Posted on December 12, 2015

Boreal

As promised, here’s another view of my Lightwave gas giant. My goal here was to create something that I could render in under an hour (as opposed to “Above the Canopy” which took almost 2 days to complete). The triple 5K version renders in around 10 minutes in Shadowfax!

Speaking of “Above the Canopy”, that render takes place on the moon to the left in this scene 🙂

Posted on December 3, 2015

Above the Canopy

This one started out as an attempt to create a gas giant planet using only Lightwave “procedural” textures. Procedurals create colors and patterns mathematically as opposed to something hand-painted or a photo of Jupiter.

The advantage being that you can render them at extremely high resolutions and they don’t degrade. Some fractal textures create even more detail the higher the resolution.

So I wanted something that would fill an entire Vue sky with color. I posted such a version yesterday but I’m not sure the effect worked as well as I had hoped, but I do think the planet looks better scaled down a bit.

Don’t be surprised if you see more than one view of this planet in a future wallpapers. Just like this piece, the planet is a work-in-progress too 🙂

I have a couple of other wallpapers in development which should be showing up in the gallery soon. Stay tuned!!

Posted on November 28, 2015

“Pyre (Christmas)“

Every so often I like to change the profile pic on my Facebook Page and about a week ago I decided to use “Pyre“. One of my fans saw the post and suggested “adding some red into the mix” to give it a more Christmas look.

That gave me the idea to take it a step or two further. I’ve reworked the particle emitters to create a more festive effect 🙂

I hope you like it! This is the first of a number of Christmas images that I have planned for the next month or so, in addition to working on some new space scenes.

In other news, version 2.1 of the iOS app is nearly ready for release. This next version will add (among other things) better error reporting and the ability to download any image size (rather than just mobile versions). It should be a fun month ahead!

Cyber Monday!

As some of you may already know, I have stopped offering discounts on Memberships. I was starting to feel like a carnival barker screaming out “30% off, no 40% off! Save Big Money!!”. If you’ve been wanting one of the many excellent products are available featuring my artwork however, now is a great time to buy 🙂

Zazzle:

Save 50% off Posters and Wrapped Canvas prints using the coupon code “ZAZWEEKSALES “.

Society6:

Everything is 20% off from 1PM PST to Midnight PST 11/30. All of my tshirts will be $6 off on Tuesday Dec 1st and all “Home Decor” (Duvet Covers, Shower Curtains, Etc) will be 20% off on Wednesday.

DecalGirl:

Use coupon code BLACKFRIDAY25 to save 25% off my skin.

Murals Your Way:

Cover an entire wall with my artwork for 40% off (until 11/30).

Posted on November 19, 2015

“Winter Cliffs“

After setting up a winter version of “Autumn Revelation” I was all but obligated to pull the camera back and render a winter version of the “Autumn Cliffs” view. This one rendered in 55 hours at 7680 x 4320 on my Bucephalus workstation.

There are canvas and poster versions available too! I rendered this one for single-screen first and the multiscreen version is rendering now on Bucephalus.

Posted on November 13, 2015

“Winter Revelation“

I know a lot of you aren’t nearly ready for winter yet (I know I’m not) but, as the Starks have said, it’s coming. My first snowy render of the year is the winter version of “Autumn Revelation“. I was pretty happy with the cloud setup in the autumn version, but managed to tweak them a bit so they wouldn’t look exactly the same (since this pic is supposed to be a whole new season). The evergreens have kept their needles but the colorful trees have dropped their leaves.