Often when I work on a painting, I develop a full greyscale version of the piece as a step before adding layers and layers of color. However, it doesn't matter who I produce this greyscale. I generally just handpaint it all, but creating a 3D model and rendering out greyscale images of it can serve just as well for the underpainting. I find it especially useful to incorporate 3D when I have something with repeated mechanical parts which need to be in perspective. So for this piece, I designed the Chihuahuabot in 3D and used renders of it to paint on top of. All coloring and texturing work was done in Photoshop, not in 3D.
As for the story behind this piece, I had been working on some concepts for space-faring military cats (see my VisDev portfolio page) and along the way, designed some canine enemies for them to fight. Among these was Maximillian Bigguns, pilot of a large walking Chihuahua-shaped robot. This is the concept piece I did for him. I chronicled the step-by-step creation of this image and turned it into an article for ImagineFX magazine. This workshop appeared in the December 2008 issue (#037) of that magazine.
Michael Dashow - 4676 Reinhardt Drive, Oakland, CA. USA
mdashow_at_michaeldashow.com - http://www.michaeldashow.com/illustration.html