At birth, an empath is unshielded. Her dark hide absorbs light, information, emotions that don’t belong to her – everything the radiant outer world throws at her. She feels love and joy, but also lashings of rage, pain and contempt. She craves isolation, that she may escape the relentless bombardment.

In time, bright mirrored patches develop as she slowly grows her psychic armour. Still, she must have an escape route. Outside her is the hard, harsh world, so the only escape is inward, ever inward… to her precious, secret, inviolate world.

Runner-up, World Within a World challenge , 6/08/2010
Featured, Bryce & Beyond , 15/08/2010
Featured, Parallel Dimensions , 15/08/2010
Featured, Globes, Spheres & Curves , 24/08/2010
Featured, Spirit & Psychic Peace , 10/09/2010
Featured, Story Through Image , 12/09/2010
Featured, Light Benders , 15/09/2010
Featured, New Creations , 22/11/2010

Please note that this image looks significantly darker when printed.

This is my most “Bryce-dominant” work to date. The figure was positioned in Poser, then exported. Textures and sphere prop, all lighting done in Bryce 5.5, and took nearly two days nonstop to render. GIMP work was much less than usual too, some minor darkening of background, a hint of masked radial flare, some blend-blur tidying of errant polygons – no more than four layers (10-12 more customary).