Some artwork from the book

I have dabbled in computer generated graphics for over 20 years. There have been few points during my career where I had a lot of expensive tools, and I did this professionally. Today, it is simply one of my favorite pasttimes. Most of the images in the book are UML diagrams created using Microsoft Vizio. Those that weren't, I created with Daz Studio.

The book was published in black and white, so I wanted to present the images in color since I worked hard producing them.

This is an image inspired by the title of Chapter 1. It shows a nerdy guy sitting in a diner in front of a plate full of spaghetti with a big ball of mud on the plate. Next to the nerd is a giant golden war hammer that was clearly forged by dwarves. Both are concepts from Chapter 1 of the book.

There's a big ball of mud on your plate of spaghetti

This image was inspired by the title of the first chapter. I wanted a nerdy guy complaining that his code had degenerated into a big ball of mud and was nothing but spaghettie code. In the original renders, the hammer isn't really gold, since the print is black and white; you wouldn't be able to tell. I made this one gold just for y'all!

An early rendering of bikes and robots

I was originally going to use my grandparents as the heroes, but decided my girls would make for more colorful characters. Here we see Kitty on her Palo Duro Canyon Ranger, and Phoebe with her ever-present wrench alongside one of the early model robot arms.

The hands are all wrong because I quit working on it. I quit working on it because the real Phoebe didn't like her character's haircut. It took weeks to create one that met with her approval.

The bike factory by the end of Chapter 5

The robotic factory by the end of Chapter 5

It was actually useful to produce these images because I felt like I really built the factory I was writing about. This allowed me to include details both in the story and the code.

Phoebe's Lab

This is a shot of one end of Phoebe's lab. Unfortunately you can't see the Van de Graff generator from here. We still don't know why she has that.

The lab with Tom, Kitty, and Phoebe working on the project in Chapter 7

Kitty, Phoebe, and Tom working on the project.

Same shot of Phoebe's lab, but with Tom, Kitty, and Phoebe working. This one almost didn't happen. My video card (an RTX 3070ti) isn't really up to the task. Maybe if y'all buy a few books, I can upgrade to a 3090.

Zombie, ancient monster, cat, and helpless little girl

Zombie, Ancient Monster, Cat, and Helpless Girl

This is the worst video game of all time, which I presented in Appendix 1. I'm begging you! The image is marked up in the book to present examples of how to use interfaces. Please let us never speak of this again.