S.E.M. Dust mite by Atoman
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
This image was created as part of a project to see if I could fake SEM (scanning electron microscope) images. The dust mite was modelled using hypernurbs with solid splines pro used for the hairs and surface painter for the flakes of skin. The materials were created using regular shaders with fresnel in the luminance channel (I think).

Comments (9)
Since I've actually seen these under a SEM I'd say you have got this down perfect..I looked at this thinking it was a science pic someone had posted :)...really cool work...
Thanks Kate, that's the best compliment I could hope for. Still not sure whether depth of field is appropriate in SEM pix. The next step is to try to recreate the look of a false coloured SEM, when I get a free day that is.
Great and very realistic effect!! I also thought about creating a SEM pic, but I couldn't figure out how to get the look of it right. Maybe you could do a little tutorial on that?
As usual a very good image. As for the depth of field I know that issue has been raised earlier (on Postforum), but as far as I could remember all agreed to disagree -- some use DOF and some don't. And I agree with earlier post: a tutorial would be nice.
I seem to remember it was pretty straight forward actually. Although I think there was some trick to the lighting, have to dig out the files and take another look. I'll see what I can do, although it may be a while as I've got to find the time to get my website up and running. I keep getting interupted with work. I was planning on including a few tuts maybe also as pdfs ( I hate trying to follow online tutorials).
Don't know what a SEM is, but this is pretty neat.
http://www.denniskunkel.com/ Anyone who's interested this site has loads of info and real SEM pix (the hand coloured variety).
Makes me itchy just looking at it. :)
Awsome work. I hope you get more free time so we can see more great works like this.