There's been a lot of talk in the [Civil War] Spark vs. Gav vs. Hazardous vs. Slipgate thread about doing a community character project, so let's have a crack at it, eh?

So, what is this?
First and foremost, this is NOT A COMPETITION. There will be no registration, no individual threads, no judging, no winners, and no prizes. This is strictly an exercise to get the community involved in something fun and creative while we wait for the next big character challenge (DomWar? A Polycount challenge? Who knows?) to take place.

If you choose to take part in this thing, you should be doing it because you want to learn and improve your skills. It's also helpful if you're doing it because you want to help others. Polycount has a long history of giving hard critiques and tons of helpful advice to people who are looking for it. We want to continue that because it strengthens the community and encourages people to make amazing art.


After some discussion, it's been determined that changing the theme of this thing would be a good idea. Therefore, the rules have been updated to reflect this. There are important changes, so please read up.


Brief

Create a hero or boss character that would fit in the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes and make it as awesome as possible.

There will be no entry threads, judging, prizes or winners. This is just for fun, but it will be structured like a normal contest.

Again: Do not make your own thread! Keep everything in this one!

Specs

- 20,000 triangles. All characters, weapons, mounts and effects such as flashy magic crap or bullet tracers must be, total, 20,000 triangles or less. This is a big number, but it doesn't mean you have to meet it; using less is always fine.

- 1 2048x2048 material. Any and all textures are allowed as long as you'd see them in a current-gen game on a character. Basically, if it isn't displacement, it's probably okay. Breaking up texture space is A-OK. For example, using a 2048x1024 for the main character, a 1024x1024 for his weapon and a 1024x1024 for his mount is fine.

- For the final image, any and all realtime effects are allowed as long as they would work in a modern game engine (UDK, Crysis, etc.)

- Your character MUST BE POSED for your final images, but how you do it is up to you. Rig it, pull verts around, whatever.

- Pedestals are optional and have no texture, shader or polygon count limits.

- You must post all your WIP shots in this thread. No starting your own thread, no last-minute stuff with finished characters that nobody saw WIP shots from.

Deliverables

- A final beauty shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 using the above restrictions.

- A construction shot larger than or equal to 1024x768 showing how your character was made. This can (and should) have wireframes, textures and multiple views.

Restrictions

- Mounts of any kind are allowed and encouraged. Mounts' polycounts and texture budgets cut into the overall budget.

- Characters must be recognizably from either the Warhammer Fantasy or Warhammer 40K universes, but this does not mean you are required to make a space marine or giant orc dude with a sword. Everybody has seen the Blood Angels and Ultramarines, so give the Eldar, Tau, orcs and orks, elves, dwarfs, tyranids and lizardmen some love, eh?

- Gore and nudity? The more the merrier. Keeping it tasteful would be cool, but not strictly necessary. Actual depictions of screwing should probably be kept to a minimum.

- Post all your work in this thread. Don't start your own thread. We don't want to clutter Pimping and Previews any more than it already is.

Soft Deadline

March 7th, 2011

If you don't finish your character by that date, we won't think any less of you. Well, actually we will, but we won't tell you to your face.

What are the Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40K universes?

...Warhammer [Fantasy] is notable for its "dark and gritty" background world, which features a culture similar in appearance to Renaissance Germany crossed with Tolkien's Middle-earth. Chaos is central to the setting, as the forces of Chaos are attempting unceasingly to tear the mortal world asunder. The world itself is populated with a variety of races such as humans, high elves, dark elves, wood elves, dwarfs, undead, orcs, lizardmen, ogres, and other creatures familiar to many fantasy/role-playing settings.

...Warhammer 40,000's space fantasy setting spans a vast fictional universe. Its various factions and races include the Imperium of Man (a decentralized, yet totalitarian, interstellar regime that, as of the main setting of the game—some 40,000 years from now—has ruled the vast majority of humanity for millennia), the Orks (similar to Warhammer Fantasy Orcs), and the Eldar (similar to Elves in Warhammer Fantasy Battle), among others

Relevant links
Species of 40K
Races and nations of Warhammer Fantasy

PS: Don't start your own thread. Post everything in here.
PPS: Seriously, though, DO NOT START YOUR OWN THREAD. Keep it here, unless you and a couple of other people are doing your own personal challenge completely unrelated to this one.