Sparrows

Reading and watching Invincible & Resident Alien has inspired me to hit the costume creator to hash out some silly d-listers for myself. First we've got Alien Man! He's "exactly" what it says on the tin! Just a lovable space friend. Demon/Dark MM...that's just a coincidence. Next up is the ideal candidate for any recruiting Slither Societies or Legions of Lizards. For your consideration: SPIT SHOT! (Beam/Poison Corr)

I really really love this one!

A young Jetspeed was trained and outfitted by The Cruor Cloak (Arch/Ninja Blaster) who is essentially a French Batman. Cruor's partner in crime fighting is Siluet (MA/Ninja Stalker). Siluet is a Turkish ex-superspy.

The leader of my primary super team is the the speedster Jetspeed (DB/SR Scrapper). Loooong stories short, he ends up trading his soul to the devil in order to save his team which sends him down the path of being the only hero in my stable that has a resurrection plot. After he dies he becomes conscripted into the Lucifer's infernal legion under the name Hellspeed (DB/Fire Brute). As Hellspeed he's used to defend Lucifer's claim to to the kingdoms of hell from a powerful outsider (see thread pg. 60). Ultimately Hellspeed is twisted into a pawn for Lucifer's challenger and becomes the key to a successful coup. Jet's willpower is eventually strong enough to overpower his warring masters' and he finds an opportunity to absorb the energy of a fallen celestial (see thread pg. 51). He's reborn as Gods' Speed (Back to DB/SR) and he becomes the first line of defense against cosmic and multi-dimensional threats.

Okay this redesign may have gotten away from me. My initial thought was to take the post-apocalyptic raider costume and add in a single signature pink item as part of the piecemealed costume. Originally that was going to be just a cloth mask, but I decided to integrate it into the ratty cape in order to turn it into one giant torn pink scarf. I tried to keep the purple highlights but it didn't really pop with the mutations I started to give him, especially with his bioluminescent head piece. The golden yellow blends with the skin tone the best while still providing some contrast so I went in that direction. This lead to me giving him a gaseous gold combat aura with yellow/lime "dark" powers. Last Man Stands.costume

Got some brigands for today. First we've got a redesign of my misguided scam artist Soul to Keep (DP/Dark Corr). Soul to Keep's inherent power is extreme beginner's luck. Anything new he excels at, but only temporarily. Thanks to a poor understanding of his powers and a gambling addiction StK gets in over his head and murked by the mob. When a Grim Reaper comes to collect they have a customary "Duel with Death" wager. StK naturally lucks out and wins, killing the Reaper. As per Death's law, StK is now on the hook as Junior Reaper himself. In over his head once more, StK is now scamming and failing upwards on a cosmic corporate ladder. Then I've got a new toon I'm enjoying that's mostly just a punny name. This is Lion's Share (Thugs/Sonic MM). After a military-funded human hybridization project goes belly up, this ex-soldier has started his own pride of disenfranchised mercenaries.

In the minority, but I actually like this one more. That magic lines pattern is hard to pull off and I think it works with this. Great job!

Guilty as charged. Although tbf I had a Color Blind back on live so I had to get this one a passport before giving him a makeover. The monochromatic contest was actually what inspired me to give him an update.

Here's Colour Blind (NRG/Kin Corr) a super who absorbs colors from the surrounding environment and converts them into energy blasts. Teams hate him for his knockback, citizens hate him for turning the city to grayscale. The painters union loves him though!

Namesake time! Here's Sparrows (Kin/Willpower Brute) a Carebear stare come to life. Sparrows started out as a challenge to make a melee focused Cupid incarnate and evolved into a kid with a heart defect that has seen the best in humanity through his time in the hospital. That bad ticker now literally glows with the power that he draws from the love and compassion in the universe. His energy attacks send out a wave of positivity that can turn the cruelest foe into a caring friend. Brimming with cheesy and lofty idealism, Sparrows aims to reform criminals and tyrants into agents of kindness and actually achieve world peace. He's not a self insert by any means but more of my representation of the ideal hero. On the flipside of the coin is his nemesis Hate Spew (Rad/Electric Brute), a social media shock jock who gets more powerful with, you guessed it, hate and division. Not only does Hate Spew have the grim realities of human nature on his side, he's got a team of media experts that have manufactured discord to a science. It's a small detail, but something about his green shades really sell me on this design. It's like I can taste his podcast with my eyes.

Couldn't even tell! Love the switch to blue smoke and this pose is great.

Thanks! Yeah dude go for it 🙂

While checking out the costume files on my laptop for my last post I found this gem I never got around to publishing a hero's license for: Thanks! The lich aesthetic is totally what I'm going for with him!

A while back I put together this costume to test out Savage Melee, and I recently had the epiphany to repurpose the costume for a character concept I've been toying with for even longer but could never find the right pieces for. This is the Void of Dreams (Rad/Temp Blaster) the darkest part of a sleeping mutant's psyche that manifests while they are sleeping. Although the VoD is limited by the sleep schedule of his "host", his temporal abilities have allowed him to gradually slow time down so that he can master the magics of the astral plane. He's now had the equivalent of centuries of practice and with each slumber he becomes exponentially more adept at advanced magics. The original conception of this costume was for a Savage/Shield Ouroboros Mender who had spun far past his tether and bound his spirit to a magic cloak in an attempt to survive. In true convoluted comic fashion, the cloak caught the eye of a demonic spirit who would wrestle with the mender for control of the relic. This is where a lot of the gold vs black of the costume comes from, and his initial dark energy shield added asymmetry to convey the cloak unevenly slipping from the mender's control. When still the illusion of this costume portraying a floating legless spirit works fairly well, but in motion I had to play with elements to keep it consistent. Because the path aura needs time to build up a large murky cloud to hide the spectrum legs, I've found that black super speed works the best for keeping the concept believable (although obviously I tried my best to get fly/hover to work first). Switching to slide for the default stance was a must to keep the movement ghostlike...ish. The other major change I made was to swap the Valkyrie skirt for the CoT robes as they cover the legs a bit better during movement, despite being less impressive when at rest.

Here's Vorportal (Grav/Radiation Controller), a kindhearted hero whose name rings fear in the hearts of evil doers. Early in her career a lack of finesse her dimensional bending abilities led to infamy as she would accidentally dismember the limbs of criminals caught by her portals. After taking a few years off to train in solitude she's back in the spotlight to rebrand herself as a gentle and clean paragon of good. Still, she's got a lot work to do to make the tabloids forget about the time she decapitated a megalomaniacal sorcerer at age 16. Bow down to Gear God (NRG/NRG Brute) a brilliant engineer who lost his humanity in an effort to prove his intellectual superiority to the world. Despite his consciousness transcending to a digital state that's supercharged by an advanced AI, Gear God still lacks common sense and is cursed by his own ego. As a technopath GG can easily control armies of robots but often prefers using a single powersuit to eliminate heroes that dare think themselves stronger, smarter, or more powerful than the God of the 21st century. At Gear God's side is Spindle (Crab Soldier) a retired secret agent that spent her youth double crossing various nations. Spindle fancies herself a clairvoyant but in actuality only has a sophomoric understand of the astral arts. Thanks to a series of upgrades provided by Gear God, Spindle has found a new lease on life as his enforcer. Both parties are secretly plotting to sacrifice the other in their quest for greatness, which results in a running in circles dynamic. A true master of the astral arts however is The Unwoken (Fortunata) a woman born several centuries ago who has been training within the astral realm to become the next warden of the psychic flame. This "psychic flame" is essentially a psionic virus designed to burn up every mind in the universe. When a spark of the psychic flame inadvertently winds up in the hands of a modern hero, the Unwoken must rematerialize herself in the physical world to obtain the dangerous power by any means necessary.

Here's another blood based villain of mine: Blood Cell (Street Justice/Invulnerability Brute). This muscle for hire can bleed through his skin and solidify it into a unbreakable metal. Ever resourceful, Blood Cell can use his blood as a projectile weapon that can shackle his foes or give surfaces a slippery sheen (perfect for getting the upper hand on his heroic speedster rival) Then we have the hero Submerged (Staff/Invulnerability Brute). This Navy SEAL was recruited for a covert military program that partnered with a shady organization to perfect genetic splicing. As a test subject Submerged was fused with a myriad of deep sea creatures, turning him into an amphibious super soldier. Ideally I'd like to put a smidge more street shark in him and swap the trident out for a harpoon, but with the current costume pieces this gets the job done. I particularly enjoy the use of jetpack as a underwater propulsion device. Ideally I'd like to put a smidge more street shark in him and swap the trident out for a harpoon, but with the current costume pieces this gets the job done. I particularly enjoy the use of jetpack as a underwater propulsion device. And my last drop for the day will be Bassman (Sonic/Electric Blaster). He's a robot with mutton chops, 'nuff said >.<

Recently updated one of my main villains from live, Carranca. Also know by the alias 'The Catfish', Carranca has risen from an abandoned mutant child to the cartel kingpin of the Amazon. Originally a Thugs/Poison Mastermind, Carranca's unique blood can shift its chemical structure to become a wide range of acids, poisons, and adhesives. He even produces drugs and serums capable of brainwashing pliable minds. Once Water Blasts came out I rolled an alt version of him as a Water/Poison Corruptor, which I replicated on Homecoming. He's looked more or less like this since his inception: I was convinced this year to reroll him as a Poison/Water Defender to maximize his debuffs, and while doing so I gave him a modern facelift. It's on the simple end and I made the difficult decision of opting out of his signature 'Argus' face in favor of the more common 'Bioluminescence', but I think this new look really streamlines everything. Alt costume with more catfish like facial proportions: Sidenote: Water Blasts really bring the funky dance moves out

Here's a version of a more authoritative design. Since you mentioned flame exposure I gave him a fire proof cape (detachable for shielding civilians/hostages from his blasts). Inferno Nova.costume

Was playing with some ideas for campy villains and it led me to this sketchball: The Scribbler. He's a sentient mechanical pencil/pen that's able to draw intricate illusions with his lead and ink. This maniacal multi-pen is fully equipped to grade papers, file taxes, and liberate his fellow writing utensils. Scribbler's illusions are all grey to simulate a drawn to life effect, which I think work particularly well for the Nature Affinity powers that mimic still lifes and landscapes. One of the more fun aspects of this character is the combination of the slide stance with a gray frost path aura, this way he just slides around the city leaving a trail of scribbles behind him.

Been having a blast expanding my rogues gallery recently: First we've got Fightmare (Street Justice/Shield Brute). Unlike the majority of his monstrous peers Fightmare prefers brutal hand-to-hand combat over ancient curses, psychic tortures, and tendril smothering. He has asserted himself as the heavyweight colosseum champion of the underworld, a title he upholds by bashing the razor teeth out of every demon that steps into his stadium. I've seen some stellar invader costumes since I've last check this thread, so let me add Unwatcher (Mind/Psi Dom) to bunch. This evolved being came to Earth's aid after sensing a disturbance in the astral plane. After helping the psychic heroes of our world, this benevolent visitor met a side of humanity he naively underestimated. He came in peace and our top minds cut him to pieces. Now dubbed the Unwatcher, this decorated hero turned prisoner aims to erase our world from universal record, and he won't even have to call in an invasion for help. Even in a world of ego bruised super villains and eldritch terrors, straight-up serial killers can make a hero's blood run cold. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth and daddy's platinum in his wallet Bone Deaf (Assault Rifle/Pain Domination Corrupter) had access to the world over, and yet he could never find satisfaction. Not even a morsel of it. Maybe super powers could change that? His inheritance could cover the costs... Turns out, developing empathic powers when you're born without empathy isn't a doctor recommended treatment for sociopathy. Now Bone Deaf can feel through others, and pain feels best. Turning in his family legacy for a career as a hired gunman was the most rewarding decision this killer has made. Thanks to his criminal connections jail time is only a speed bump between slaughters.

Love the use of the left hand glove on Jewel! I think my vote is for the monstrous head. Thanks VG, that's exactly what I was going for! I think you'd have to delete a few posts yourself if that's the case 🤣 Seriously though, don't be a crabapple about other people's creative endeavors. We all have different tastes and gatekeeping is only going to prevent people from posting their work. Every costume in this thread has value to someone other than the poster and can serve as inspiration for new uses of costume parts and character concepts. There are plenty of posts that get a "eh, not for me" as I scroll through this thread but it's sooooo easy to skip them and find something else that I like instead of sharing my negative thoughts. Hope your eyeballs recover though!

In addition to Brain Blister I want to share two other characters that stories intertwine in an interesting way. First off is The Body! This Bio/Spines tanker has gotten me the most costume compliments out of any character, so he probably fits here more than any of my other characters. He's a max height towering "zombie" that can manipulate his own flesh and bones, an unkillable mindless hunk of meat that is constantly consuming organic materials. I found that the 'Fire & Ice' set makes for some believable decaying flesh. The Body wasn't always so big though. He started off as a wimpy unpopular kid that was the prime target for a serial killer. Kid went missing, was found dead in a ditch, but turned up back in homeroom a week after his own funeral. Creepy stuff. Town turned on him, and he became a bit of a local Frankenstein's monster. Luckily, one of his old bullies (and the initial prime suspect in the murder) had a change of heart and sheltered him in the woods behind his property. There the Body started hunting the fauna and began to grow into the beast he is today. With a deteriorating mind Body can't do much, but he has the intrinsic urge to protect. Eventually he becomes big enough to serve as an organic suit of armor for his childhood tormentor, who is able to think clearly and direct the creatures powers. This pair teams up to clear their names, solve the murder, and put a stop to a dangerous mad scientist responsible for countless deaths. ELSEWHERE! Then there's the Dresden Doorway. A brilliant scientist in his own right, Dresden inherits his estranged father's life's work: ghost busting gauntlets! Even though he's a Dark/Dark Stalker, Dresden is more concerned with science than scrapping with evil doers. Still, he's responsible for protecting dangerous tech from falling into the wrong hands so sometimes he has no option but to throw down. As the living key to the hi-tech doorway between life and death, Dresden is able to absorb souls, and call forth the protection of ethereal allies (like his father) to cloak him from the living. So how/why are these three heroes connected? Well let me introduce their Praetorian counterpart: Mind Body and Soul! This Psi/Bio/Soul Brute is the dangerous mirror world counterpart of all three heroes. Praetorian Brain Blister's mind was untethered from his body in failed mission to the astral plains. With his physical form dead, he's able to mindjack The Body in a last ditch survival effort. Ego bruised and thirsty for power this version of Brain Blister comes to realizes that he can become the master of the three realms: the astral, the physical, and the spiritual. With his new body, he consumes Praetorian Dresden Doorway. As Mind Body and Soul this chimera hones his powers, blind to the fact that he might be giving a perfect weapon to the ancient evils that the Dresden Doorway was responsible for keeping locked away...

I recently redesigned my main Brain Blister, a MC/Emp turned MC/Thermal Controller. Since I started playing back on live those bright Malaise cargo pants were my signature flair in my old SG filled with dark and brooding costumed heroes. After the pattern was taken out of the player character creator, Brain Blister felt like even more of a rarity. When I came back to Homecoming the first thing I did was dig into to the costume files to get these flashy pants back (this was before the Malaise pieces were unlocked for players). But as much as I love this costume, it never got the same amount of compliments as my other characters, so I've recently worked on modernizing the concept, retiring this as BB's Silver Age design. To prevent his mind from slipping into the astral plains, he wears a helmet that helps to anchor him into the physical world - so this is where I started. Next I gave him some armor. Ideally I'd like to use something a little more ornate and djinn-y but my headcanon is that this plate armor is crafted with arcane crystal ball glass. A few asymmetrical ascension aura pieces later and I wound up with this: Not bad, but it still didn't feel good enough to win a costume contest. So I went back to the drawing board and exhausted the ever-living hell out of the bright Malaise pattern. Ultimately as much as I adore the range of colors in the piece, there isn't enough contrast to make them truly pop, so I gave the inversion a shot. I'd been resistant to dropping the white palatte, as offensively bright is part of BB's charm and the inverse coloring treads on being too reminiscent of Malaise. After some tinkering though I ended up with a pretty dope Incarnate-level astral form for Brain Blister: And sure enough, this one was a first place winner of the next costume contest I entered! Proud to finally have a CC win under my main's belt, but it's all for show, playing anything with the Banished Pantheon head auras is impossible 😆

I noticed recently that I never made a patriotic character, so about a month ago I took to the character creator and cooked up Indivisible (how that name was still available escapes me). Fun fact, I learned in the process that that line "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance was added in 1954 to combat Communism. Steve Rogers is one of my all time favorites, so of course I had to make him Super Strength/Shield. I'm incredibly happy with the end result: It's been a rough few weeks so I haven't had time to level him up, but I can't help but think about him. I'm not interested in derailing this thread into politics (this is not the forum to do so), but he was on my mind and I got a ping from this thread so I thought I'd share. I've been feeling real helpless this week and CoH has always been my outlet, so I guess it isn't surprising that I'm wishing a hero like this existed right now. I'm sure I'm not alone, so I hope this paragon of the people passes a little hope/inspiration to those that need it. Together we are indivisible. Annnnnnnd for a palate cleanser here's my wasp themed villain to add to the roster of busy bees in this thread: Tiger Wasp is a Claws/Ninjitsu (tinted yellow for pollen) Scrapper. I made him with classic Batman/Flash rogues in mind so he's more hammy than evil. This 2nd rate thief got his hand stuck in a military prototype based off a wasp's stinger, so he's running with it as his new identity. He's already thought up 4 solidly ok Wasp related catchphrases! Like he'll pounce from the ceiling and scream "waspppp-up"... you know, like in that Budweiser commercial. While you're groaning he'll be making a bee line to the exit. Watch out for that stinger though, it is legitimately very very deadly and responsible for the death of 11 heroes.

Oh thank you! 🙂 Desecration answers to Corpo Seco ("The Dried Corpse"). According to Brazilian urban legend Corpo Seco was a man so cruel that hell would not take him, cursing him to walk the Earth for eternity. My take on Corpo Seco paints him as an immortal serial killer. He's the polite and calculating sort, and has very little interest in the goings-on of the Age of Heroes. Corpo Seco has the mutant power to capture souls, that he then can twist to create dark magic. Over the centuries he has realized that the Devil is nothing more than a coward who refuses him entry into the beyond out of fear of competition. Using his magic Corpo Seco has raised an army of homegrown demons, which he plans to use to enslave Lucifer. Afterwards with his new kingdom of souls, Corpo Seco will show Lucifer the correct way to use his throne: to conquer, torture, and slowly snuff out all life across the cosmos. I wouldn't say his costumes are particularly well crafted, but since I'm sharing, here we go! On live I never really found a power set that fit him. He sat on the shelf as a level 20 Zombie/Storm (tinted green for various soul magics) Mastermind and looked a bit like this: I've tried him out as a Demon/Storm too, but I wanted him to feel more individually powerful so I very recently rolled a version of him as a Warshade and went with a monochrome color scheme: But if you're interested in Desecration, here's one of the souls Corpo Seco specifically raised from imphood bind Seraphim: For chaining Desecration this demon earned the title Angel Bane. Angel Bane is a Titan Weapon/Regen Brute. He draws his regenerative powers from seven other demons who have their life force tethered to his own. They're kinda like regenerating horcruxes, that allow Angel Bane to withstand celestial fire.