Posted on June 14, 2000

• I’ve been working a little more on Phaeralon these past few days. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the first version. From the letters a lot of you wrote me, I can tell that you did too. Still, I felt the image was incomplete the way it was. I wasn’t thrilled with the scene behind the first set of columns, where things started repeating. I wanted something a little more interesting in the background.

  I added some architecture in the background and widened the front hall so you could see it better. In opening up the foreground, I also decided that the statues should go. They had to be moved farther off-center in the new hall and I just didn’t like how they looked from the new camera angle. They are still present in the 2nd version (in the pickle jar), but in my latest render I’ve removed them in favor of two reflecting pools on either site of the walkway.

  I don’t think this image is complete yet, but it’s been a week now since I posted anything new (where does the time go???) and that’s really longer than I want to take between updates. You’re more than welcome to send over any comments or suggestions you might have on my revisions.

• Thanks to all of you who wrote me about Synapse (the series). It seems most of you liked version 1 and version 4 the best, with a smattering of applause for versions 2 and 3. Interestingly, only a few of you liked the one that I chose to feature on the new images page. Hmmm. I guess that’s why I post multiple versions, so you can use the one you like.