Welcome to The Empire Monthly Challenge!
You are all welcome to stretch your artist legs. Get out of your comfort zone or artist block, and unleash your full potential!
There are no winners or prizes, it's all about challenging yourself. The deadline is purely to indicate the start of the next challenge, if you need more time to finish up that's okay.
Modifiers are optional rules for the challenge that allow you to push your skills even further!
Hero Prop Challenge - Prop Focus
Garden Gate
One of the gates/doors at Yu Garden in Shanghai. All the design work on the surface really will require focus to get right. Here's a few more pictures from the location to inspire you!
Remember you can also look at our metrics page 
3D 3.6 Polygon Budgets for more details on how many polys you can push.
Prop Challenge - Prop Focus
Paper Lanterns
History of lamps says, ”Paper lanterns are special kind of lanterns that originate from China and Japan. They are made from paper or silk, with frame from bamboo or wood and a lit candle inside as a source of light.” Getting the smaller details and really nailing the roughness will be key on this asset.
Remember there are tons of different designs and your not locked to one type of paper lantern.
Substance Challenge - Material Focus
Jade Tiles
Not only having the details of the jade tiles with there own details, you have rope like materials binding them together along piece of wood pieces.
You can learn more about the history of Chinese ceramics and how they developed throughout the dynasties here
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VFX! - Material Focus
Fireworks
With the Chinese New Year you can expect like most new year celebrations, a fire works show!
Our moderator Kazefields thought this is a great opportunity to flex some fireworks VFX