Over on the HERO GAMES Discussion Boards, "OddHat" (Robert Dorf) started a thread titled "Pictures That Could Be A Super Team." The idea was to take photos of people who looked like real-like superheroes and give them a back story. Initially, most of the pictures were of female fitness models and/or bodybuilders, since they had the physiques one would expect of a female superhero (for the most part). Another popular source of images were pictures of women with various superhero costumes photoshopped onto them. As the thread grew more popular the style of images expanded, to include cosplayers (especially anime cosplayers), period Victorian strongmen (and women), photoshopped images of all sorts, models (of people, vehicles, or gadgets), movie and TV props, and so on.
This page collects all of my contributions to the thread, along with a wealth of new material I've developed on my own. The object is to take an image, be it a cosplayer (i.e someone dressed up in the costume of a published character), a photoshopped image manipulation, a model kit, official art from a video game, or just any odd picture I find, and build a story around the image. I try to avoid connecting the new story back to anything I know about the original character depicted in the image-the idea is to use the image by itself for ideas, developing the concept just from what the image shows me, not from what I know about the character (if I do know anything! I still have no idea who or what some of these characters are!) My primary hope is that you, the reader, find the images useful as inspiration for your own campaigns, be they supers, fantasy, or what have you. It's also a sort of creative exercise for me, allowing me to come up with short ideas based on the images.
Initially the title of this page was "Pictures That Could Be Superheroes," but I've changed that to reflect the current breadth of my offerings. Although I started out concentrating on superhero imagery, I've since to branched out into pulp-era, fantasy, and science fiction concepts. I also have tried to avoid using an established setting, although some entries do reference each other, and I often default to the official HERO Games Champions Universein the color text (and character sheets).
Clicking on a thumbnail will bring you to a larger image and at least a few sentences of "color text." In some cases you will find a link to a HERO System character sheet. As I find (and develop ideas for) more pictures, I will add them here. Donations are welcome!
