Character Design Challenge 98 Results!

Last week we challenged you to redesign lightning-themed Public Domain characters, and you knocked it out of the park once again. I've chosen a handful of entries as ones that I personally liked the most, but as always, this is just my own opinion. I highly encourage you to click through all the submissions in the original post to make up your own mind, then let me know if I picked wisely or poorly, and which you like as your own Top Gun.

With that, here are my personal favorites of the week:

Some of those are bursting with action and scenery-chewing, while others are subtle yet no less powerful. For instance, Alexander of Limbo's very simple character design with a see-through forearm and highlighted energy reflected on the character's body works great, and doesn't need craziness all around it. On the other hand, you have something like Ploughed Jester's complete scene with Star Wars style figure posing, which also works great. There's no One True Way to make a good design or to create a powerful illustration. That's one thing I love about these challenges, is seeing how different creative minds can interpret things.

In any event, it's the tradition that each week I pick out just one creation as my personal overall favorite of the week. Any of the entries I am showing in the gallery would be a great choice (as would many others I missed, I'm sure). Ultimately I settled on Kytana, Livewyre, djuby, Blue Blazer, JR19759, MisterDinoMan, RobM, Scatman, Vampyrist, Vectorman316, VonoverHome, and Watson Bradshaw as the sort of prime candidates out of the already prime candidates.

Those are all stellar, so I finally went with someone who made multiple entries, ALL of which were outstanding. That person is first-time winner, Vectorman316!

Congratulations to Vectorman316 and all the folks who in my personal opinion were favorites, and to all who chose to enter at all. I really appreciate your creativity and bravery in sharing your illustrations with the world at large.