So, my very good friend and brother-in-law Steve found an online thing called "Pimp My Gun http://pimpmygun.doctornoob.com/.

He has been giggling like a happy child and hacking together illustrations for his various, infamously deadly, Defiance creations.

[attachment=0]myweapon-2.jpg[/attachment]

This was his second attempt ever. If you can see some flaws, you can also see some amazing possibilities. The system works via vector drawings of about a thousand guns. Each part or visual component is its own vector which can be taken, rotated, scaled and coloured at will and combined with other parts from any other gun on file. Transparencies and layers let you move parts to the foreground or reveal other parts through transparent bits like magazines, etc., to control what is seen. The clever shading takes this trick of 2D art and makes it look 3D.

Here's a link to one from the flickr group:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ironwolfweapons/7042816059/