OMG RPG

nice murloc the only thing that is weird about it is the size of the babys eyes lol. btw FIRST

If there is one thing I've discovered thanks to the release of the Spore Character creator, it is that most people in the world given unlimited creating potential will spend an hour on making their imaginations come to life, and then promptly descend into bringing Pokemon and Video Game characters to life. Although, shockingly, there has been a merciful lack of sentient genitalia wandering around.

"Descend" is a misleading term, Imp. It is far easier to create something from your own imagination then something that has an established image in culture, because there is no way for anyone to challenge your competence on something that is entirely fabricated. Generally speaking, the people who are using the Creature Creator to recreate popularly known monsters are doing so for the challenge of how accurate they can make the little beasties.

Suppose I create a creature with four arms and a large central eye that hops around on one foot. People will find it interesting, perhaps remark on how nifty it is or how slow its going to get around with all that hopping, and then go on. But if I then use my time to create a replica of Nibbler from Futurama (which I have seen and looks really good, btw) then people have a frame of reference to approach the creature from, and thus the creator has more of a challenge in getting the likeness as near as possible. That, to me at least, is a far more interesting use for what is essential a character generator currently sans game.

While I personally prefer using the Spore Creature Creator to build some truly horrific monsters from the deepest recesses of my admittedly twisted imagination, I have some respect for the truly skilled creature copies out in the ether. Like, for instance, that super-accurate Master Chief, which came completely out of left field for me but looks just like the guy.

Ultimately, the challenge in creating a copy of a pre-existing creature is how you can strong-arm a system built for something and use it to create something else made under a different system. It's not pure creativity like, for instance, my six-winged three-mawed nightmare from beyond the universe (which I probably cribbed from something), but it's certainly talent, IMO.