Created for Conceptart.org's "Industrial Design of the Week"
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Paper texture acquired from
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EDIT1/// cleared up the lower legs and how they worked with a 4th stage, changed background and layout and shrunk text
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back to some steampunk loving!!!

this week's topic was to design "power boots" or rather, boots that granted their wearer a power, be it magical or mechanical. i was at first dismayed, i've never drawn boots before and worse of all i had to draw a full pair! preposterous!!!

the actual hard work i think was done for me by a friend when he suggested boots that bestowed their wearer with the cat like ability to land on one's feet from long distances... i of course had to militarize it.

unlike most of what i submit, i included a little more technical juice, just because i usually make everything as close to possible as i can. in this case, i should have trusted my first sketches when i redrew it digitally, as i had to go back and change the tube positions, and technically should have done a little bit more tweaking in their final positions just to make all the air exchange work out right -_-

done in cs3, this probably wins in terms of layer numbers out of all the pieces i did, but honestly most of it were duplicate layers in case i trashed the one i was working on and all sorts of noob techniques that probably have a more elegant solution

i'll tell you what though... there's no way i could have done this in painter - i am right now thrilled i made the switch