So basically, I needed to create an icon for the discord server I've set up for the TTRPG I've been putting together. Playing mostly just pure role-play for now, but as we get ramped up I'll be leaning heavily on the Dungeon World system for mechanics. The setting I've been building, I call "Machina Rosa Gothika" Or "Red Machine Gothic." It's a nonsense phrase, but I feel it also captures the mood fairly well. You've seen my crew of Sky Pirate NPCs, and various other characters. (Such as our not-so-friendly Vampire Killer, Buddy) I was just going to create something quick and dirty, and ended up working on this art for several hours straight. I'm not sure this will be the FINAL icon, but for now? It stands out in the list of discord icons, is fairly unique and I like it. So... Success? The setting is a mish-mash of Gothic, Steampunk, and Fantasy. With a little noir and future-retro thrown in for flavor. The goal, then, was to try and represent all that in one image that would be displayed at 512x512. Piece of cake, right? (LOL) There's a lot going on here. First of all, our model is the very lovely Catelya. It's hard to see, but she's got a set of burns from ShanaSoulmate's Scarred Vol. 1. The eye patch is the "Diesal Punk" patch from Prae's set for Genesis 2 Female. Minus the strap, and with some shaders applied. Her eyes are from hinkypunk's neat set of steampunk eyes. She's fabulously dressed in "Flirtatious" from Lully, with a material set from Sveva. Wings are from "Fallen Angel for G8F." I used the "Dark" texture set, but then I tinted it a little darker. Stockings are "Wet Looking Stockings" from lilflame with another material set from Sveva. Hair is Adalyn hair for G3F, converted using SY's converter because using autofit was stretching the mesh weird. It converted perfectly, which is awesome. I keep buying converters, and then cross my fingers the result will be better than autofit, lol. For the life of me I cannot remember where her earring came from, lol. I wasn't able to rotate it, so I'm relying on the camera angle and distance to disguise the fact that its clipping a bit. Her choker is the freebie from Daz. Actually, it set the mood and inspired the whole rest of the piece. I did adjust the mats a bit, but I gotta say it's nicely made. Though a bit off considering the Christmas theme of the other freebies. Her glove is another freebie, this time from Zoro_D. This is the "Driving Gloves." though in true "punk" style, there's only one. Her fingernails are colored from a mat from Kazandra, while the rest of her makeup is from the excellent (and oft-used) LIE Pirate makeup that released just a couple months back. The sword is the "Steampunk Laser Sabre" from Jonnte. I'll talk that over for a moment. Obviously, being an older Poser prop, it needed a little work. The hilt, just using SY's 3Delight to iray converter, looked great. The blade? Just looked like a fluorescent light bulb. And not a lit one. Lol. I went ahead an adjusted some colors, and added an emmisive. Then adjusted the opacity to 0.20. Fiddled with the lighting type to get a nice glow out of it... but... it wasn't quite right. After quite a bit of fiddling, I hit upon the idea of creating a geoshell of the blade, and then applying one of the presets from the "Sketchy Toon Shaders" set. The result, I think, looks pretty cool. Backdrop is a sphere with a cloth shader applied. I was going to use something more elaborate. With gears and such, but realized at the typical viewing size, you'd lose almost all detail and the whole thing would just blend together. So I decided on a light texture and contrast. Main lighting is from the sun-sky setting, tweaked until it was JUST right. Thanks for viewing! I hope you enjoy looking as much as I enjoyed making! EDIT: I found where the earring came from: Gothic Style for G8F by fefecoolyellow