Category Archives: Character Design Challenges

So, for this weeks challenge, I want you guys to go all architectural and design the best building you can using heromachine. When I say building, I mean any freestanding structure supported by foundations, so you can do a house, a roman villa, a skyscraper, a castle, a bridge, a factory, a university, anything like that. Now obviously, there are already some buildings in heromachine as items (mostly in the backgrounds section). Don't use them. You can use backgrounds- cityscapes for backgrounds obviously, but don't build you building by adding on to an already designed building that's an item, that's not going to get you anywhere.

As per usual, no limits on the number of 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.

Ok guys, for this weeks challenge I'm taking away your ability to use colour. Your entire picture must be done in greyscale. Think early 20th century photography and you get the idea. You can create anything you feel like, provided your picture has a background, and the only colour used is white, black or grey. Sounds simple enough right. Just make sure it's not flat or boring, which is the problem you're going to face working in greyscale.

As per usual, no limits on the number of 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.

So, new year, new CDC's. For this years contests I'm going to be focusing more on the Challenge aspect rather than the Contest aspect. I'm also only planning to take the CDC's up to the 300th contest, which is going to be CDC197 under the current numbering, and then see what happens afterwards. As with the end of last year, I will be judging the contests and picking a winner at the end of each week, so polls will not be making a return.

Anyway, in line with the new CDC ideology, this weeks Challenge is for you to only use shapes in creating your character. And when I say character, I mean character, no random combinations of shapes into some form of abstract or minimalist art. You are only allowed to use items in the Insignia's or Backgrounds- Shapes/ Backgrounds- WordBalloons categories and nothing else.

As per usual, no limits on the number of 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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →

So, this week we're going to do another Public Domain challenge. But, to keep it interesting, we're going to have a different twist on the theme. Instead of doing a category based challenge, we're going to take a look at characters created by one single author, in this case Charles Dickens. You have free reign with the entire Dickensian catalogue, so pick any character you feel like.

And incase anyone is struggling to think of any ideas for who to do, here's a list of Dickensian characters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dickensian_characters

As per usual, no limits on the number of 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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →

I was kinda stuck on what to do for this weeks CDC. But then I came across this word as dictionary.com's word of the day:

Gratulation: a feeling or the expression of joy.

And let's be honest, that's a fantastic thing to base a CDC around. So, your entries this week must express joy in some form. How is up to you.

As per usual, no limits on the number of 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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →

Ok guys, you challenge for this week is to go to this page:

http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Animal_Themed_Characters

and redesign one of the public domain superheroes within. Simple as that, no extra rules or stipulations. Just redesign one of those characters.

As per usual, no limits on the number of 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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →

Ok guys, for this weeks challenge all I want you guys to do is create the best image you can. Sounds simple enough right? Well, there's a twist. Well, two actually. Firstly, within the image you create you must use at least 2 items from backgrounds- shapes (not including any of the gradient shapes) and at least 3 insignia's that are not used for masking purposes. These must be used in a fashion that makes it obvious that they are included, but must not be the main focus of the image. Make of that what you will.

Oh, and the second twist. One entry only if you please. It's basically a free-for-all challenge so there needs to be some sort of limitation.

As per usual 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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →

So…

This usually would be the post announcing and congratulating the person who came out on top of this weeks poll, therefore winning CDC145. However, I unfortunately cannot do that this week as I have reason to believe that the person who has finished in first place has not done so fairly. Up until Friday, there were two people trading positions for first place, hovering around the early 30's mark with the other two competitors around 15 votes or more behind. However, on Friday the person in third place jumped into first gaining something around 20 votes in a few hours, whilst everyone else gained a vote or 2. By last night, this lead had stretched to 10 votes higher than the previous leader, meaning this person had gained over 35 votes in two days, compared to everyone else's 5 or 6. I'm sorry but that wreaks of bull. And it's not the first time that this sort of thing has happened around this person either. Some highly respected members of the community have come to me with concerns over polls that this person has taken part in before and even when this person doesn't win there's always some sort of stupid stuff going down with the voting that defies all belief. It's been 5 polls now and it's got to the point now where I'm not dealing with it anymore. I'm now no longer doing polls to decide who wins the character design contests, I'll decide myself. We've tried democracy, people took advantage of it, so now we're going back to a dictatorship. And with that I'm going to give this win to the person who came in second, as our first place has been disqualified. So well done to CantDraw in that regard, as he did end up finishing in what now becomes the winning position.

Anyway, on to my second point. The CDCs in general seem to be losing interest and lets be honest, it's much more fun when you have lots of people entering with high quality pictures than having one or two good pictures and three alright ones. You go back to last year, we had more amazing pictures than could fit on the poll most weeks, but for the last 4-5 weeks I've been struggling to actually find the four minimum for a poll. Suppose that's one advantage of ditching the polls now. But anyway, I honestly don't know what to do. We've already lost the Caption Contest due to lack of participation and if things don't pick up the Character Design Contests will be going that way too, which is a shame because it is the longest running blog post we have. I will try to keep it going until the end of this year, but after that I'm going to lay it to rest unless things pick up. I've tried asking for suggestions to keep the ideas fresh but it just isn't seeming to work, so instead I'm just going to leave the ball in your court now guys. You want me to keep this thing going, help out. Do your part. I know there is such a thing as real-life and it gets in the way an awful lot (I would know that, I take massive amounts of time between doing pictures because stuff just gets in the way, plus being lazy but that's by the by), but still these contests last a week and I don't have a rule against entering stuff that you made before the contest, just a rule against entering stuff you've already entered into a contest, so it's not like you have to make stuff specifically for the contest. I'll make the contests a broad as I can from now until the end of the year if it helps, but really that's as much as I can do to get you guys participating, it's something you have to do yourselves.

Anyway, I think I've said everything that was on my mind. No, I am not going to say who it was who was cheating in the poll and, sorry Cliff, for that reason I'm not putting the standings in the comments for you this week.

And with that

JR out.

Ok guys, time for a challenge. What I want you guys to create for me this week is a character undergoing some form of physical transformation. Now, a few basic ground rules before we start. 1. The character must originally start out human, but they may transform into something or someone that is either human or non-human. 2. The character must be shown undergoing the transformation, so no before & after pictures. You can do a sequence showing the transformation, so long as the sequence is all in one picture, or you can show the transformation in its middle stage in one image so long as it is obvious what the person is turning into. Oh and obviously when I'm talking about a transformation I mean a person physically changing their form to become something different, not someone putting on a disguise to look different.

Hopefully that should provide all the guidance you need.

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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →

Fairly simple premise this week. All you've got to do is create the best witch you possibly can. This can range from old crones cackling over their cauldrons to bewitching sorceresses casting enchantments over all and sundry. Of course, as the title would suggest, we are only focusing on witches, so wizards, warlocks and sorcerers are all out. Ladies only this week, sorry guys.

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.

If you don’t know how to enter, there’s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading →