Here's my entry. I saw a picture online of a mailbox painted with flames and it inspired me to create a hotrod texture for the mailbox model. I wanted to give it a somewhat worn look as if it had been painted a while ago and weather has taken its toll.
Luckily I already had a decent tiling wood texture in my library (which I originally created using Wood Workshop utility), so the wood parts came together really quickly.
Painting the actual mailbox took the most of my time. The flames are basically just a gradient, masked out to create the shape, and some light scratches added on top. The rivets and reinforcement straps are photo referenced. The text on the mailbox door is just basic Arial Rounded, which is pretty close to the font used on actual U.S. mailboxes. I added emboss effect and lots of dirt around the letters.
I also did some baked occlusion using Maya Mental Ray.
I didn't have time to create specular or normal maps, unfortunately. I might make them later just for fun, since I think it would really add to the look of this texture.
