Well, this is it. Perhaps my most complicated picture(s) to date. They required a lot of work and devotion, and I'm more than pleased at how they turned out. Please note I used only a reference picture for these; there was no tracing, and no plagiarism. All the coloring was done by hand on my new iBook Graphite 466. Instrumental in the design of these pictures were Photoshop 4.0, ClarisWorks 4.0v5, and KPT Bryce, as well as my inoperable Umax scanner and IIci which combined to form the light box I used to ink a copy of my original pencil sketch. =)

Lysomech.jpg (1 mb): This is the full-size 1024x768 schematic of the mech done in Photoshop with the background grid done in ClarisWorks (hey, it was easy =P). I originally wanted to put the background in the second picture in this one and just have one picture, but KPT Bryce doesn't render higher than 800x600, and the mech was bigger than that, so... =P

Mechpic.jpg (380 k): The aforementioned background done in KPT Bryce with an added Adobe lens flare and the mech itself at 50% size in order to fit within reason. I really, really, really like this background, and I couldn't resist doing one pic with the mech in it. ;)

Yes, they're huge files, and no, they're not spectacular, but I'm damn proud of what I can do with little to no practice. I improvised using a blue fine-tip pen to ink, I rigged up a light box out of old computer components, and I took full advantage of programs that hardly ran on my old 60 Mhz Power Mac (alas, it took less than five minutes to render the background in the second pic!). I got the hang of using the dodge and burn tools to give the illusion of depth and shading, and I am fully satisfied with what I've done here. I hope you enjoy them. =)

Side note: I noticed something odd which pertains to the ongoing NS vs. IE browser wars. Though I once swore by Netscape, I found that while the one meg maximum-quality Photoshop .jpg had some minor artifacts when viewed in Netscape, it looked perfect in Explorer, like it was still in Photoshop. This alone has given me cause to switch to IE, at least until it pisses me off enough to switch back. But please, note this when viewing them. If they don't look perfect, get a new browser. It's not my fault! =)

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