Category Archives: Character Design Challenges

So, now that we've got the easy stuff out the way, lets move on to something a bit more challenging shall we. This week I want you guys to create the best hairstyles you can using heromachine. We've done poses, costumes and faces, so we might as well do hair. One stipulation I have for this weeks challenge is that your entries must be headshots. I don't mind if you do faces and such for your entries, but I will be judging purely on the hair.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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, we're going to skip over the Bronze Age this week and go straight into the Modern Age of comics. This means you've got a bit more leeway on your character design, as this period covers the 80's, 90's and the 21st century, so hopefully you'll find something inspiring amongst those three.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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, as we did that Golden Age last week, this week we'll do the Silver Age. So design wise think of characters introduced between 1956 and 1970. If you really want to make things interesting you can redesign/ relaunch one of the characters you entered in last weeks contest (if you entered) like DC and Marvel did during this period. However this isn't a requirement.

No prizes for guessing what next weeks contest is going to be.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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, this weeks contest is going to be really simple. I want you to create a character in the style of the Golden Age of comics. If you don't know what the Golden Age of comics is, it's the period between 1935 and 1955, which was the birth of the superhero genre of comics. So think characters like the original incarnations of The Flash and Green Lantern.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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.

This week I'm going to go out on a limb and try something that could completely bomb. This week I want you to create something in a steampunk style. It can be a character, an object, a vehicle or a machine, but it must be steampunk. If you don't know what that is, google (and google images) is your friend.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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.

Last year we did a challenge where I asked you to do a piece of art on Heromachine that was inspired by a piece of music of your choice. Now I enjoyed that contest so much, I've decided to do it again.

As with last time we did this contest, you can do any kind of art, character, background, abstract etc. for this contest. I will be judging on how well I feel the piece illustrates the music, not just by lyrical content (so you can do art for an instrumental) but also the feeling of the music. As such for you work to be eligible you must include a link to a youtube video or sound cloud page of the song your art is portraying (don't send download links). Don't worry about me not liking the song and judging your work down because of that, I'll be objective, and anyway, I'm pretty open in my music tastes.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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, this week I'm going to do something a little bit different. Instead of giving you a specific genre or whatever and you going and creating a character from it, I instead want you to create whatever type of character you please, but the hitch is YOU CANNOT USE THE STANDARD FORWARD FACING POSE. That is right, I want you to create a different pose to use. I know a lot of people already do and those of you that don't I want you to try it because it isn't all that bad to do honestly. If you're stuck for ideas of inspiration or just aren't sure how to do alternate poses, there is a section on the forum full of custom poses which you can find here- http://www.heromachine.com/forum/poses/ however, unless you were the original creator of any of these poses (i.e. AMS, keric, livewyre etc.) you aren't allowed to use them as they are, because it isn't you creating the pose. You can also use Companions as the bases for poses but you must at least make the character different from the base companion, different heads/ faces, hands all that sort of stuff.

Hopefully this isn't too complicated and explanation and people get what I'm asking for you to do. If you aren't a great poser don't worry, I'm not just looking at the pose, I'm looking at how well you dress the pose as well as the usual character design/ costume design and all that stuff. So have fun and good luck.

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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.

The title says it all here, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what to do. Oh you do? Ok. This weeks challenge is to create an awesome bad guy. Simple as that. Do you need me to explain any further?

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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, this week I want you to create an awesome sci-fi character. But this time there's a twist, you have to mix another genre in with it. So for example, you could create a fantasy character in a sci-fi setting, such as a alien paladin or the like. Genres you can choose from include:

Fantasy, Western, Anime, Steam/ Cyber-Punk, Kung-Fu, Superhero, Horror & Everyday

As per usual, no limits on entries this week and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). The winner gets to claim a custom made item from dblade to be put into heromachine, so long as the item conforms to his prize rules, which you can find here: http://www.heromachine.com/forum/the-heromachine-art-gallery/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/. 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.

Pay no attention to the title, it has nothing to do with this weeks contest, I just couldn't think of a better title.

Anyway, this week, I thought it would be interesting to re-use some of the older CDC themes, so that's what we are going to do. For the very first CDC (for those of us who weren't around the blog then) Jeff ran a contest where people had to design a character to fit a randomly generated word (in that case Capstan). So, that's what I've done. And the word I got was:

INDELIBLE