Category Archives: Cool Characters

Neat characters submitted by HeroMachine fans.

Another winner

Posted on March 20, 2008 by | Comments Off on Another winner

Would you like your very own custom drawing by Jeff "Professional Illustrator" Hebert, only you don't know how to get it? All you have to do is enter the "Create Your Own Caption Contest", just like Dan did, who now has this illustration of one of his characters, "Miss Music":

Miss Music

The description he gave me was:

If you're up for it, you could do a picture of Tammi in her Miss Music costume. Nothing special - she dresses like a drum majorette with the short frilly skirt, cowgirl boots, that fancy top with ties from side to side, and the big furry hat with the feather sticking up.

I think it turned out pretty well, hopefully you all will like it too. And then you'll get your butts over to Caption Contest 3 and enter yourself, so you can get your own drawing of whatever you like!

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Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, Cool Characters

Wrestling brick

Posted on February 10, 2008 by | Comments Off on Wrestling brick

I've posted about this before elsewhere, but I thought you might enjoy seeing how an illustration for a magazine or role playing game happens from start to finish. I begin with the art specification (spec) from the art director:

Character illustration — [super villain]: [super villain] is an enormous brute of a man, 6'8" tall and with the super-muscular build one would expect of a man who can lift 400 tons. He's technically white, but the internal solar fires that give him his powers have "burned" his skin a sort of charcoal grey and caused all the hair on the top of his head to fall out. His costume is a sort of gold-colored leotard and tank top that resembles a professional wrestler's outfit; he doesn't wear gloves or a mask, but does have oversized black boots ("the better to stomp you with," as he sometimes puts it).

And here's how I proceeded.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Cool Characters, Digital Illustration Lessons, Super-Hero Stuff

Contest final custom illustration

Posted on January 31, 2008 by | Comments Off on Contest final custom illustration

Scorp has approved the final version of the contest-winning Mideios' final illustration, so without further ado, here he is:

Mideios final color drawing

And just to refresh your memory, here was the contest entry itself, direct from the HeroMachine:

Mideios - original web

Many thanks again to all the entrants, and to Scorp for giving me such a fun character to illustrate.

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Posted in Challenge Prizes, Challenges, Cool Characters, News & Updates

Progress on Mideios

Posted on January 30, 2008 by | Comments Off on Progress on Mideios

The illustration for Mideios, the contest finalist, is going very well. I've gotten approval on the black and white lineart, and though you might like to see how it's going so far (click the image for a larger, non-pixelated version):

Mideios in black and white

The black and white drawing is done in Flash in layers as I've described elsewhere. I fill the inside bits with white, then export it as a high-resolution Adobe Illustrator file. Now I'll import that Illustrator file into Photoshop for the color work, which I'll post as soon as it's approved. This is fun!

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Posted in Challenges, Cool Characters, Digital Illustration Lessons, Fantasy & Sci-fi

Free blank figure templates

Posted on January 27, 2008 by | Comments Off on Free blank figure templates

Maybe you want to see the character you've designed in a pose unavailable in the HeroMachine. Maybe you want to try freehanding your own illustration, but you're not very good at drawing the basic figure. To help you out, I've created the following "blank" figure drawings for you to use as a base for your own designs. These are all copyright-free, you're welcome to use them however you like without attribution. Just right-click on the template you want, and choose "Save As ..." or "Save Image As ..." to put it on your hard drive. Once you have it, load it into an image editor like Photoshop or MS Paint and start customizing it. You can also click on each image to load it full-size in its own window to see it without pixelation. Good luck!

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Posted in Cool Characters, Digital Illustration Lessons, Tips & Tricks

Contest Finalists – Vote!

Posted on January 21, 2008 by | Comments Off on Contest Finalists – Vote!

February 1, 2008: This contest has ended, so comments on this post have been disabled.

After receiving a staggering 136 entries of exceptionally high quality and spending hours agonizing over them, I've settled on the top five finalists for the "Win a Free Character Portrait Contest". You can see all 136 entries in this Picasa web album, and the 46 "Honorable Mentions" in this one. I'll list the finalists after the jump.

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Posted in Challenges, Cool Characters

Kitbashing: HeroMachine in 3D. Literally.

Posted on January 15, 2008 by | Comments Off on Kitbashing: HeroMachine in 3D. Literally.

Kitbashing is the art of assembling your own action figure out of a combination of hand-made and store-bought accessories. Kind of like HeroMachine in non-digital three dimensions. A couple of Christmases ago I took a stab at it myself, following the advice of my friend The Evil DM. I started with a friend's character, Pendragon:

Pendragon

I bought a bunch of action figure pieces (literally a bag of parts) from eBay, purchased fabric of the relevant colors, and acquired a package of Super Sculpy modeling clay for the helmet. After several weeks of work, three sculpted helmets exploded in the oven, and a new appreciation for the work of seamstresses everywhere, I ended up with a one of a kind action figure:

Pendragon Action Figure

I'm a rank beginner, though, especially compared to the work of guys like The Evil DM:

Jeff Mejia Merchant

And then there's this guy, whose Gaslight Justice League I saw yesterday. Just unreal:

Gaslight JLA

If you ever wanted to see the characters you've created in HeroMachine take life, you should try your hand at kitbashing. The worst that can happen is your mom yells at you for all the exploded Super Sculpy in her oven, and at best you develop a whole host of new uber-geek skills. And some really cool action figures.

(Pendragon illustration and character © John Hartwell, Hartwell Studio Works. Merchant action figure photograph © Jeff Mejia. Gaslight Justice League figures and photo © ... ummm ... the guy at this URL. Characters depicted in the Gaslight JLA image are © DC Comics, Inc.)

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Posted in Cool Characters, Super-Hero Stuff

Good group costume design – Linkin Green

Posted on January 11, 2008 by | Comments Off on Good group costume design – Linkin Green

Browsing through the UGO HeroMachine forums, I've seen a number of "group shots", characters all built around a common theme and then assembled together in Photoshop. But I think this trio from "Count Libido" (don't let the name scare you, it's all clean), called "Linkin Green":

Linkin Green Heroes

All of the Count's character images are really well done, even stretching back to 2005 (!) and the earlier HM versions. Note in this Linkin Green group how well the color palettes match. They're obviously three individuals, but just as clearly they're part of a group, and it's done by setting a simple four color palette and sticking with it. A common mistake when making characters is to load every color in the rainbow onto their outfits, but that just looks like a peacock exploded on them. Keep it to a tight group of colors like Count Libido and you'll end up with a much better design.

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Posted in Cool Characters, Tips & Tricks

Stealing from yourself

Posted on January 6, 2008 by | Comments Off on Stealing from yourself

One of the key advantages to using Flash as my illustration platform is that I can easily steal from myself. Take the example of Harry Kruger, NASA bigshot:

Harry Kruger

Harry is a character by Neil Ma from the Uberworld Play By eMail (PBeM) shared universe I'm involved with. Take special note of Harry's face, because I chopped it up and put its pieces into the HeroMachine expansion.

I created the original set of facial features in HM2 by drawing the eyes, noses, mouths, eyebrows, and ears all separately. As a result, they don't always look great put together. So with the Expansion, I took pre-existing faces (either from photo reference or from prior illustrations I'd done, like Harry) and cut up the individual features. That way, when they're put together, you come out with a pleasing whole that fits. As an added bonus, they still look good mixed and matched, too, which is always nice.

This sort of thing is much more widespread than I think most people realize. It's not a bad thing to recycle artwork you've used before, and having your originals available in a digital format (especially a lossless vector format) makes it that much easier. I've even duplicated entire figures as background elements for a different illustration, saving a ton of time and making the final result that much better.

So if you're going to steal, kids, steal from yourself!

(Harry Kruger character © Neil Ma.)

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Posted in Cool Characters, Digital Illustration Lessons, Tips & Tricks

Text Insignia

Posted on January 5, 2008 by | Comments Off on Text Insignia

Did you know you can type in your own letters in a variety of fonts to use as a logo for your HeroMachine character? After picking the body style you want, choose the "Insignia" component, then the "Text" genre of items. By default they all say "ABC", but if you click on the actual item on the character, your cursor turns into a text-selection i-beam. Delete the default ABC and type in whatever you like, from numbers to letters.

On the UGO HeroMachine forums, for example, "monkeykid12" has chosen a text font from the "Expansion1" genre and created "High Five", who probably won't be a guest on an anti-drug "After School Special" any time soon, but who does look pretty neat:

High Five

It helps to choose a non-white color for the Insignia before selecting the font item to make it easier to see. Now get out there and make some heroes!

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Posted in Cool Characters, Tips & Tricks