You can have a stack variable with a small memory footprint that will simply be initialized in the init, like so:
Qt Code:
  1. class .. {
  2.  
  3. private:
  4. QImage img;
  5. ...};
  6. void ...::init(){
  7. img = QImage(800,600,...);
  8. }
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img is allocated on stack but initialized (and expanded) in init().

BTW. In the interface those methods have to be virtual.