Once Toady has finished up all the creature raws I think we'll be able to start making new stuff in earnest. Still won't be able to test them, but at least we'll have a lot more examples to work from.
Indeed. I've been sort of lax about maintaining the first post here, but it's largely just supposed to be a place where you can say "I'm going to mod this! This is why it'll be cool." Then, when more raws are released as examples (perhaps closer to the final form), I can turn those ideas in the first post into links or into spoilers containing the raws that people come up with.
I figure that if we decide on a few things that we really want to try our hands at, individually, then we'll be able to approach it with enough attention to detail (various color patterns for fur/eyes/scales/feathers, perhaps multiple castes, and even a wide variety of almost identical attacks just for flavor's sake). After all, it's much more interesting to be attacked by the ghost-white albino lion, which initially pounces, grabbing with its left claw, then rends you with its rear claws, then bites your third finger, left hand, and finally locks down on your throat.