Remember the Pandaren?
by Elizabeth Harper 
Apr 3rd 2006 at 11:00AM
Perhaps some of you recall the rumor about
Pandaren as the new Alliance race, which started circulating around the forums around October. It was accompanied
by a rather believable screenshot, which
fanned the flames of speculation. Well, this April 1st, instead of the usual jokes, Ian of Mac Hall admitted (scroll down to see Ian's news post on the subject) that he'd
spent some eight hours modeling work to accomplish the effect. Seems like a lot of work for a prank, but the
final product fit the World of Warcraft look quite nicely. Only time will tell whether the murloc rumors will have a similar
fate!Filed under: Alliance, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Daniel Axelrod Apr 4th 2006 2:18PM
I'm not convinced. I keep rechecking Mac Hall to see if Ian posts that his April Fools joke was actually claiming credit for that Pandaren image when in fact he didn't create it. While he's an excellent artist in both 2D and 3D, the character sheet he provided just doesn't convince me.
Also, http://machall.com/index.php?strip_id=369 is a more permanent link to the news post we're discussing, the "Read" link provided above will be invalid as soon as Machall has a new news post.
Ichthus Apr 4th 2006 2:30PM
Not convinced? Either he spent 8 hours creating the Pandaren or 8 hours creating a replica character sheet for it. Conspiracy Theorists of Warcraft meetings are on Fridays... you should come.
elizabeth Apr 4th 2006 2:31PM
Good point about the link - I've updated it accordingly.
Matt Boyd Apr 6th 2006 10:29PM
Having seen it personally, I can confirm it's his invention. He even wrote a simple program in Blitz3D to manually adjust the lighting on the character to match up with the screenshot in the background.
It's rediculous amount of effort to go through for one faked image, but that's his way.