(Tactical was the law enforcement body which replaced the Police when the system kind of skewed itself into extinction in the 22nd Century ... if you know your NARC and Hellgate lore, you'll know about all this. Speaking of which, if you have no bloomin' idea what Jade is rabbiting on about now, click here to find out! Word of caution, first: there's glbt content in these books. They're not "gay books" as such, because gay content/focus is waaaaay secondary or tertiary to the kind of plots that would have happened if Tom Clancy co-wrote a million-word series with Greg Bear! Which never happened, of course ... they appear to have left it to Mel Keegan to do this, and I have to say, Mel rose to the occasion with a will. And/but in true SF spirit, MK runs the ultimate experiment of doing everything differently in the futuristic setting ... including the romantic aspect. Trust me: it's a heck of a ride!)
Anyway -- sorry about that digressive ramble! -- just a single image from me today, to touch base here. I have a massive headache, halfway to a migraine, and I have to nurse it tenderly, or I'll pay a nasty price...
This piece features the Skyrider aircar from DAZ , which was one of four freebies given away on the cover CD in ImagineFX magazine a few months ago. I made up a new skinmap for it, because the bright red supplied didn't suit the overall moodiness of this piece, and the alternative "distressed" texture is a kind of bare metal and rust job. Fine and dandy, but on a dirty, snowy night (Christmastime in the city about 100 years from now, in a Blade Runner type future) like this, the bare metal version just vanished into the background...
Speaking of which, the background is not a backdrop. That's the Dystopia City Blocks prop, complete with its skydome ... but I did loads of work with the lights, windows and whatnot. The atmospherics were done in DAZ Studio 3 with planes (primitives) which were fitted up with opacity maps to look like, well, smog! Then the whole thing was rendered and shipped into Photoshop. The windows, beacons, halos around the beacons, and of course the snow, were all digitally painted as overlays, using a variety of brushes including Ron's Magical Snow!
Must go and take care of this headache now. It's juuuust starting to get the bit between its teeth...
Jade, 7 January