Project Hair

As some of you may know, I have considered my skills with creating normal Hair assets sub par at best. With that in mind I started thinking of ways to compensate for this weakness. I've been experimenting with resourcingĀ hair art from existing pieces and transforming them into HeroMachine assets. My first experiment with this can be seen below. I used Sue Storm hair as a resource and createdĀ vector artwork that can be added into HeroMachine.

Original Artwork:

SueStormArtwork_CloseUp

HeroMachineĀ Artwork:

Hair_FlowingTEST

Now the pitch. I'm asking any interested Machinists to scour the Internet for hair art that I can use as a resource for hair creationĀ and then add to HeroMachine. For the first phase of Project Hair I would take the top 6 suggestions (either chosen by me or a poll) and add them into HeroMachine as soon as I can manage it.

Now the catch. Image Requirements and Suggestions:

1. The artwork must be black and white and created in a style that is compatible with the HeroMachine aesthetic. Essentially Comic Book style inked artwork like the Sue Storm example above.

2. Avoid hair with headgear. I just want the hair.

3. Bigger is better. If the image is too small it may be hard to see the details necessary to createĀ the hair artwork.

4. I've found inked artwork depicting heroes with lighter hair, better suited for HeroMachine adaptation. Dark hair is usually depicted with larger black areas. If we want hair with bigger, blackĀ  shapes we can go that route though.

5. Post the link of the artwork into this blog post. Or jump on over to my item creation thread in the forums and add the suggestion there. http://www.heromachine.com/forums/topic/dblades-whiz-bang-item-dispenser/

Together we can make HeroMachine a whole lot hairier.

HM3: Das Boots

VariousItems_102415

Poll #2 Winner, Wrapped Boots, has gone live. I also threw in the Tall Boot as a bonus and broke it into two pieces to boot. In addition I uploaded a few other items: a Fantasy crown/helm I made for one of my own major villains, a saddle I made for SkyBandit, and a thread-stitched horror mouth in honor of the approaching Hallow's Eve.

The Wrapped Boots can be found in FootRight/Standard. The Tall Boots can be found in FootRight/FemaleStandard. The helm can be found in Headgear/Fantasy. The saddle can be found in ItemsRight/Miscellaneous (I need to break it apart into a couple of pieces, so that will be updated in the future.) The stitched mouth can be found in Mouths/Standard.

Enjoy and keep on Machining!

Pop Quiz Winner!

Well. well. well! Some of you guys really upped your game this week! Nicely done.

First up dreadyacht, who delivered a nice shield design, but a cropped sword. I don't see the visual connection between the two pieces, but well done.

The Sworrd and Shield of Soggorith_zps9i3fcdredreadyacht

A stunning entry by Lef: great shading and design details. Beautiful.

sword_shield_by_flash99gr-d9eaxkrlef

Melmo missed the deadline by minutes, but I had to include it. Well thought out design. Details are simple, believable and effective.

Melmo44-Sword-and-Shield

Keric's entry has a vaguely tribal feel which is very cool.

keric

Hawk brought the pain this week with a stunning entry.

hawk007-Dragon-Cleaver-Set

Fantasyman created sword and shield with a great mystical feel. The blue aura is awesome!

FantasyMan-Dragon Weapons

And demigod created a classic form with some beautiful design details.

demigod

And the winner this week is Hawk. Amazing work sir! Untouchable!

Join me in congratulating Hawk on a well deserved win. See you Saturday.

David

Character Design Contest ā™Æ145- Witchcraft

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 RPGā€™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 arenā€™t certain, donā€™t enter it, because Iā€™m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

If you donā€™t know how to enter, thereā€™s a handy little diagram below the jump.

Continue reading

Character Design Contest ā™Æ144 (Earth) Poll

[polldaddy poll="9144401"]

Character Design Contest ā™Æ143 (Air) Winner

Once again, quite a close contest, with only 10 votes covering the top 3 places (5 votes between each place as well, so it was nice and neat). And we managed to have the poll finish in alphabetical order, which amused me. So, given that fact, I'm sure people will be able to guess (if they remember who was on the poll) that it isĀ Cliff who walks away with this weeks win for his characterĀ Hurricane. Congratulations Cliff and well done to everyone who entered.

143 Cliff- Hurricane

JReviews: Doctor Who Series 9 Episode 6- The Woman Who Lived

So, after a fairly odd first part to our third two parter of the series, how does it's second half match up?

Continue reading

Pop Quiz ā€“ The Devil Is In The Details

71AnVhExBVL._SL1200_

The focus of this weekā€™s pop quiz is detail: pure and un-simple. To demonstrate this you will create an elaborate sword and shield combo that only the most powerful and esteemed warrior would carry into battle. I donā€™t want the warrior, his/her armour or helmet, just the sword and shield.

There is no prize. There is no poll. The winner is chosen by me.

So get ready to mask, shade and highlight your heart out! You only get one entry so be creative, and above all else, have fun!

All entries must be in JPG or PNG formĀ (BMPs are too big), posted to a publicly accessible website (likeĀ the HeroMachine forums,ImageShack,Ā PhotoBucket, or whatever);

  • Entries must be made as a comment or comments to this post, containing a link directly to the image and the character name;
  • The image must be new and designed specifically for the Pop Quiz;
  • No copyrighted characters please ā€“ they will be deleted.
  • Please name your filesas [your name]-[character name].[file extension]Ā before you upload it. So DiCicatriz, for instance, would save his ā€œBayou Belleā€ character image asĀ DiCicatriz-BayouBelle.png.
  • Please make the link goĀ directly to the image(likeĀ this) andĀ not to a hosting jump pageĀ (likeĀ this).Ā See this post on how to get the direct link for most sites.

This contest will close at 9pm Eastern on Sunday, October 25th.

Character Of The Week: AMS- Plasma Evil

Do I even need to explain this one?

I didn't think so.

Gallery- Planet AMS

Continue reading

Kaldath’s Caption Contest #74: Results

Well After a weeks extension on the latest Caption contest The total number of entries did not change so I will not be doing a top five and instead will just be naming our winner which is _____________________

 

Timedrop23

Spiderman 2

This is going to be the last caption contest I hold for a while and I would like to take this time to thank everyone who participated in any of the Caption contest I have held. Next week I will figure out something to post to take the place of the caption contest and see how things go from there.