Nov/Dec Challenge! Rules and Guidelines.
 

With the next and last Lord of the Rings movie coming out toward the end of this two month challenge period, we felt a Lord of the Rings challenge would be fun!

So, here we go!

LORD OF THE GENRES!

Your task is to convey a Lord of the Rings character, creature, and/or environment in ANY genre/style EXCEPT fantasy/medieval!

Spaghetti-Western Gandalf!
Sci-Fi Aragorn!
Horror-themed Sauron!

Endless possibilities! Be creative!

Guidelines:
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1) It can be high-res or game low-res. Textures, rigging, animation/posing, etc is NOT required. The more you are able to do, however, the more favorable your entry will be! If you do game low-res, let us know your polycount! :D

2) Display concept, wireframes, textures used, work in progress, etc. throughout the challenge.

3)You can choose any character, location, or creature from the books or the movies (Tom Bombadil, anyone? ;)) Please do not grab photos of the movie's actors to use as textures. You will not necessarily be penalized if you do.

4)One big rule, though: If you do a character, keep defining characteristics of that character in-tact! Frodo with the One ring and the blade, Sting. Gandalf with his staff. Gimli's axe. Legolas' bow. Aragorn's sword. Etc. If a character is a evil character in the book/movie, keep him that way. And vice versa with the good.

Feel free to redesign these character-defining items to fit along with your chosen genre/style, but do not, for example, replace a sci-fi Aragorn's sword with a laser gun. Now, you CAN give sci-fi Aragorn a laser gun, but do so in ADDITION to his sci-fi sword. :)

5) NAME YOUR THREAD CORRECTLY! Failure to do so will result in your thread being deleted. If that happens, feel free to repost in the correct format:

Nov/Dec - Character/Creature/Environment - Chosen Genre - Your Name - Norm/Noob

Example:
Nov/Dec - Character/Creature - Horror - mtmckinley - Norm

As shown in the above example, you CAN do more than one. Hope you finish. ;)

Your class distinction is soley up to you! Choose Noobie or Normal. Keep in mind that if your quality of work is HUGELY blatantly the opposite of what you chose as your class, you may be asked to reverse it. That's not happend before, though, so I wouldn't worry about it. And it mostly applies to those who are really good entering as "noob" in order to blow the other noobs out of the water.

6) Let us know what character/creature/environment and genre you choose in your first post! If you change your mind later, that's fine.
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There WILL be an actual prize for the Normal entry winner! I'm not prepared to say what though, until a few details are ironed out with Kev and co.

There is ONE stipulation, however... If fewer than FIVE people submit a final entry come the end of this challenge, only points will be given as a prize. We cannot afford to give out actual prizes like we have planned if not enough people put in the effort to finish. So, tell your friends! Encourage each other!

It all starts tomorrow! Please do not post a "placeholder" thread. I'll change the title of this thread and remove the "Preview!" part to signal that it's time to start. :) You'll also notice that all of the current challenge's threads will be moved to Previous. The winner of the October Challenge will be announced tomorrow!

EDIT:

Start your engines!

Now, about that prize! After talking to Kevin, I've got the details sorted now, and it's a good thing, as I would have explained it wrong. ;) Here's the deal: www.simplymaya.com AND www.simplylightwave.com will be participating in this challenge.

Grand Prize
http://www.simplylightwave.com/images/comp/prize.jpg
The Art of 3-D Computer Animation and Effects.
ONE (1) winner chosen from both SM and SL's Normal entries.
The "fewer than 5 people" rule will mean if fewer than 5 people enter from both SM and SL. So, if 4 people finish here, and only 1 at the other, the prize will still be granted to a winner. :)

Keep in mind this applies only to Normal Entries. If we have 80 noobs and only 2 norms... no prize.

In addition, a winner will be chosen from their respective sites in both Norm and Noob categories and will be rewarded points, like always. Depending on the number of entries, this may or may not be the same person as the grand prize winner.

Have fun!

:bgreen: Excellent idea :bgreen:

Should be great fun :thumbsup:

Yesss! I cant wait till tommorow..Ill be drawing concepts tonight! Ahh, guess Ill be working on my Desert Guy + this challenge..More time for the challenge tho! Cant wait! That is an excellent idea!

[edit]

now that im thinking of ideas, i got a question:
Do we basically, just KEEP the facial and body structure but just change the costume/clothes? Ex: An orc dressed in a policeman suit.

Or can we go as far as like: A robotic orc.

Will probably join this challenge, and if I do it will be a low poly game character. :)

Spaghetti-Western style sounds cool :)

Orgeeizm:
You can go as wild as you want, just so long as you follow the big rule: keep their character-defining details in-tact. No rule against designing those details in your chosen style/genre, but don't totally replace them with something outrageously different... do those in addition to them. :)

If the winner has already got the book, they can send it to me!!!:p

There appears to be some confusion regarding the example I posted. I put character/creature on there to show that you can do a character AND a creature if you wanted. Such as a Nazgul riding a Fellbeast for example. If you're just doing a character, just put "character."

Examples of creatures would be:

Wargs
Fellbeasts
Oliphants(sp)
Hourns
Dragons
Ogres
Trolls
Goblins
Orcs
etc.

Ringwraiths/Nazgul would be considered a character, as there are specified number/name for them. In the Nazgul's case, only 9 of them. Same for other named "creatures" like Gollum. If they are specifically named, consider them characters.

EDIT: As mentioned below, although horses are named occasionally in the story, unless they are more than a normal horse (a unicorn or a winged horse or something... both of which are not in LotR as far as I know), treat them as creatures. Same goes for other "pets."

If you are doing a generic member of one of the main hero races, they would be considered "characters" rather than "creature."

Elf
Hobbit
Human
Dwarf
Wizard

If you do so, treat them as if they have character-defining items as follows:

Elf - Bow, Long Ears
Hobbit - Hairy Feet, Short
Human - Sword
Dwarf - Axe
Wizard - Staff

If you want to do more than one model, yet make them different style/genre from each other, please only do one at a time. I'd rather you finish one than not finish any.

so does this mean the competion is going on for 2 month nov/dec then

Yep. This comp ends Dec 31st at midnight. New Years!

Usually, a Normal level contestant is not allowed to win more than one challenge in a row. However, because this is the first time we have a physical prize, I will allow the possibility.

If you object, PM me with the reason why and I'll consider it.

Would Bill/Brego/Firefoot/Shadowfax/Asfaloth/Gwaihir be characters or creatures? :p:p:p

Let's use a little bit of common sense. Horses are creatures. ;)

Shadowfax is the King of the horses and Gwaihir is the King of the giant eagles.;)