While searching through the archives of the Royal British Navy I made a Spectacular discovery. I had uncovered the long forgotten field reports for a prototype war machine developed by the Yorkshire Iron Works.

Apparently the British navy was concerned with the widespread use of railways and motorcars to transport goods and military material. The admiralty feared that with a lessening importance in naval commerce the British navy's role in future conflicts would be reduced so they decided to develop a land ship! I found no plans for this war ship but there was a single rendition of the great machine quelling a rebellion in one of Britain's Far East colonies. One can see its massive arms smashing through the walls of the local stronghold; the rebelling forces cringing before it’s might. Designed in the tradition of great British warships, the captain and officers rode high atop the vehicle, directing the combat from ornately decorated balconies befitting their status. Lower down the machine was built of simple riveted iron armor. Huge pipes twisted together to harness the massive steam pressures generated by the monstrous boilers that moved the great machine. The crew in these lower levels was not as lucky as the officers above. Here they either shoveled coal into the great furnaces or manned the gigantic long-range cannons. It must have been a fearsome sight on the battlefield.

Amazingly enough it was politics, which sealed the fate of this engineering marvel. The Royal Mounted Cavalry refused to accept a machine into their ranks. Documents show that they felt man and horse had always controlled land battles and a huge, loud, lumbering monstrosity had no place on the modern field of battle. As a result the project was closed. The only prototype was dismantled while all plans and records of the endeavor were archived so as not to attract criticism.

I can only imagine how history might today be different had this great work not been dismissed. We have only one spectacular image with which to imagine what if was like to stand before this massive machine of war.

Here is the latest post work. The feedback has been invaluable. Thank you to everyone who helped me so far. I reworked the boiler fire glow. The lighting is more accurate and I tried to give it a more realistic heat look. Lots of layers in Photoshop :)

I thought I'd post some of the alphas that I used to do the post work. I use MAX's elements a lot. My favorite is probably Zdepth.

I got some great feedback about the glow so I rendered out the scene again with just the lights where the glow would be. I made everything white and had no ambient or any other light sources. This generated a great alpha channel that I used to get the more realistic lighting and effects. It's really fun having lots of alphas to load as selections. I'd also recommend combining and subtracting one alpha from another to get interesting selection areas. Thanks again for the crits.

I think it's done. Did a bit of post work on the final image. Added dust, smoke, glow to the furnace, extra bloom, some touchups, and some motion blur. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Looking forward to submitting the final.

Rendered it out at 3400 X 2763. It crashed the first time I tried when I ran out of memory so I turned off the motion blur. After 14 hours it is done :) I'll have to add the blur and all the rest in post.

Working on lighting and some details. Made a few changes thanks to all the geat feedback I've been getting. Tried adding more guys in the foreground, but it seemed to pull the viewers eye down too much and detracted from the overall image. I threw in a bit for you to see. I'm planning to add some fireballs arching over the robots head and some smoke debris in post. Thanks again for all the crits.

Still have to texture the guys. I brought the fog down a little so that the scene wouldn't be so yellow. Anyone have thoughts on that? ilusiondigital, soapy, Hoju, denverbz ,cLos71, and everyone else, thanks for all the great feedback.
Probably won't be posting till after Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday!

Just more texturing. I'm hoping to get a first pass done on the robot soon. Maybe a first pass on the entire scene by tomorrow. I'm also playing with the lighting.

Working on the textures some more. Render times are getting long.

Modeling is done! So now I'm playing with textures. I want to work out the metals and stuff first, then move onto the stone and fabrics. I'm also playing with the lighting to see how the textures and lighting will interact.