Nice original concept.

That's VERY cool!

The Ant is really cool! Was looking around for the boy in the begining, but then realised about the ray of light! I love the interpretation of the theme! I really think its very creative! A suggestion if I may add, how about adding a bit of wispy smoke coming out of the point where the ray of light hits the ground? :-P But great pic all the same!

humorix, I debated doing just that. The reason I didn't put it in is because techinically, the dirt isn't burning, so there is no smoke. I don't think hiding behind realism is necessarily a good excuse though, because if this were realism, there would be fewer segments in the ant's legs (which are posable, btw). I did tinker around with a wisp of smoke, like on your draco, but I couldn't pull it off without photoshopping the texture, and it felt like cheating to me. Perhaps there is a better way, but I don't know how to do it, and I had a dozen other ideas too. I ended up just saying "done." I didn't want to end up over working it. Actually, I didn't want to upload it yet, but I knew that if I hadn't, I would have re-worked it. For reference, anyone know how to pull off a small wisp of smoke in Bryce alone?

How about the tea kettle steam mapped onto an elongated sphere?

The smoke in Draco had been done in PS! (We didn't have a no Photoshop rule in the last challenge! :-P) but I think it can be done in Bryce! Lemme experiment and give you a feed back (do you have Bryce 5 or 4?) also I agree with you that dirt doesn't burn, but, I feel, when you are communicating a visual idea you have to take into account and utilise some visual syntax to convey the idea. I thought the idea was great but I couldn't quite figure out that it was a light ray from a magnifying glass, right at the beginning! I guess if you had put in the concentrated rays as it is at the focal point of the lens it would be realistic, but a blade of grass or something else burning would also convey the message. But I agree with you that over working an image might affect its inherent charm! Great job on the ant BTW and I'll post as soon as I can offer something on wispy smoke!

Thanks for the tips! I'll play around with it and see what happens. Oh, and not showing the magnifying glass or the boy was really a blessing in disguise. Bryce won't focus light through a lens like I have there, so it wasn't feasible to do that. But, I like the way it forced me to crop the image. I really enjoy the subtlety -- there is enough information for you to get it, but not so much that's it's in your face.