I'm having some difficulty creating a Java applet with a BufferedImage. What I want is for randomly-located and colored polygons to be rendered on the screen, and then I'll be able to get pixel color data in an int array via conversion to a BufferedImage. I try to do so, but the int[] of pixel data from the BufferedImage is all the same number, -16777216. Any help is greatly appreciated, as I've been banging my head against the desk for days with this problem.

Here's the standard initialization; nothing exciting:

public void init() {

setBackground(Color.white);
setForeground(Color.black);

} //end public void init

Here's some of the paint method:

public void paint(Graphics g) {

g2 = (Graphics2D) g; //needs to be in a Graphics2D context

//create a BufferedImage that is compatible with being displayed on screen:
GraphicsConfiguration config = g2.getDeviceConfiguration();
int transparency = Transparency.OPAQUE;
screenShot = config.createCompatibleImage(500, 500, transparency);


//gc will now be used to write into the screenShot bufferedimage
gc = (Graphics2D) screenShot.getGraphics();

//drawing for loop to create NUM_POLYS number of polygons
for (int i = 0; i < NUM_POLYS; i++){

Poly myPoly = new Poly ();

// draw GeneralPath (polygon)
int x1Points[] = {myPoly.X1, myPoly.X2, myPoly.X3, myPoly.X4, myPoly.X5};
int y1Points[] = {myPoly.Y1, myPoly.Y2, myPoly.Y3, myPoly.Y4, myPoly.Y5};
GeneralPath polygon = new GeneralPath(GeneralPath.WIND_EVEN_ODD, x1Points.length);
polygon.moveTo(x1Points[0], y1Points[0]);

for (int index = 1; index < x1Points.length; index++) {
polygon.lineTo(x1Points[index], y1Points[index]);
};

polygon.closePath();

//here's where everything's actually drawn into BufferedImage, I presumed:
gc.setPaint(myPoly.filler);
gc.fill(polygon);

//here's where things are drawn on screen:
g2.setPaint(myPoly.filler);
g2.fill(polygon);


} //end drawing for loop



gc.drawRenderedImage(screenShot, null);
gc.dispose();


/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


//turn polygons into bufferedImage for use by pixel grabber

//broken?
//BufferedImage screenShot = new BufferedImage(500,500,BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);


int w = screenShot.getWidth(null);
int h = screenShot.getHeight(null);
int[] pixelArray_genA = new int[w*h]; //array to hold pixel color data.
screenShot.getRGB(0, 0, w, h, pixelArray_genA, 0, w);

// print pixel data to screen:
//WHY is it all the same???? Everything's equal to -16777216!
int r = 0;
for (int q=0; q<1000; q++){
if (pixelArray_genA[q] != -16777216){
g.drawString("pixel " + q + ": " + pixelArray_genA[q], 5, 25 + (25*r));
r++;
}
}


So I know I'm messing something up in getting the data into the BufferedImage, I just don't know what that is. Any help is greatly appreciated. I've been reading tutorials and digging through the API, but to no avail.