My entry for *Manamaraya's contest: [link]

Essentially, you have to turn yourself into an insect-based vigilante and work out some stats and stuff.

So, my selection was the Spider Wasp, a small but lethal little bugger. Pardon the pun.

Waspantonius

Bios:

Waspantonius is rumored to be native to a small town in western Colorado, but due to frequent travels is often seen all over the country, saving old ladies from muggers and other such heroic deeds of heroism that heroes perform.
Governed by extreme moral ethic, his fighting techniques are primarily designed to merely incapacitate his foes until, "official" law enforcement can arrive.
Despite having a few dangerous weapons, he rarely uses anything that could cause serious harm, his kind nature leads him to only do what is entirely necessary to uphold justice.

Technology / Weaponry

Venom Darts - Waspantonius' primary weapon. Small tanks on his back contain hundreds of venom-filled darts, which are fed through small tubes to his gloves and boots, at which time they are also covered in the venom filling the tubes. The venom is a compound of various chemicals, and small amounts of actual spider wasp venom, its effects typically result is muscle cramping, nausea, clouded vision, perspiration, and difficulty breathing. The darts are fired using a simple air propulsion system; if the feeding tube is suddenly tugged on, a small valve leading to an air compression chamber at the top of each tank is opened, blasting the dart out of its sheath.

Shroud Grenades - Typically only used in evasive situations, Waspantonius carries eight small grenades on his belt. Once the small button on top is pressed, the venom inside is fed in to the grenade, which causes a chemical reaction much like vinegar and water that causes the grenade to burst after approximately 15 seconds after the reaction begins. The resulting burst is mainly smoke allowing him time to escape, but the small amount of venom included in the burst can also be used to disorient a large group of enemies very efficiently.

Antennae - The antennae-like headset he wears can be tuned in to various frequencies, typically used for observing police scanners.

Compound Eyes - A small knob on the left side of his headset allows him to set his goggles to various forms of vision. Teal judges the light in the area and amplifies it accordingly, allowing for both day and night vision. Red allows infrared vision, purple detects movement, yellow sends out sonar pings that display in his goggles giving him hints about what might lie around corners, and blue uses a gps system to overlay road names and directions for finding and getting to locations quickly.

Glide - While Waspantonius' wings are not nearly powerful enough for flight, they have a slight parachute effect, allowing for slightly increased jump distance and slowed vertical descent speed. They can also be used to flap venom bursts at enemies, and can be stored underneath his venom tanks when not in use.

His suit is just a slightly enhanced polyester mesh that is tucked in to his boots, gloves and mask, and is removed by unzipping a zipper in the back. It also makes him look a bit stronger than he is.

Stats:

Strength: ***
Charm: ******
Speed: ****
Intelligence:*******

Other: Small and light, his tactics are usually hit and run. He's fairly quick at thinking and tricking his enemies, but is only quick over short distances and is very weak physically. He usually gains advantage over his enemies by disorienting them or tricking them in to wrongly guessing his position, allowing him time to attack them with strong venom that will keep them down until the police can arrive.
Due to his actions being driven simply by the desire to help others, he is very resilient to any negative press or common opinion about him.

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Phew... enough of that in-character business. THIS ART IS SRS BSNS GAIZ.

So, yeah, this is probably the single most complex image I've ever done in my life. It's quite possibly the first time I've been totally content with both the character and the background. Despite being insanely time-consuming, this was really, really fun to do. Got to try my hand at perspective for the background, and I think it came out quite nicely.

And before anyone gets all, "Omgwtf, you painted ALL those windows?!", no, I didn't. I used a technique called matte painting, which is essentially using a photo or textures as a base for your background, so you don't have to spend a ridiculous amount of time working on a fairly unimportant area or set of details.

In this case, what I did was painted the buildings as just plain boxes in perspective, then grabbed some textures off of cgtextures, then used various cloning and free-transforming methods to overlay them on top of my buildings, adding windows and some texture on to the simple painted blocks. Kinda sounds like cheating; but really it's just taking advantage of tools, you wouldn't say using a lawnmower as opposed to scissors to cut your grass was cheating, would you?

But, yeah, it was loads of fun. I probably could have shaded the character a bit better, but I was having some trouble with the form and such due to crazy light sources, but I think it turned out good in the end.... though I probably went overboard with the glowing teal parts. Yay shinies!

I could probably ramble on for a while about it, but this description's already freaking long as it is, so if I left out some info you'll just have to ask for it. xD

Tools Used:
Adobe Photoshop CS4
Wacom Cintiq 21UX
Textures from cgtextures
Soundtracks
Around 6 to 8 hours

Work In Progress Shots:
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Detail Shot - 100% Zoom:
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