Mjolnerd

This is all a huge help. Thank you to everyone, but especially @Nyghtmaire, @TheZagand @Zect for providing a really solid starting point. I appreciate it!

Does this already exist? I hope it does, but I've checked several times over the past couple of years and never found it; hopefully I've just been using the wrong search terms? It seems like something that should be out there somewhere. Unfortunately, so far I've got nothing but crickets and tumbleweeds. I'm looking for a guide on how to create character builds. Wait. WAIT. Before you reply, let me clarify. People have misunderstood this request before. I'll use an analogy to try to avoid confusion; let's pretend I just said I want to learn how to be an architect and design buildings. I'm not asking for directions to the nearest store that sells drafting tables. (So please don't provide a link to the website where I can download Mids', I've had it for years.) I'm not asking for an explanation of the fundamental uses and purposes of a protractor, a triangle, or a scale ruler. (So please don't provide a link to a tutorial on the basic functions of Mids', I already know what all the buttons do.) I'm not asking for a bunch of architectural drawings someone else already produced so I can copy them but maybe move a door from the west side of the room to the north side instead. (So please don't just show me some existing builds and tell me to modify them to suit my needs; that's a fine way to learn at first, but it's only going to get you so far without someone who actually knows what they're talking about to explain the underlying theory and techniques. And besides, I've been doing that forever, now I want to graduate past it to creating my own stuff.) I'm not asking to just start drawing whatever I think might work and hope that maybe on the fiftieth try I accidentally design something that won't be immediately condemned as structurally unsound. (So please don't tell me to just screw around in Mids' without direction or purpose until I eventually stumble upon some sort of build-based revelation.) When I sit down at my drafting table with my pencil and my T-square and a blank sheet of paper and say "today I'm going to design a 40-story office building" -- or when I sit down at my computer with Mids' open to an empty new build and say "today I'm going to design a Seismic Blast/Energy Aura sentinel" -- what then? Where do I start? I know how the tools work, but what do I actually do with them to produce a useful result? I'm asking for a course on architectural design principles. I don't expect anyone here to just drop what they're doing and teach that course on the spot, but... the course must exist somewhere, right? Surely at some point in the past fifteen years someone must have written down an outline of the process, the procedure, the sequence of steps involved in actually putting these elements to practical use. There must already be a class, or a textbook, or at the very least a WikiHow article that explains where to begin, mustn't there? And someone must know where that information is and be able to point me toward the library or bookstore or classroom or YouTube how-to where I can learn it too. Or to use a much less labored metaphor... give a man a build, and he'll have a great alt; teach a man to build, and he'll have great alts for the rest of his life.

Well, there's always the Rob Liefeld approach -- if you can't cover it in pouches, obscure it with smoke (or magic? Sure, let's go with magic) YerAWizard.costume

Hey, I read that book too! Really enjoyed it. I've always kind of secretly hoped for a sequel.

I wanted to make an Illusion dominator. It's almost Halloween. Therefore, I present: Sleepy Holo

That usually refers to a general feeling of dread and/or discomfort rather than in-your-face terror, so I'd go with a stalker... he could be anywhere! Maybe he's behind you right now! Anything fear-based automatically suggests Dark in some form or another, too; I like Dark Armor. But it's also a fairly silly phrase, so... murder clown? Murder clown! (I went with Broadsword for his attack set so I could give him a huge rusty knife, but other stuff could work too -- War Mace for a carnival mallet, maybe replace one or both hands with hooks and go Savage Melee... you've got options, is what I'm saying.) I think I've mentioned this particular trick in this thread before, but I absolutely love Grin mask + Blast pattern + Volcanic (eyes) aura for things like this. Still shots really don't do justice to how unsettling it looks in motion, with the light burning in empty sockets and constantly flickering and warping and changing in intensity. Bioluminescent is pretty gross/horrifying when colored in certain ways. I tried to make the design colorful but without using especially bright versions of any given color except the red, to try to make his clothes look old/dirty/worn out. AndAlsoJeebies.costume

It would appear you're actually looking for this thread.

Looks great, I love the addition of the Fortune cape! Glad I could help.

A quick attempt before bed. I think you've got a lot of good stuff in there already, mostly I just tweaked things a bit. It's a pretty good look as it is, and it doesn't need much of an overhaul. I kept a lot of elements from the original design -- the thigh-high boots, the flared gloves, the guns on her hips. That all just works. My first thought was that she needed fishnets/nylons. That says "sexy," but in particular it says it in a 1940s kind of way. The seam up the back lines up well with the seam on the boots, so I used the stripe pattern to accent that line and, you know, make her legs go all the way up, so to speak. I gave her a more dated hairstyle to hammer home the era she's representing. Overall I went for a mix of eye candy, and tactical utility inspired by the first Captain America movie (and the WWII scenes from The Ultimates). I wanted to use an "up" set of goggles, either blast or resistance, but they clipped badly with the bangs on her hair and I wanted to keep that. They're easy enough to remove if you don't like them, I'm not a hundred percent sold on them myself but I thought she needed something. Adding a cigarette might be a nice touch too (instead?), now that I think about it. For whatever reason, there's a tendency people have when creating "patriot" superheroes to use a very specific shade of blue, and it's... it's wrong, is what it is. Folks go WAY too light. If you look at a US or UK flag, the shades of blue on them are actually quite dark. Besides that, I think the darker shade helps with the whole "utilitarian" look I already mentioned. Something I think looks great with flamboyant animations like you find in the Dual Pistols set is to have something trail behind the character while they twist and spin, but capes clip weirdly with long hair and, again, I wanted to keep that, so I tried something else: I added a combat-only Fairy Dust aura on her fists. I think it creates a neat effect, with the "sparks" flying off her weapons and enhancing the motion of some of the more extreme movements. I haven't quite figured out the whole screen-record-to-.gif thing yet, but if you load up the costume file, it's in there. I'd like to try my hand at a less-showy olive drab variation too, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'll revisit this later and see what I can come up with. Hope you like! PistolPinup.costume

Beastly Rage > Chest.

Great Scott would get along well with Great Caesar's Ghost and Sweet Christmas.

So, @Player2 was kind enough to post about having let go of the name Boobytrap on Excelsior today, and I had to snap it up. It's such a great name! And there was really only one direction to go in with a name like that, as on-the-nose as it might be. Sure, it's silly, and obvious, and maybe a little juvenile, but I couldn't not do it... what else could I possibly make with that name other than a Traps defender with two very... prominent assets. Please don't stare. My eyes are up here.

I had to grab this one, it's just too good not to. There's really only one way to go with it from a design standpoint, obvious as it may be. So here's my new Traps defender:

It was a little tougher than I thought it would be to come up with something that gets across both "Outcast" and also "this person is, individually, a major threat." Hopefully this hits that way? Club hair because it sticks up in the back and creates that "electricity making the hair stand on end" Bride of Frankenstein look without venturing into Looney Tunes territory. Cybertech jacket to add a little extra and suggest "street punk" while also providing a glowy bit to help get the electricity thing across (maybe she's powering it herself?). Metal rings on the arms because... I don't know. They help conduct electricity? They look cool and comic book-y and a bit of extra bling makes her feel more important, like she's graduated past being a rank-and-file elemental goon. I went a little harder on yellow/gold because while I know real electricity isn't that color, there's a pop-culture association there and I think it helps as a sort of visual shorthand that this otherwise blue-and-white character is an electricity person and not an ice person. Hope this helps! gotmyIONyou.costume

In general I think it's a good look, but I'd do something about the flat matte blackness of it all. I get the tendency to want to go for a "how much more black could it be?" approach (the answer is none. None more black), but you lose depth doing that and it ends up looking sort of shapeless, gets hard to tell where he ends and the suit begins. Experiment with the far-left side of the color palette a bit; try the darkest possible red, the darkest possible blue, the darkest possible green in different combinations alongside black (or dark grays).

If I'm understanding correctly, you're trying to access these pieces on a costume slot that is not the character's "Arachnos uniform," (the first slot), yes? If that's the case, sorry, you're out of luck. The actual Crab (and other) Spider costume pieces are exclusive to that archetype's first slot; the rest of your costume slots use the "standard" costume options that every other character has. As to the the specific parts you've found, the Crab Spider and Wolf Spider helmets -- and only the helmets -- were promotional unlocks for... I forget what. A special edition of CoV, maybe? Since on Homecoming every costume piece available to a given character is unlocked by default, you'll see it now. Same with a couple of Widow helmet options for females. Either way, they're all you're going to find, because they're something normal, non-Arachnos characters have access to. There's an Arachnos cape and a chest emblem, too, but those are, similarly, just previously-bonus content that's now unlocked for everyone. If you want rest of that Crab armor, you have to wear the full set in that first slot.

HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER This was one of my 50s back on live (not quite there yet this time around), a Street Justice/Willpower brute -- at the time she was called "Girl-Fight," but nowadays that name feels a little... icky. So instead she goes by the Knockout Artist.

I had that issue come up for a while, what eventually fixed it was turning off pointer trails in Windows.

All the top futurists agree: by the end of the Twentieth Century, advances in new technologies such as "electro-nomics" will make the need for pants a thing of the past! Primarily because they would be ignited by the fires from the coal-fed rocket packs everyone will be wearing.

Perhaps you'll find your interest piqued by the very latest technological marvel of the modern age?

I'm really digging the look of my new Invulnerability tanker, Diamant. She's had quite a few compliments on her look already in her short career!

Waaay ahead of you.

I have a D&D character I play quite often. His family name is McGurd. His given name is Urr. There have been two others with his name before him. He was recently knighted. He is Ser Urr McGurd the Third.

It's tempting to just... make a cheerleader here, but "cheerleader-themed superhero" is a little more interesting. I started with shirts too, but wasn't liking anything I came up with, so I dropped them in favor of a tights pattern that suggests a traditional cheerleading sweater with long sleeves but a "bare" midriff. I extended that logic to the lower body and tried to find a boots pattern that looked a bit like knee-high socks because I associate that look with cheerleaders but didn't want to literally put her in knee-high socks. And before anyone asks -- or tries to check without making it obvious you're checking even though it's totally obvious to everyone that you're checking -- YES, she has a Bikini tights pattern under the skirt. Not knowing her school colors, I went with blue and white, not because they were my school colors (though they were), but because if she's cheering for heroes, those are the "hero team colors" in CoH. Statesman chest logo for similar reasons. It's very important to smile. I started with pigtails but ended up with Feisty, either way it should keep clipping issues with the cape to a minimum. CHEERocracy.costume