That's a pic by Chris Achilleos...one of his distinctive Amazon pics, titled "Heroic Dream", according to my reference book. It's dated there as 1987, so the Internet pic may be either from his own site or may be ripped from somewhere else by 'fans'. As to a link to the 'Aquila-Bellator' outfit...perhaps it was the inspiration for that, but I wouldn't speak for renapd or thip.

Attached Link: http://www.chrisachilleos.co.uk/art/amazons.htm

Thanks for the link and I think that renapd and thip stuff are great. Maybe we'll se more that's inspired from that site.

As a quick aside, anybody who whats to model armor for females that looks real, funtional and would protect (and still look sexy) should look at the work of two people, Chris Achilleos and Larry Elmore. While both do skimpy cheesecake armor, they also design some great, full body coverage stuff that can look hot. If anybody would put that sort of thing in the marketplace, I, for one, would snap it up in a heartbeat!

Kind of slow to find this out but yes, we do get inspired by fantasy artists and paintings to come up with our models. Nothing better than having the visualization of what will turn out to be before hand! :) Aquilla Bellator is indeed based on this image by Achilleos which is one of my favorites. I have even recreated her pose for the main product image as I loved its power and mystery at the same time. Her name was inspired by the main page where I had her setup with eagles. All I had to do was just brush off a bit my Latin! :) BTW..we are not the only ones inspired by fantasy artists images - many creators do the same. Even pose sets are created after such images and if you search the marketplace you'll find tons of stuff inspired by fantasy galleries of the masters! The challenge is double at such cases as you know what you are after.. poor thip made half a dozen of headpieces for this one before we settled for the final. Texturing is also another challenge on such projects.. it's not at all easy to be able and replicate the look and feel of the costume..you have something to compare your work against and trust me, takes a long time to get satisfied by the outcome. This sort of projects usually take much longer than any other. Our latest creation is another good example as inspired by an authentic painting of the victorian era. Unless I pose the character and final costume same as the inspiration source and get the similar feeling I'm never satisfied with a project to call it time to wrapup! :) Rena

I bought Aquila Bellator and I'm so impressd with the model and texture. When I saw that picture I thought that it really was a rendered picture that was made so it looks like a drawing and that you two had kept it since 2002 before putting it on the mp. LOL It's great, you really did a great a job and it's always fun to know how and where artist gets the inspirations from and how they work around it. It isn't hard to see that you havn't compromised on this one. Great job.

Thanks Feia, and what you just said that you thought Achilleos image was a postworked render of AQBL..well, I doubt anyone will ever pay RT a biggest compliment although it's definately visa versa! We are grateful to Achilleos ourselves for having painted such gorgeous costumes we try to recreate for our favorite ladies! :) Rena

I added that to my wishlist :) It's beautiful.