Hi,

in the past days I came across a very nice tutorial from Jonathan Williamson, “Creating a Microscopic Virus Effect” (Blender Cookie):

In this Blender 2.5 video tutorial we take a look at how to create a microscopic virus effect in a few short steps. The tutorials covers modeling, materials, lighting, and some simple compositing.

You can create this nice image in only around 40 minutes.  Here Is my version as I followed the tutorial (could need some work, but works as a wallpaper):

(click on image  for larger version)

maces