In need of help

[Sword]

Once again, my lack of artistic skills kills me. I have this great idea for an image, but I can't get that far. So I need some help, in the general "how do I do this?" kind of way.



That's what I have so far. Shameful. Here's what I want to have.
1) I need to find something like a observation deck to put in the upper left of the image with silhouettes of people looking down on the area through the smoked glass. Those are separate thoughts.
2) How do I take yon Omega and make it more three dimensional? So it looks thick and casts a shadow from a lightsource from behind the viewer?
3) How do I create a vortex in the midst of the Omega, that distorts the background of the image, with a completely different image making up the vortex itself?

The basic idea for the image is this: The omega is a vortex generator into another reality. The observer at ground level is the next to go through. On the other side are armed guards, in case the project succeeds and the person comes back. All around the machine are various techies and consoles keeping tabs of the energy output, and the people in the observation deck are all in fear that they'll be next through.

Can you help?