costume. Examples of this would be guys like Green Lantern, Red Tornado, Black Panther etc. so the characters name must include the main colour of their costume. Easy.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

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.

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Posted in Challenges, Character Design Challenges

Image

CDC Question + Extra Posts?

Hey guys, JR here and I've got a few quick questions for you concerning my posts on the blog. Firstly, the weekly Character Design Contests seem to be dropping in popularity. Over the last couple of months we only seem to be averaging less than 20 individual participants each contest. Sure some of those participants may enter multiple times (Cliff and Outcast are notable for this, certainly recently), but last year we'd get at least 25-30 each week on average, and that's before we even get to the polls, which used to get no less than 180 votes each week last year and frequently broke the 200 vote mark (last weeks vote was the highest we've had in a month and it got 130 votes). And I'd be interested to know why this is. I don't want to stop doing the CDC's and will try to do everything in my power to keep them going, but I don't want it to get to a point where we're just having the same old people in the polls, not because they were the best entries, but because no-one else entered. And while we're on the subject of the CDC's, if anyone has any suggestions for themes, please leave them below. It would help a lot for those times when I've been busy and haven't had time to come up with a theme for the week (which almost happened this week, I actually put together this weeks contest an hour before it went up, which is late for me as I'd usually have it all sorted the night before).

And on that note, there is obviously a lot less blog content of late, due to both Kaldath and my own IRL job commitments. I know Kaldath asked about volunteers for new blog authors a while back, but that has gone quiet. I'm not in a position to give anyone authorship permission and I've not exactly got a vast expanse of free time at the moment, so what do? Well, it was suggested to me yesterday that I bring the Power User Profiles back. Great, I literally have to do nothing except receive an email and post it to the blog for that one, so it would be viable. Only problem is, we could only come up with one new person to profile. So that's where you guys come in. If you can think of anyone you'd like to see profiled, leave them in the comments and if I see at least 5 I like, then I'll make it happen.

So yeah, comment please. It'd really help out a lot.

And with that, JR out.

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Posted on September 14, 2015 in Meta, Open threads

Character Design Contest ♯138 (Am I Evil?) Poll

Posted on September 13, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Design Contest ♯138 (Am I Evil?) Poll
[polldaddy poll="9073915"]

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Posted in Challenge Favorites

Character Design Contest ♯137 (It’s All Greek To Me) Winner

Posted on September 13, 2015 | Comments Off on Character Design Contest ♯137 (It’s All Greek To Me) Winner

It's interesting what people chose to depict in this weeks challenge. Most people chose to show Greek mythology, which is understandable, as it's the most well known aspect of ancient Greek life. However, only two people depicted Greek arts and culture, and through the wonders of an ancient Greek invention, democracy, it was one of those who triumphed. So congratulations to Gingersnap, whose depiction of Sappho won this weeks vote.

137 Gingersnap- Sappho

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Posted in Challenge Favorites