Category Archives: Character Design Challenges

Ok guys, earlier this week MadJack was kind enough to provide us with a plethora of new items to use. You can find a list of them here. So your challenge this week is simple. You must create an image using any three of these items. That's it. Well no actually that's not it. You must use items from three different sub-categories (e.g. headgear-standard, headgear-glasses and insignia-shapes would be a viable combination, but not three from insignia-shapes, so no blood-splatter overuse). Hopefully that's clear enough.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Ok guys, for this weeks challenge I want you to create a character that is more likely to use their brain to solve problems rather than any physical might. This can come in any form you can think of (for example both super-intelligence and psychic powers would apply, but logical thinking and detective sleuthing are also applicable, vis-a-vis Sherlock Holmes or Batman) and doesn't just have to be confined to superheroes, you can do Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Western, Noir, Anime, etc. You are also not just confined to heroes either, evil geniuses are welcomed, provided world domination is non-successful at this stage. Of course, it would be nice if you can show your character using their incredible mental abilities as well.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Ok guys, last week I gave you freedom to pretty much do anything you wanted. This week is going to be much the same. However, you can only use items from one category for your entry. For example, you could only make a picture using items from the Items-Right category, or you could make a picture from items from the Heads category. This should make for some interesting results.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Considering we've had a months worth of contests covering posing, costume, faces/ hairstyles and backgrounds, what's the logical next step?

That's right, all of them together!

So, that's you challenge this week. Your entry must include a non-standard posed character with an interesting costume, face and/or hairstyle and there must also be a background. Simple enough for me to say, but I know this will be a challenge for some people. Also, there are some people to whom this is their bread and butter, so getting on the poll is going to be tough.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

The title should give a pretty decent idea of what's going on with this contest. Simple, create a great background. You cannot include any characters in your entry, it's only the scenery I'm interested, so not even people in the background are allowed. Other than that, you have free rein as to what sort of background you can create, and don't feel restrained to just the backgrounds section, there's plenty in insignias and items-right to help here too, and that's just for a kick off.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Ok, so this week, your focus in this challenge shall be heads, with particular focus on faces and hair. Now, a few additional rules for this weeks contest shall be in place, as with last week. No Masks or Hats, obviously, as that sort of defeats the whole point of the challenge, though hair accessories and jewellery are allowed. Also, all submissions must be headshots only, so you don't need to do anything below the shoulders. You can do non-human heads for this challenge (as I know someone will ask about this), just so long as it meets the other entry criteria. And yes, your character must have some sort of hair or facial hair, but don't just slap one of the standard hair items on the and call it a day. Be inventive.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Of course, I am making a habit of having costume design contests on an annual basis, so this is going to be this years. However, to make it a bit different, I would like to ask that you only focus on the costume, at the expense of everything else. Some slight posing is allowed if it is to show of different aspects of the costume, but other than that I only want face-forward standard posing, and hair is only allowed if the costume includes so sort of fascinator or other hair accessory. If you want to do shading on the costume, that's fine, but other than that I want the body to be a completely blank slate, like a mannequin, it can't even have a face. I'm only going to be looking at the costume, so I think it's only fair that you guys do too.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Ok, starting this week, I'm going to do a series of challenges for you guys, to really test your skills with the 'machine. And we're going to kick of with a challenge centred around posing. We did this sort of challenge a while back, so everyone should know the drill. You cannot use the standard face-forward pose. The pose has to be of your own creation, so you can't use pre-made poses from the forums custom item section. Also, I'm only judging on the pose and, to an extent, how well you've adapted the costume elements to the pose, so don't include backgrounds. That'll come later.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Ok, I'm gonna try something a bit out there this week. One of the main rules I ask people to follow for these contests is do not enter something you have entered into a previous contest. However, this week I am actively encouraging you to, if not break the rule, certainly bend it into new and interesting shapes.

What I want you to do is find one of your old contest entries and redo it. It can be from any contest (apart from the previous two contests, they're too recent), not just ones I've run, but from Jeff or HammerKnights contests as well. Just make sure you include the original for comparison, I want to see how much everyone has improved.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.

Ok, let's do a theme we haven't done in a while. For anyone who hasn't done a TGT challenge before, basically the idea is to take bits from two genres and mash them together to create a character. For example you could mash Sci-Fi and Western up to make a cyborg cowboy. In previous TGT contests I've given you guys a specific genre that you have to mash with others, but this time I'm gonna let you guys have free reign. You can mash up any of the following genres: Superhero, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Martial Arts, Western, Anime, Noir, Steampunk and Horror.

Oh and you can have the poll back now. I don't much feel like having to decide the winner on my own again.

As per usual, no limits on entries and the contest will close at midnight Saturday (blog time). Please read the contest rules before entering, have fun and good luck.

Rules for posts, contests, and challenges that I am hosting: Original characters only, no copyrighted characters, no characters based on copyrighted characters, no characters based on RPG’s or other games. The characters must be your own design and not based on any character that might be copyrighted in any way. I have the right to delete any post that I believe crosses this line without warnings. Only post characters that you have either created for this contest specifically or you know for certain have never been entered to a contest before. If you aren’t certain, don’t enter it, because I’m not going to go back through all of the contests and check.