Category Archives: Cool Characters

Neat characters submitted by HeroMachine fans.

Character Contest 5 Winners

After the jump I have the winners of Character Design Contest 5: Fantasy Edition. That's right, I said winnerS, plural; there were so many great entries (42 different individuals contributed 186 separate illustrations, which is mind-blowing) that I couldn't decide on just one. So I'll be showing you what I consider to be the best examples from five different categories, each of which will win either one item of their choice or a caricature of their head to be included in the HeroMachine 3 program!

Many thanks to everyone who entered; as always, if you don't see one of yours called out here, it's due to lack of space and not a lack of ability or creativity on your part. There's only so much room, after all!

And now, your winners (WARNING: Lots of very large images to follow, users with slow connections beware!).

Continue reading

Character Contest 4 Results and Winner

Many thanks to the many entries for the "Angels and Demons" character creation contest! We had 74 entries, which is fantastic, and as in the first three contests the quality was quite high. After the jump I'll display the ones I thought were particularly deserving of mention, and then finally the overall winner. If you don't see yours here it's not that it wasn't good, it's just that I only have so much space. Thank you very much for entering, everyone!

Continue reading

Character Contest 3: Robot Winner

First, I'm sorry to be so late posting this. It's been such a long day that it's actually tomorrow already. Or something. I hate time travel.

Second, THANK YOU for all the great entries! With almost 100 comments, that was one of the best responses ever, and the quality of the entries was very, very high. If you don't see yours listed as a finalist, that's probably just because I ran out of space, because I could easily have included a dozen more really stellar examples.

Anyway, on with your finalists!

Continue reading

Inhuman character contest winner

By far, this week's contest proved the most difficult to judge. There were so many great entries, showing an amazing amount of creativity and versatility, I was honestly blown away. The images of the Finalists after the jump are fairly large, but I hope you'll review them all because they're really quite spectacular.

Many thanks to everyone's hard work who entered, I sincerely appreciate your taking the time not only to create your character, but to share it with the rest of us. Bravo, one and all!

And now, to your Finalists, with the winner to come at the end.

Continue reading

More cool characters

I've been collecting characters posted to the UGO Forums lately, and since apparently there's a problem now with non-registered users seeing attachments, I wanted to make sure as many people as possible got to see them. Follow me after the jump to see some sterling examples of what HeroMachine 3 can do in the right hands!

Continue reading

Creating a woman, no ribs required

Kudos to UGO Forums user Isia, who posted an early attempt at using HeroMachine 3 to create a female character, Sirena:

Many of the elements are there, starting of course with the single female body template in BodyZombies. But the eyes, mouths, noses, and ears are for both genders, and you can (as you see here) make some nice feminine hair styles by combining the existing ones. I have to admire the clever use of Insignia as bra cups here, that's very clever.

With a little ingenuity, you don't have to wait on ol' Jeff to make your character, you can even go girl!

(Edited to add:)

I couldn't resist taking a crack at doing a female character myself after being inspired by Isia. Here's my attempt, The Female Warrior With No Name From The Land of Cold Enough For a Fur Cape But Not Cold Enough To Cover Up The Yummy Bits:

brynnhilde

The key trick is multiple masking. For instance, the "gloves" and the pseudo-bustier are all masked to the body. Yes, an item can only serve as a mask to one object at a time, so what you see are actually THREE bodies, all stacked on top of each other, each acting as a mask for one other item -- the right and left square Insignia (rotated to make it look like a glove when masked) and the bustier (which is a Top masked and scaled to look like a bustier).

The tricky bit, which I need to fix on the back end, is that when you add the second Insignia to serve as a mask, it unmasks the first one you put on the stage. I got around it by nudging the second Body over twenty spaces, re-applying the initial glove mask to it, then nudging both it and the Insignia/glove back over. Painful, but do-able.

Everything else had to be scaled and moved to fit, as the boots were in the wrong spot. I chose the last MaleStandard head, which is sort of a Manga-inspired kewpie doll shape and works well for more feminine features. The hair is three main pieces -- the long back, scaled even longer; bangs; and the top part. I added two each of the pony tails and the long braids, flipping one of each. I moved the braids behind the Ears to make them look more 3D.

Like I said, the hard part was getting the gloves and the Top masked with the three stacked bodies. Once that was done the rest was pretty easy. If I was feeling really OCD I'd have created a fourth Body and masked the Belt to it so the top edges didn't stick out, but I was in a hurry.

Finally, Dalls Cowboy Cheerleader boots FTW. Yee-haw!

Capstan Character Contest Winner

Thanks to everyone who entered the first Character Contest! I had a good time seeing the visuals and reading the stories, thanks to everyone who took the time to send in an entry. After careful consideration that kept me pondering til this late at night, I have decided that the winner is ... Imp! He'll get to choose any one item to be included in HeroMachine 3, which I'll be sure to let you see as soon as it's done. Here's Imp's winning entry:

capstan-by-imp

And here's his write-up:

Capstan

Real Name: Sanjay Singh
Powers:
1. Cybernetically enhanced nervous, skeletal, muscular system, giving him superhuman strength, speed, and reflexes.
2. Cybernetic tentacles, able to carry various types of onboard weaponry.

Bio:
Sanjay Singh was a cybernetics engineer working for the Indian government, working on methods of enhancing the combat abilities of soldiers. He was paralyzed by a bomb planted by Muslim separatists, and volunteered to be implanted with his own creations in the hopes of being able to walk again. The surgery was a success, and Sanjay has since become one of India's premiere superheroes.

I'm not quite sure what that has to do with the word "capstan" but luckily for Imp, the visual made up for that small shortcoming. I like how simple the image is, without a ton of complications distracting from the basic design. The combo-logo looks great, too, and I like the power circles on the tentacles. The patterning on the metal arms was the final piece to the puzzle, making them look mottled and dirty and seaworn. Even though he doesn't have anything to do with the sea. Go figure.

Anyway, congratulations to Imp. Imp, be sure to drop me a line and let me know what you're thinking of for the prize.

I wanted to include some designs I thought were especially nice as Honorable Mentions after the jump, so here goes:

Continue reading

More cool characters

I wanted to share some of the really cool characters people have already been making with HeroMachine 3. You can find these and more on the UGO HeroMachine - Hero Archives board. Hats off to all the creators, and hope you don't mind me linking to your guys!

Continue reading

Cool HM3 characters

I wanted to make an open thread for people to post links to their HeroMachine 3 creations. Put yours up on the UGO Forums' "Hero Archives" (or Flickr, Facebook, whatever) and put the link in the comments. I also wanted to put up a few from Imp, which I hope he doesn't mind. But they were cool and each shows off a feature of HM3 that I suspect a lot of folks haven't thought of.

(WARNING: Large images below, folks with slower internet connections take heed!)

Continue reading

Contest 31 Prize: Steam

Whittier and I have finally finished his prize for winning Caption Contest 31, and I thank him very much for his patience while I worked on it through the Warrior Mini onslaught. But here at last is his character, "Steam":

You can win your very own custom black and white illustration of whatever you like (within reason) in Caption Contest 35, going on right now!