Category Archives: Meta

Looking for new blog authors

Hey guys, JR here.

So, as I'm sure everyone is now aware, Kaldath is going part-time as Head Moderator and I've been promoted to co-Head Mod. As such, I'm going to try and get the blog more active again. My idea is, I want 3 more blog authors to write articles for the blog on a weekly basis (or if you so wish, more than one article on a weekly basis). The sort of things I'm looking for are topical discussions on relevant subjects, reviews of recent releases (comics, TV shows and films, possibly books if appropriate), possibly Heromachine tutorials if someone wants to try that out. If you wanted to bring back one of the old blog topics that are no longer around, that would be acceptable as well (obviously the CDC's and Pop Quizzes are not included here because djuby is currently running those, neither is the Friday Night Fights or the Hall Of Fame, as these are special topics).

Now, I'm looking for 3 people, as I said earlier, who are dedicated and reliable. One problem we've had in the past is we add a new blog author, they do one or two posts and then nothing. I don't want that happening again. So if you want to give it a go, email me at jr19759@hotmail.co.uk with the email subject title Blog Author Idea and an outline of your topic idea (if you can include an example that would be useful) and your heromachine username, then I will pick the three people that I feel have the best ideas and will be the most reliable, pending approval from Jeff of course. I would also like to make this clear that, these are not moderator positions, just blog author.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.

With that.

JR out.

Taking a Step Back

Hey Machiners, Kaldath here with a bit of an announcement. I would like to start off by saying that I love this community and have been proud to be the leader of it in Jeff's stead for these long years  but I had been getting burned out for a long time now and then I had this serious illness. I haven't told anyone in the HM community this until now but I came very close to death. The doctors told me if I had waited just a couple more hours before seeking treatment it is very unlikely I would be here right now. Besides the infection in my foot that resulted in my toe and a couple other bones being removed my diabetes was completely out of control, my blood sugar was over 500 and I was in what is known as Diabetic Ketoacidosis ( you can look it up if you like ) and that is what nearly killed me.

 

Now I will admit that I have been considering hanging up the cape and resigning my position as Moderator and blog author here at HeroMachine but instead I have decided to step back and go extremely part time  for the rest of this year so I can work on getting my health back in order as well as recharge my batteries. I have just sent an email to Jeff and JR to that effect and wanted to let you all know as well. I will still be around watching over the place from the shadows for spambots and rules breakers ( too much of the security guard in me to stop being a rules enforcer I guess ) and I will still write a post now and then like I have been recently but for the most part I will be leaving this place in the hands of JR whom I have asked Jeff to promote to the same level of authority on the site that I have.

 

Anyway I will see you all around and hopefully come January I will be back in action ready and raring to go !

Update on Kaldath

Hey folks, Kaldath asked me to update everyone with his status. He is out of the hospital but weak as a kitten after 2 weeks in a hospital bed. He's not likely to return to HeroMachine for a few more weeks as the doctor is holding him out of work till September.

I know you all join me in wishing him a speedy recovery, and we'll try to hold things down here while he gets better.

Creators Club 2016

Hi guys, JR here with the formal announcement of this years Creators Club Poster.

This years poster is being done by Stulte and the theme is Magic. So what you guys need to do is create a self portrait of yourself, either realistic or idealised, as some form of Fantasy based magic user, be it Witch, Wizard, Mage or other. You can show magic use if you wish and use poses other than the standard base pose, however we must insist on a few things. 1. The character must be forward facing, 2. Faces must be visible, so no masks or face coverings please, and 3. No backgrounds. Shading is optional, so you don't have to shade if you don't want to. And obviously all entries must be full-body pictures.

Of course, as with all previous CCP's, for your entry to be acceptable you must complete the following criteria. If you don’t then you don’t get on the poster.

1. Your entry must be in .png format. You must title it in standard contest entry style i.e. Username- Creators Club Poster (for example I would title mine JR19759- Creators Club Poster). Don’t screenshot the picture and send that in, export it as a .png please.

2. You MUST include the text for your entry. Mandatory. This is incase Stulte needs to re-export any of the files in a bigger or smaller format. You can include it as an attachment in the email or just paste it into the email, but you have to have the text accessible.

3. Your email has to be titled something applicable to the Creators Club, so its easy to recognise as not-spam.

4. You only have one entry, so make sure you’re happy with it before you send it in. It doesn’t have to be the worlds best creation, this is only for fun after all, but we don’t want endless revisions.

After you've done that, send your entry to Stulte at creatorsclub2016@gmail.com . Submissions will be open until Feb 1st as of today, so you've got a whole month to do your entries, just don't leave it to the last minute and not give yourself enough time. This is open to everyone, so you don't have to be especially prolific or a Power User or anything, just a part of the community. And remember, this isn't a challenge or anything, so just have fun with it.

If you have any questions, just leave them in the comments and Stulte and myself will try to answer them as best we can. If Stulte has anything else to add, I'm sure he'll do so in the comments as well. But with that, I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

JR out.

Wicked Cool Curves — a Kickstarter for a friend of mine

wickedcool

Hey all, Jeff here, begging your pardon for a bit of non-HeroMachine-related promotion on behalf of a friend of mine. Andrea Glockner is launching a Kickstarter today for awesome, custom-made workout gear for every body. Called "Wicked Cool Curves", it's fun, colorful clothing for life, designed to fit and flatter curvy and plus-size bodies in a size-inclusive and body positive manner.

It seems like plus-size clothes are designed to be boring on purpose, but Andrea  has finally brought some color, flair, and pizzazz to them with her custom-colored, super comfortable line.

Given the passion of this community for customizing their creativity, I thought this was a perfect product to bring to you all. I hope you'll spread the word and make a contribution of even $1 (the sheer number of donors really helps boost her up the Kickstarter charts even for just that one sawbuck).

Thanks for supporting a like-minded creative person!

Image

CDC Question + Extra Posts?

Hey guys, JR here and I've got a few quick questions for you concerning my posts on the blog. Firstly, the weekly Character Design Contests seem to be dropping in popularity. Over the last couple of months we only seem to be averaging less than 20 individual participants each contest. Sure some of those participants may enter multiple times (Cliff and Outcast are notable for this, certainly recently), but last year we'd get at least 25-30 each week on average, and that's before we even get to the polls, which used to get no less than 180 votes each week last year and frequently broke the 200 vote mark (last weeks vote was the highest we've had in a month and it got 130 votes). And I'd be interested to know why this is. I don't want to stop doing the CDC's and will try to do everything in my power to keep them going, but I don't want it to get to a point where we're just having the same old people in the polls, not because they were the best entries, but because no-one else entered. And while we're on the subject of the CDC's, if anyone has any suggestions for themes, please leave them below. It would help a lot for those times when I've been busy and haven't had time to come up with a theme for the week (which almost happened this week, I actually put together this weeks contest an hour before it went up, which is late for me as I'd usually have it all sorted the night before).

And on that note, there is obviously a lot less blog content of late, due to both Kaldath and my own IRL job commitments. I know Kaldath asked about volunteers for new blog authors a while back, but that has gone quiet. I'm not in a position to give anyone authorship permission and I've not exactly got a vast expanse of free time at the moment, so what do? Well, it was suggested to me yesterday that I bring the Power User Profiles back. Great, I literally have to do nothing except receive an email and post it to the blog for that one, so it would be viable. Only problem is, we could only come up with one new person to profile. So that's where you guys come in. If you can think of anyone you'd like to see profiled, leave them in the comments and if I see at least 5 I like, then I'll make it happen.

So yeah, comment please. It'd really help out a lot.

And with that, JR out.

Back to the old look

As you can tell, I've moved back to the old theme -- the new one was woefully underperforming. Sorry for all the changes, but I reckon this one will remain for quite a while, as it's certainly proven itself to be ... superior.

superior-spider-man

Design Update

Hey all, I'm giving the new design another few days, but at this point it has cratered ad revenue. If it doesn't start to equalize a little, I'm going back to the old design. Just a heads-up so you don't get whiplash too bad if it happens.

New Site Design

Hello HeroMachiners! As you may have noticed, I've just launched a new site design to hopefully make your browsing and creating experience more enjoyable. The home page now looks like this:

hm-new-site-front

 

The goals of the redesign were:

  • Make the site easier and more enjoyable to use by decluttering and toning down the riot of colors in general.
  • Get more in line with the design aesthetic of HeroMachine 3.
  • Widen the default page layout so you can see more on the screen without getting crowded.
  • Give direct and unambiguous access to two key features -- downloading HM2 and using HM2 online.

You can still find your favorite links like the forums, the Hall of Fame, and the blog in the one central drop down menu right in the middle at the top, labeled "Explore".

I hope you enjoy the new look and feel. Please let me know in comments or through the contact form (the envelope in the header) if you have any suggestions or feedback.

Have fun creating!

No Gallery Grabs This Week/ The Big Question ♯30

Ok guys, unfortunately there isn't going to be a Gallery Grabs this week (I'll explain why after the jump), but instead of just leaving the slot empty this week why don't we get some discussion going. And my question for you guys is, who is the greatest villain of all time?

Now you can choose from any medium you like here, I'm not just asking about comics. You can go books, TV, film, animation, video games etc. so that's a whole lot of villains for you to choose from. My question isn't who would win if all of them had a massive fight, it is who is the best at being bad. Answers below please.

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