Dynamo-Joe

Or maybe it's pronounced Eye-Gore? :D

Don't know why - but this reminds me of this bit from The Venture Brothers. :D

That's exactly the powerset I would go with for Ultraman! And the alt-costume slot idea is killer! For Jet Jaguar I thought Martial arts would be cool. But ultimately I went with Street Justice for the screen caps. And I think if I made him that's what I would go with. That massive T9 Uppercut is just the thing to send Megalon flying! :D

The other recent request was related to Ultraman, at least by genre. See - there's this one Godzilla movie from the early 70s which obviously wanted an Ultraman of its own. There have even been rumours over the years that if the film had done better, they might've spun this character off into his own TV or movie series. The movie was Godzilla vs Megalon - and the character request was an interpretation of this guy: JET JAGUAR I loved this guy! This was my childhood. Saturday afternoons one of the local independent stations in the area would play at least one or two Godzilla films. And so I saw Megalon multiple times before I was 8 yrs old. Sadly he just doesn't hold up on his own merits nearly as well as Ultraman. But there's always been POTENTIAL there! And he's still a fan favorite - appearing in multiple Godzilla videogames and the like. But how to interpret him in COH? The rubber suit-mation look just doesn't look like a proper robot, really. And the Michilin Man inner tube legs and arms - no no no. That's GOT to GO. Ultimately I got a lot of inspiration from the following image - a truly mecha version of Jet Jaguar that still encompasses the high points of the character and leaves no doubt of who it is, even while being so different. So - here's my first attempt at a Jet Jaguar: I might yet tweak this a bit, but for a first go, I think it's not too bad! So what do you all think? Does that work?

Giant Robot Mecha style characters are something I'm becoming known for. And we now have TONS of options for doing them right. (Mecha costume set and Clockwork are enormously useful tools for that sort of look.) But I got two requests recently for character types from Japan that gave me a bit of a challenge. Here's the first one - ULTRAMAN From the original rubber suit fighting other rubber suit kaiju types - To sleek newer designs that have more sleek armor (but are still "rubber suit" underneath) To something much more "Mecha" like. There's almost no wrong way to make an Ultraman design. But there do seem to be a few standard rules: There's got to be a helmet of sleek "swept-back" design with somewhat oversized oval eyes (that sometimes glow). A stylized "mouth" should always be a part of the design. The suit should always be of slim build even if it's a "mecha". No oversized feet or shoulder armor or back thrusters like a Gundam - it should look like it fits on a human actor - even if it isn't. There always has to be a "power crystal" in the center of the chest - like Tony Stark's Arc Reactor on the Iron Man suits. If there's more than one Ultraman in a story - the main hero should be in silver and red. So with that in mind - this is what I came up with: You could add a lot to this costume and not break the above rules. But this is the basic look I came up with first. I look forward to seeing if anyone takes up this idea and adds to it! I do not have this character in-game. This is a design challenge. If you like what you see, feel free to use it for inspiration!

A space pirate should have a space suit on hand, yes? Not something you'll see often. But as it's also a general environmental suit, I may drag it out in trips to the sewers.

Have you tried out Winamp? It's an older program. It's outdated. Not really updated. But it WORKS and works well.

Some time back, I had the question pop into my head "What if a Circle of Thorns mage got a hold of a Carnival of Shadows mask and was dumb enough to try it on?" Well first off, I heard Bill Murray's Venkman character from Ghostbusters in my head: "There's at least two people in there already." :D Then I did the mash-up and took a screenshot in the powers display: I've got a name for this character already and have been waiting for the alt-i-tus to roll around to play her: "Clown of Thorns". Don't hurt me. :D

Dude! THIS is the sort of thing that INSPIRES! I LOVE it when some one raises the bar! I showed it was POSSIBLE to do a Zaku - but you did it RIGHT!!! That HELMET! You even got the HEAT AXE right! INCREDIBLE!! I salute you, sir! :D

You mean this? Pretty nice! Here's my dream car:

I have varied tastes. So here's a sample of recent wallpapers -

Yo Boss! Time to wake up and roll-out!

If you are creating an alternative costume for an existing character - and the costume starts to stray too much from the original character? DO NOT THROW THE COSTUME AWAY. Save it! It might become an entirely NEW CHARACTER! I was noodling around in the CC a few years ago - and thought - "I wonder what it would look like if my Praetorian former Loyalist Cop Sassinak became an Ouroboros Mender?" Here's the original costume: Here's some progression: At this point I thought - "let's bring the original palette back". It's at this point I started to think I was onto something entirely different. Let's make the hair black and use the tech "Pirate" eye crystal and an aura: "Okay..." said I to myself, "... this is NOT the same character. I've got something new here. Instead of Sassinak, I picked a new name for the file - Captain Azure Dupree." A little more tweaking - throwing on a high collar and a red cape liner under the skull and crossbones cape and I've got the finished character: Also - save costume files with an eye towards the future. Sometimes inspiration drops happen MONTHS apart. I had this knocking around for awhile both as a character and as an experimental water blaster: Yeah... pretty bland, eh? A palette change was all it took to start the gears turning: But it still took a few more weeks before my subconscious finally clicked on the solution: So - save, save, and save again. Don't be afraid to put something aside and play something else for awhile and then come back to it. Established character tweaks can become entirely new and different characters! Sometimes color is everything.

I created this music mod pack in honor of the outstanding AE addition to Pocket D and it's two "Daft Punk" inspired DJs rocking the tunes there. This is a client-side mod package that replaces the standard music of the D with some Daft Punk tunes and remixes. Download here: http://www.mediafire.com/download/68vpdw4b7z8e8lr/Daft_Punk_Pocket_D.zip Instructions: Unzip the folder and paste the "Data" folder directly into your City of Heroes Beta Client folder. Don't worry about overwriting an existing Data folder you already have. Just merge it. There's a file structure there, but nothing in there except the music. And that's it. Next - fire up the game, wander into the D and see what you think of the new ambiance! "Change the scheme! Alter the mood! Electrify the boys and girls if you would be SO kind!" If you want a preview of the tracks used before you download and install this mod, take a listen at the following finely crafted links: Main Dance Floor Villain Side: Hero Side: AE Expansion:

I love this scene. I absolutely love it. :D

What can I say? This Titan Sword wielding mecha character just lends himself so well to awesome shots!

Why can't ALL the Nemesis Bases be this freaking steampunk AWESOME?

Okay - so you guys might remember my namesake character Dynamo Joe. Big Mecha - top of the height scale and all? Got a couple more like him in my character list. Played mostly seriously. Well... Here's the silliness: Yes. It's the SUPER-DEFORMED version of Dynamo Joe. 😄 I even made it as a separate character. Just so I could have fun with the bio! Don't TOY with him though! 😄 "Who you calling TINY? Yeah? Say that again! YEAH! You BETTER RUN!!!" Speaking of running - the run cycle on this little guy is HILARIOUS! Most characters are tap tap tap tap My BIG mecha characters are tap... tap... tap... tap... DJ is taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap And the smoke trail from sprinting is worthy of a Warner Bros toon! I gotta get some sleep. Still laughing my butt off. 😄

A few options from the NPC version of the IDF that you can look at via the NPC Icon tool are shown here on the right. The original character is on the left. That's the Chest Attachment option, the Shoulders, the Gloves and the boots. Aside from some baked in colors (the red accent lights) I'm pretty sure these would be ready to go as far as additional costume options. They don't appear to clip any more than any of the regular parts do.

You can also copy/paste into that space using CTRL-V (the control button plus the letter v button) from an existing document. I recommend using notepad, since that removes all formatting and lets you get a clean copy with only letters and punctuation. I mention this mainly because you cannot SAVE the progress on your bio just using the game UI. Also keep in mind there's a limit of the amount of characters (letters, spacing) you can put into the game bio. I forget what that limit is. But it's usually enough for the Cliff notes version of a character story that you see displayed here. You might need to do some experimentation on what that limit is. I think the first rule of bios is something that Ascendant (with an A) taught me long ago. Try to keep it as close to an "elevator pitch" as you can and you'll be fine. Once you have the basic idea there, you can embellish it until you reach the limit of what the Bio field will allow. What's an "elevator pitch"? Back in the days of people like Gene Roddenberry trying to sell Star Trek to TV executives, legend has it that you sometimes had to catch them in the elevator going down to the lobby from the corporate offices to have any hope of having the kind of private meeting that inevitably seemed to keep getting put off. And you had to sell your idea in the amount of time it took for the elevator to travel from the top floors to the lobby while you had your "captive audience". Which was - on average, about 30 seconds. That's why it's often told that Gene Roddenberry sold Star Trek to the execs as "Wagon Train to the Stars" because they had to be sold the idea in language they understood. (And it was all westerns back in those days) Thus the term "elevator pitch". You're trying to grab us with your idea in the first paragraph. If you fail we get bored and move on. It's brutal, but it's reality. If you succeed, you have the rest of the bio space to tell the rest of the story.

You know... We REALLY REALLY need a location/exploration badge in the Underground Trial - or maybe the Hydra Trial. Put it in an out of the way part of the sewer tunnels. Or perhaps even in the Tsoo incarnate story arc of Dark Astoria perhaps? Title: It Will Come Out No More Text of the badge on inspection: "WHAT? WHAT'LL COME OUT NO MORE? HUH?" :D

Do NOT worry! The colors are PERFECT. The chestpiece works. EVERYTHING works fantastically! Seriously, don't change a thing - you've got a WINNER, here! ;D

This is my Titan Weapons/Inv Brute, Ronin Barbatos fighting a Malta Zeus Titan at the end of the Mediport Tech arc. I think this Zeus was supposed to come in early enough to support Captain Castillo while I was fighting him. But I made such short work of Castillo that the Zeus arrived too late. Leaving Barbatos to fight the Zeus Mano-A-Mano (or might that be Roboto-A-Roboto Arigato? 😄 ) I snapped about 10 screenshots hoping to get a few good ones. But this is the only one that caught my eye. But WOW do I LOVE this shot! It's a classic! Sound Effect: KA-SCHING!!! Next should be a massive explosion as the Titan separates cleanly at the waist and that ruptured and ignited fuel line sets off it's fuel tank and powerplant. (or at least it would be if this was an anime. In reality it took a couple more slices and then it just fell over. But if it were me, I'd go with the more cinematic option. Heh. )