Hi BusyB, Seeing your posts lately has taken me back a few years to when I first joined RR. What your doing now is what I started with too, and it looks like your hitting on the same problems I did. Don't fret, one day soon it will just click into place - your getting good basics and ideas there. If you don't mind, I'm going to pass on what I now consider to be one of the most vital bits of advice I was given at the time, and something I have come to work by; the time-honoured Star Trek Scotty's phrase; "Ye Cannae Change The Laws Of Physics!" When I asked it I said "What?" but when you look at surealist pictures, it's true. Gravity still sucks, winds can only blow in one direction at one part of a picture, one light source still casts shadows in one direction. You can twist physics in complete sci-fi settings, because then *you* set the rules. But when working with real objects, we are used to seeing them in certain ways, albeit subconsiously. Changing that TOO much makes the picture 'look wrong'. Hope this helps you as much as it did me. The pic above was somewhere around my 3rd or 4th after I got the idea sussed. I'll try to dig out some others if you want. Cheers Mike