Storn

Uthosa

sharthak.

this Ifrit can almost work as a superhero/villain type too. Tell yer Champion's friends!

The nice folks at DOJ let me post 3 or 4 images per book. I happened to do the MMM art in color, because I think it translates into gray scale with lots of subltle tones. Also known as "happy accidents". So, now that MMM is out, I thought I would share with y'all what the color art looks like.

Aw...geez...I'm afraid I'm alpha all the way. Although I would rather talk than fight.

Here is that thread. First page, towards the bottom explains my creation of the character. http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10653&highlight=storn I have no intention at this time in naming her... or giving her stats. Not really my decision, that seems to be the domain of DOJ. Although some folks have extrapolated and done stats... as seen in this thread.

Splittin' hairs dude/ette. That's still Supers. Brave New World has a situation very similar to that. Still drawing upon comic book convetions of folks with powers. So, still superheroes to me. Necessary Evil, coming out from PEG, is only about the Villains left on Earth after the good super heroes die fighting the Alien Invasion. That's their premise. You play a villian. Its still superheroes to me. Superspies with abiltiy to shrug of a tankshell or phase through a wall or teleport and yet have the emotional wrenching of Sandbaggers and/or MI-5... is still Superheroes to me. And if anyone asks; yeah, I think Feng Shui is about Dark Champion level superheroes with a scoop of HK cinema. But I think we are talking definitions here. And there is a lot of room for misinterpertation in such a discussion. It is just my feeling is there is a lot more under the super sky than Horatio has dreamt of. I misinterperted some things from your first post though, I apologize.

Its nothing specific... could be... could be Sundered Skies from PEG... skyships and the like are not anything new. I just have always loved them. This was for a bootcamp over at RPGnet freelance and freelancers section.

Finished Market

If you don't critique, how I am expected to know where to get better? I don't buy the "those who can't, shouldn't" I know plenty of people who don't have the training to be artist, yet still have very valid observations. And that is pretty much all that art is... training. I drew exactly the same as you did, with the same skill when we were both 5. We all did. Even the greats. I just stuck with it. You went on to other pursuits. I get enough reward (some think its chemical, studies show endorphins are released in artists brains after 2 hours of artwork.) to sit in that chair day after day working on my craft. Now... hold off on critiquing any other of the artists work in MMM... 1) Not sure if they want to hear it. 2) I don't have the book, so I can only comment on my own stuff. but me? Fire away. I'm a big boy. I can take it. I'll take it, consider it and learn from it. And as far as taste goes... it helps Hero to hear what works for folks and what doesnt. Granted, your taste may go in directions that the art teams of Hero can't/won't go...or the majority won't agree with. AFter all, we wnat to remain open/attract the largest market we can. So, that's what these forums are here for. Let's hear your opinion.

I don't have MMM yet. But I just looked over my artwork that I did for that book... and I worked my tail off for the interiors I was assigned. One, the hobgoblin, is one of my favorites that I've done all year. But I have very little control over what pic gets put with what text. Or how it gets assigned. I hear ya on having groups being done by the same artist/art team. I think that makes sense... but I guess its not always possible. Some artists are better at certain types of art than others. Art Directors tend to parcel out art to the various artist's strengths. Often, I don't even see the text, because writing is going on at the same time that artwork is being created. That is how Hero can get out a book every month (sometimes 2). All I can tell ya is that I'm a tryin'. And I think all of the Hero stable of artists continues to try and improve each and every book. Each and every illustration.

Hey ww, this isn't my game... but I'm not to tell anyone that their superhero/villain campaign is illogical... that is the pot calling the kettle black. Supers are illogical. As for not genre... what is Red Star? Or Authority? Or Sleeper? Or the subplots of many an Image title with all the Black Ops stuff goin' on. Sure, I grant you, its at the edge and is a far minority of comic books... but to say that it isn't genre? Don't buy that. If stories are about people with powers beyond that of normal folk, powers that transcend physics, that are more than extraopolated mental abilities... then it is superhero genre. From the masked men of yesteryear to the goofyness of camp to mutant angst to the grim, gritty avengers to the scariness of the Authority.... its all genre. That is simply the campiagn premise. Like it or not, its the premise. I, for one, like imagination... and this campaign brief is a heck more imaginative than many "typicial" superhero campaigns.... just by the meer decision to keep Nazis around. That changes everything. Most campaigns try to "reflect" or emulate the Super introduced in the 30s and then a pastiche of actual comic books' evolution from there. Is it grim? yup. Is it supers, yes... defintiely moving into sci-fi... but what is wrong with that? Btw, in the game I've been in, the military could whip any paranormal it wanted to, if it absolutely needed to, if it could bring all of its force to bear. Now, there are some really powerful supers in RDU, but there are a hell of a lot more normal folk. We've talked about it. Supers simply can beat a batallion, but could never "hold ground" beyond a city. Mind control wears off. Nukes are scary to even paranormals (except Sunburst, but he had to leave the planet for fear of irradating others). Heck, 30mm uranium depleted rounds are nothing to laugh at, even for the toughest brick. So our superworld operates on the assumption that if a war between normal and paranormal broke out... normals win. Just not enough paranormals to swing it, even if they totally united.

heh. Neil has obviously never played in one of his own games.... or he would know that there is plenty of stress being a player in his RDU! Not that is bad. I like stress. Same reason I like deadlines. But while I"m making funnies, let me try and make a bit more sense of Neils statement. There is no stress in preparing to be a player. There is plenty of stress (just time spent is one aspect) in the prep of being a GM. HOwever, in play, I put forward that if the prep was good, there is very little stress in running the game as the GM.

An interesting theory on the "fall" of Rome. My very good friend and fellow gamer went to Harvard for history. HIs study was Papal politics. HIs good friend and fellow classmate was studying Rome and came up with this:. A interesting tidbit... the families the owned the land (and the records in Italy are pretty good, it was literate culture and survived) before the "fall", still owned the land and in many cases are still on the same land right up to today. The same families. They weren't killed or driven off. They didn't take on "Barbarian" surnames... in fact, it seems that many German tribes married into the italian families and took italian surnames. The Harvard fellow's opinion was that there was NO fall of Rome. Sure, Rome changed. Rome absorbed and adapted and as a gov't structure it was decentralized and would stay decentralized til 1930s. But the people stayed. The power stayed where it has always been up to recent times, in the land. So if there is no Fall, then what do you predicate the beginning of the Dark Ages on? Now, I think the counter arguement is that Rome as an expansionistic power, fell. But I do wonder just how Dark those ages really were. I think a lot less dark than we think. Just what I think is an interesting nugget.

Yeah, I thought Neil's request was a bit of good timing considering we just had this conversation about a lack of female supers.

Page 5 of this thread, somewhat in the middle. Or you can try: http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=20499 Enf... since Vector and Victrix are cousins and Veer is a clone of Vector... maybe color sense is genetic? Maybe, just maybe, I did that on purpose?

Here is Victrix, a character that I drew for my second assignment for Hero Games waaaaay back in 4th ed Champions Universe. She has always been a integral part of Neil's RDU game and recent events have brought this beloved NPC to the forefront. When the original Champions disappeared, Victrix, having lost the Freedom Squad in Philly, stepped into the void. Now the New Champions, with new PCs are being formed... Barracuda, who I shown early in this thread is one of the Newbies. Demonstar, posted really early in this thread and is Eric's PC is another. So Neil requested that I update her, including making her in her 30s. So I tried. Up to you if I succeeded or not. If you see any simularities between Victrix and my PC Vector... that was intentional. They are cousins, both tekes...although my PC is much more powerful, Victrix has a incredible network of contacts and is one very determined NPC and a bit of a spitfire to boot.

Not that this is all that important, but the sfx of Vector's Reflect (not deflect) is to gently guide ala Akido, the force of the incoming missile, around him, using the force to return it to sender. Hey! Its Supers... it doesn't have to make perfect sense, just internal logical sense. Its not like I'm putting a force wall up in front of the damn thing. Although, I can do that too if I wanna. Which proved very effective vs. pursuing Apache helicopters one adventure... amazing how bad they fly without a couple of rotary blades! . The vulnerability of the M1 to Supers is that it can rarely traverse its cannon into position to fire upon a super who is close. And most supers can close quickly. So, yeah, getting hit by 120 mm shell is going to really hurt Vector (won't kill him though, that is how tough the ol' boy is)... but the tough part is hitting, especially when I can fly above the the cannon's arc. Now, Battle Crusiers with laser gatlings, ebeams and micro missiles and whatever evil weapons systems our feverish imaginations can come up with, might have a better chance of targeting supers, especially in the "RDU" model. And the typical sci-fi military starship seems to have lots of weapon system redundancy, overlapping arcs of fire. I think in a galaxy where supers (villians and heroes) are whacking away at ships... the ol' Damage Shield is gonna come in real useful. "Electrostat the hull Ensign! Galaxy Girl is going to have a new hairstyle" "Yes sir, Cap'n."

Getting back to the main thrust of this thread. I wanna see in Galactic Champions ways of doing Aliens, Politics, Supers and all that technological trappings that still keeps being a superhero special. The Legion might be one trick ponies in terms of superpowers, but they are powerful and have a list of powers within that ONE superpower as long as my arm... think how many different ways Lightning Lad or Elemental Lad or even Wildfire have used their power "suite' over the years. I wanna be able to do that too. Like others have said, the equipment de rigeur. The flight belt (flight earrings?...bad idea), the costume that serves as that 10/10 armor (amazing how far synthetic technology has come), complete with total space survivalbility in a skintight. the holographic computer wrist watch... stuff like that. I wanna see the lineage going back to the Champs Universe as presented, but not being beat over the head with it. Not every great concept needs to be updated for the future, but a few choice ones...with some surprises, would be cool. Planet construction and Alien cultures 101 the way comic books do it. Green Latern, Buck Rogers and Burroughs is my guideposts... not science steeped in reality... I want my blue skinned princesses and my weird clone races and Giant space whales! A map of the Champions Galaxy with travel times based on comic book storytelling, not light years. How many panels does it take me, dammit! . Just kidding, but travel times in days for certain tech, travel times in hours for others. Don't give me lightyears, make me check FTL speeds that characters bought or a ship has and have to figure that crap out. Maybe a Gate System ala Cowboy Beebop is the way around a lot of problems. To just touch upon the gritty and to contrast the Legion-like lite of what I envision, an ode to Alien Legion and maybe some examples on how to do that. This isn't a product that my gaming group would use all that much. What I envision is something much wilder, grander, pulpy than what RDU is. But Legion really is what I would aim for... and even in its modern incarnation... its grand. Heck, Legion went from a Rocket Clubhouse to an entire Planet! That's scope.

Whoa... go do some xmas shopping and come back to Galactic Champs meltdown... sheesh. I guess that I can see both sides. Why not have a few rules and ideas and benchmarks to do "blow up space cruiser in one shot"? After all, the current Legion really doesn't do that...but the Legion of yesteryear certainly does. And the Authority has that kinda kick-butt power. The more ways one can use Hero AND Champions, the better off it is as a product... sorry, folks, can't take away the business side of me in this equation. The more successful means I get more work. Hee. So, yes, some self interest is there and I'm trying to honestly disclose it. But, an entire evening adventure fighting one Star Cruiser is also valid, like I said. And in Neil's RDU, the way I expect something like that to be handled. And I think both concerns and views on this subject *should* be addressed in this upcoming product. So folks have a clear choice on how to use the product. More importantly, there is the language present to allow gaming groups to discuss among themselves what kind of scifi Supers game that they want. Why only do one or the other?

Bob, the tangent hasn't strayed that far. In my opinion, it talks directly to the idea of huge amounts of property damage, taking on star cruisers and the like that the Legion of Super Heroes does on a monthly basis. And if there is one comic that seems to be the blueprint for Galactic Champs... it would be Legion of Super Heroes. Now, one superhero model has the above mentioned Star Cruiser with 30 armor with no hope of destorying it really and the battle moves to "get inside, destroy from the inside format". Perfectly acceptable way of doing superheroes with high tech. The Legion model is Mon-El flying thru Battle Cruiser after Battle crusier destroying them as he goes... or Elemental Lad transforming the whole damn thing. To do that, one has to have active pt attacks in the 200 range... just enormous pt inflation. Think of the END, think of the defenses needed to do a move through. Also, perfectly acceptable way of emulating supers. so the question of how to do property damage w/o having to throw tons and tons of dice is a perfectly valid divergence to happen... in my opinion.

Mono, be careful... you are not in this game... but I am. Right now, we are fighting 10d6 villians... we are 10d6 heroes. And they exist in the same world as my 600 pt character. But we've rarely faced 20 -30d6 villians, no matter what range we are playing in. It happens occasionally, but not as standard foes. As a result, my 600 pt character really is one of the most powerful people in the world. Now, I think your house rule has merit... depending on the type of game you are running. For totally 4 color, tons of property damage, it makes perfect sense to me. It also is less die rolling and easy math...which alwasy appeals to me as a someone who looks for elegant systems. I think doubling is too much..13d6 shouldn't do 26 body to a structure... that seems too skewed. Just my .02. But I think 1 & 1/2 would make sense... then you are looking at 20 body. But that is a bit more math crunchy. I also think that sometimes ya just wanna play a character who has 20 years of experience is perfectly fine. Neil doesn't share that idea...he wants to see his PCs get their points the old fashion way... they have to EARN it (paraphrasing merryl lynch ads...which is funny since it really is Merryl Lynch... we cook the books). BUT!!! Neil's view is not rooted in D&D, trust me on this one. He doesn't want to see me labor over 12 years gathering 600 xp and then turn around and introduce a brand new character who clocks in at 700 just because the concept would allow for it. Neither way is wrong... just different. But Neil's idea of attacking a car and every bit of it taking the damage makes sense too... I like the visual appeal, sure the car ain't stopped, but 12d6 takes out two tires, most of the glass and the car is definitely damaged. Makes Spreading more appealing, and genre emulative... for in the comics, Spreading EBs is a way of life. This is a good discussion though... some thoughtful ideas on both sides. I do feel, percieve that my 600 pts teke character should be able to take out an Abrams in 1 to 2 shots... but my brand new PC is really going to have to work for it with his main attack being an 11d6 punch. And probably take awhile. Of course, my tactic for Vector (600 pts) would be to entice the tank into firing...then missile deflect and reflect the shell back... which he can do with great skill. 120mm HEAP attack is nothing to sneer at.

Sirocco is faster than Speedball (sorry Geoff , who is on these boards as I write this, just noticed.) But Speedball has some great speedster tricks that Sirocco doesnt. Like those ball bearings chucked at high speed! So, that was intentional in the way I drew those characters. Glad ya noticed! Yeah... she is one of my favorites. My art list asked for super flying in front of buildings.. that was it. Here was one of those times I stopped myself and said "ok, what can I do that isn't a superman, white guy ripoff?" And the idea of a mostly white costume, combined with light brown hair... a hair color one doesn't see very often in comics, yet plenty of women have that hair color... was enough to cement that idea in my head. I've used her whenever I could in subsequent books. Chango was my attempt to take a character who was cursed by a Voodoo god with "stupidity" and had thrown off that curse into a more serious contender. Chango was actually a very relaxed, loveable, goof. But was wrapped up in events way beyond his control. Its one of my favorites and my inking on that reminds me a bit of Alan Davis/Paul Neary combo... not that I'm comparing myself to them... but see the influence in my own work.

Well, why so few superhero females? That is a difficult question to nail down with an answer. I think there are many reasons. Most of it due to comics. There is one legendary icon of superhero females. One. Wonder Woman. Certainly other females that are dynamite characters...but they aren't icons (Sue Storm jumps to mind, love her character, but sorry not an icon). Compare Wonder Woman to Capt. America, Superman, Batman, Spiderman are THE classic icons of supers... everyone in the world recognizes those characters. Why this disporportion? Simple, the audience. The readership of comics has traditionally been 90% male and young males at that. Male readers identify with male characters. I think female readership of comics is up, to about 18% of the market, the last decade has seen a nice increase... but still no where near parity. Now, lets talk about roleplaying, Champions and other super hero RPGs. The comic venue influence the RPG venue mightly... this is the genre we seek to emulate. Since I'm not a cheesecake artist by nature, despite an occasional foray, I tend to drift towards white, males as the thing to draw when left to my own devices. because I'm a white male. You draw what you know. Then the art that I post here is a mix of art I do for the games I'm in and private commissions. What character types I'm handed to do in Private Commissions, I have no control over besides saying no. I draw what folks request. If I get 90% super males to draw, that's what I draw. This same thing came up in a thread about a lack of racial diversity in the Fantasy Hero book and all of RPGs. All I can say is that I try. I try to do as many women that I can think of. I try and do racial (hate that word, there is no such thing as seperate race within humanity).... cultural diversity. Sometimes I have carte blanche in an illo, sometimes I have to do something very specific. But let me assure you that I do think on this subject with considerable effort. That I'm aware that this disparity exists. Btw, my newest PC is a Cuban-american...at least he ain't totally USofA white culture. As for the Vector family wife, Karen aka Oracle. Karen, as I see her, is beautiful to my character...but she isn't the most beautiful woman in RDU. That physical plainess is very much part of that character... not that Karen is a plain character, but she is unassuming, quiet, introspective to contrast with my character's drive, ambition, hubris and sturm un drang. And it is also very, very hard to draw a woman in her 30s... I find that the most difficult age to get across... it is so easy to slip back to the 20s or make her look 50...one slip of a line is all it takes to transform a woman's face. Men's faces are so much easier to gradually age. Having said all that, I'm not completely happy with Vecor or Oracle in that pic. Its good, but not perfect. I put a lot of effort into Hope, the baby, because I draw babies almost never. That was a day I distinctly recall that was a real struggle... much erasing happened. So I did the best that I could at that moment and moved on. especially since it was for my own yuks and not for publication. But thank you for taking the time and interest in my work. You bring up good things to ponder.

Not game art, but maybe needs a female explorer, archeologists. Actually, this is a modern ode to the WWII pin up. I have a friend over in Afghanistan at the moment. We can communicate by e-mails...which brings that part of the world into sharp focus...especially while listening to BBC World, which does such a better job of reporting than our own news services. So I hope it brings a smile to his face and perhaps to yours...