Kickass ^^ too bad we didn't see that in the movie, but as they say, the books are always better.

Look up War of the Worlds True Story. It's easily the best adaptation of the story yet ^ ^

I like what you've done with the heat ray here. The original book described it as being akin to a camera - which, given how early 20th century cameras were structured, was probably far more cannon-like than the compact cubes and rectangles of the present-day. You've combined that quality with something almost flashlight-like here (which would make sense for what was probably an infrared or UV frequency laser), while still giving the clear impression that this is a weapon, albeit one designed by an alien mind, with an alien aesthetic behind it.

Your take on the flying machine is interesting. More bulky and cumbersome than I'd originally envisioned, though given that we never see one, or even hear one described, in the book, they could easily look like anything at all. I think my youthful mind envisioned something more akin to a mechanical manta-ray - but again, that's an Earthly intellect and aesthetic at work. I like how it bears a faint resemblance to the design of the tripod 'head' - as well as the Martians themselves - while still having a distinctive design all its own.

It's a good thing the local microbes took the Martians out when they did. Those things would have decimated turn-of-the-century military forces even worse than the tripods...>.>;

Well the heat ray was actually based on an old camera, but, again, I put my little spin on it. The parabolic mirrors in it's tube can change their angles so that the beam can be focused into a single small point like a laser and a wide beam like searchlight. There's also a third and most rarely used mod which I like to call "smile". It's basically a single powerful instantaneous burst of the heat (like a camera flash). It has a wide range and incineration power but uses up a lot of energy. Also, like in the book, the heat ray's beam is invisible.
As for the flying machine, it was only mentioned by the artilleryman that the martians were learning how to fly. I figured that the managed to modified some of their tripod heads with anti-grave and removed the legs (after all they surely had limited resources in their cylinders right). But they never managed to master them because of Earth's higher gravity.