Walter wrote:

> In particular, would you favor Pov-Ray over Paint Shop Pro or vice versa?

It's more a choice between two styles of illustration (and graphics
technologies) than a choice between two softwares.
Paint Shop Pro is a "painting" programme. To make illustrations with it, you
first need to be very competent at hand-drawing.
POV-Ray is a 3D renderer  : you first need to create a 3D model of the scene and
its objects and then the program takes care of the "drawing". You don't really
need to know how to draw but learning the program and modelling objects take a
lot of time, and will often require external utilities.
So it depends on your present skills and available time. If you're already good
at painting and drawing, PSP could be your first choice for this type of rather
complex illustration. Otherwise, a 3D tool like POV-Ray is a possibility. Some
low-cost commercial 3D tools would do too, as they may be easier to learn than
POV (but may miss some of the features that make POV unique).
To take an example : if you need a dragon, and you know how to draw one, it will
an easy task in a paint program provided that you know your editing tools.
However, you'll have to paint it again for every image.
In 3D, you'll need a model of a dragon : you can buy one, model one in an
external modeller, or hand-code it. It will be hard work if you do your own, but
you'll be able to use the model wherever you need it.
Of course you can also mix both technologies, use 3D for special objects and
then add elements in 2D (or vice versa).

G.

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