"It was the third year of Dominons War, and we were all tired. So when we left our warp bubble 2 Megaklicks from 47 Ursae Majoris C, we didn't waste our time. MI's reports looked promising: the target planet was inahbited by civilization apparently on quite low tech level. You know, no space fleet or orbital defence stations, no nuke-powered battle platforms, poor Mom Earth-worshipping poor Mom Earth-worshipping dum-arses...

Agricultural society, I mean.

It was almost too good to be true.

At 2040 hours Commander commenced attack on their biggest city. Heavy Colonial Fleet Battlegroup: 40 shuttles with infantry, 12 CAS squadrons, 4 carriers, a dozens of support vessels. Commander thought she was smart, cause MI folks told her the farmers down below would have some kind of religious festival that night. Well, they had. And our visit really pissed them off.
53 minutes later, our last Kiev class carrier hit the ground and exploded. 75% of our close air support crafts were also destroyed, and lucky survivors had to pull back. But the worst thing was, it took just three people to wipe out our troops. We dubbed them 'priests' afterwards, cause of - you know, divine powers they used against us or something - but we haven't really grasp their position and role in the farmers' society.
Yeah, divine powers. Don't laugh. One pilot rescued by Medivac boys told us how his plane was ripped in half by flying girl. Other reports mentioned her and her friends, hovering over our carrier - just before it's armour was penetrated and cooling system damaged by, as we were told, meteor shower that came from nowhere!
That night we've learned our lesson. I learned it pretty well... ."

M-Sgt. Jack Hartman, A Troop 4/12 Cav, 3rd Colonial Marine Division.

***

The power within. That's what always amaze the most: the undiscovered potential of human beings. I wanted to create a scene where that amazing power is spectacularly unveiled. Maybe "man vs machine" conflict isn't the cleariest way to show it, but i think the message is strong: no matter how many obstacles are thrown in our path - we have the strength within us to overcome them. To win against all odds.

I would like to thank all of you on CGtalk forum who helped me with this picture - without you this journey wouldn't be so amazing. Many thanks.

Also a special kind words for my friend Mlody who helped me a lot as well with picture as with editing this text

I have to add some postprocesing and im done :]

So what do you think?

Thats about 2/3 crop of actual picture size. I finished detailing air units and tommorow I'll fix the land and sky and meteor shower and Im all done :] Hopefully with an hour or two to spare ;P

I chenged few thing - now the jetfighter is looking biger and cooler :]
I datailed it as u can see and finished sorceress also. Tommorow Ill finish up ships in a backgound and hopefully submit whole image. Time is my enemy :/

I had that idea of soceress summoning meteor shower to destrois jetplanes. Do you like it?

Also adding details on main character... its fun but its eating a lot of time .. gotta hurry

So i figured out that pilot encoutering sorceres for a first time would automaticly (as he was trained) release heat flares to avoid danger... Bad luck Dingo ;]

I added some invading forces and smoke but still I think something is missing :/ Maybe somone have idea how to make this picture more war-zone-like?

Added more saturation, some light effects and explosions of planes. So what do you thik about it? Too much fireworks??

Still some stuff is missing but Im working on it :] I used some satelite photos for bump map of a land, but it need alot of work - cuz right now is just looking cheap. Also I have new idea for destroing that interceptor on first plane - im thinking... spectacular ;]

Any input is most welcome

I painted first layer of color - lots of things is missing but I would like to know your opinion on color scheme I choosed

Well thats it - its THE lineart I will start colouring tommorow. Since there is almost no time left, its poorly detailed but I just wanted to laid out main elements on the scene. I made sorceress more "magical" by ading a scepter and more aristocratic clothing

If u see ANY mistakes - now is the best time to point them out ;]