I thought folks might be interested in how an idea generated a series of artwork. I also suspect that after the first two, most viewers would see little if any relationship between the four, even though they the first inspired the other three. The top picture is sort of "classic surreal" with figures created in Poser, then simplified in a 3D program until the arms and legs were nearly gone, leaving a sort of "modern-art" looking figure. I also created a "portal," which was originally going to be part of a picture with a silver robot -- when that didn't work out, the portal got cannibalized for this picture :o) I had had a dream about a monstrous child with a serpent tail, and also realized it the portal was rotated a certain way, it appeared to be a uterus. So, I created the second picture in a primitive/iconic style. I hadn't realized it until today, but, working on this a few days before Christmas, I created a perverted version of the Christmas story with three wise women, a monster in a womb, and a virgin pointing toward a star. I am not sure what Freud would say about this. Originally I had been seeing this as a "Life Cycle" (hence its name) so the skeleton is buried beneath the child. Everything is sort of "flat" like one might see with "outsider artwork" or primitives. One more oddity: I placed a city in the mist behind the figures so the picture wasn't quite so "flat" but viewed a certain way this looks more like cemetery tombstones. All a bit macabre in the end. Next, I decided to simplify the idea to the very basics: A circle on a solid background. I played around a little and created "impossible physics" with the shadows and light, making it (I hope) a tad confusing to the eye as a viewer tries to decide the depth of the various parts of the nestled circles as well as the light source. (The texture was created from a photo of sawdust on my garage floor -- a good reason never to clean up from a project before whipping out the camera -- ha.) Finally, I created a glass Madonna with a child in her womb. I placed her on a globe (the earth?) that contains a distorted version of the whole picture. I suspect this last picture might have related to the child and women in Revelation rather than to the Christmas story, but will leave the story telling to the viewer. Software: Poser, zBrush, Metaseq, Vue, Bryce, and Photo Paint 8. No electrons were harmed in the making of these pictures.