Hey there,its been some time since i participated in this thread, Its aliveee again 
WyattHarris, the idea of a steampunk samurai is veeery cool,i would really like to see what you will do with it. There´s some really crazy stuff being cooked up in this challenge.
Airflow,the model doesnt look a lot like charlize to me, but it does look really good nonetheless. It seems like you´re going for a more stylized look and not so realistic, i say it cause of the big eyes mostly… so i dont think it “has” to look like ms theron. And i know its still a wip, but i would like to see it with the hair, the light and the textures refined, i think its going to turned out great.
As for me,i just made this little test:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPoLX6dgnXE&fmt=18
Its been a long time since i last played with doing effects and crazy stuff to vids to learn things, but i finally found the time to do it.
Here´s the thread in the animation forum:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=705369
Comments welcome 