Iridescent Daisy

Posted on December 13, 2021

When most folks hear “NFT” nowadays they are thinking of “Bored Apes” or “CryptoPunks”. Those are so called “PFP Projects” (Profile Pic Projects) that generate 10,000 “unique” creatures and then crypto-millionaires buy them for lots of money to use for their Twitter Avatar.

I don’t do that kind of work. I create 1/1 art (single edition). Each of my renders is created “by hand” on on my workstation. I’m making the creative decisions that go into each piece rather than letting the computer generate each one. Still, I do have certain projects where I’ve done a small number of color or time-of-day variations that would fit the definition of an “NFT Collection”. I did a test with my “Winterborn” snowflakes and they sold quickly.

I have always thought my “Daisy” series would be a good candidate for a collection and it’s now live on Foundation. The “Sunburst” and “Inverse” of them have sold already. I also thought it would be fun to add at least one brand new daisy to the series and here it is…the “Iridescent Daisy”. It would have been easier to do something basic and more monochrome (like the 2002 versions) but I wanted to try something different. I hope you enjoy it. Might try one more…

Christmas Walk

Posted on December 7, 2021

As soon as I’d made the winter iteration in the “Walk” series I wondered if I Christmas version would be possible. I knew I wouldn’t be able to use actual geometry for any Christmas lights here though, because VUE doesn’t let you use ecosystem instances on objects that are already ecosystem instances (in this case, the forest). I had to do it by modifying the bark textures and that’s something I’d never attempted before on this scale.

It presented many challenges and I’m still not sure I’m totally happy with the result. I am happy ENOUGH however to share this render and perhaps keep tweaking things. I haven’t rendered the multiscreen version yet for this reason. It’s definitely different from my other Christmas scenes. Let me know what you think!

Honestly I had hoped DB 2.0 would be the default by this point but it’s taking longer than I’d hoped. DB 1.0 has served for many years however and will continue to do so until no longer needed.

Threshold

Posted on November 19, 2021

It’s no secret that I’ve earned quite a bit of Ethereum over the past couple of months selling NFTs but I haven’t really gone crazy buying myself things. Most of the funds are earmarked for Ian and Jason’s college fund and some long delayed home improvements. The main gifts I’ve gotten for myself so far are a collection of animet-shirts, a PS5 and some sports tickets.

The majority of my spending has been re-investing in my DB and artwork. I’ve bought myself an RTX3090, an iPad Pro with Pencil, and Maxon Cinema 4D (with Octane). My most exciting purchase, however, is a software package called “Houdini” that I’ve been wanting for many years but could never quite afford due to their strange licensing scheme. I made too much for the indie licence but not nearly enough for the full license.

It’s an extremely powerful program, responsible for many of high-end visual effects you see in major motion pictures and TV shows. It’s also extremely complicated, so I am very proud of the fact that I’ve managed to learn enough this week to post a new render for you all to check out.

Houdini’s procedural modeling workflow really makes a lot of sense to me in a way that traditional modeling does not. I feel like I will be able to use this program to take my artwork to new heights in 2022 and beyond.

That’s why I titled this piece “Threshold”. Things are about to get very interesting 🙂

Reflected Autumn

Posted on November 12, 2021

Between launching my NFT sales, launching DB 2.0, and aquiring some exciting new 3D software I haven’t been adding as many wallpapers to the gallery recently as in years past. This week I decided I wanted to add more one autumn render to my gallery this year and fired up VUE. I’d wanted to do an update of “Muted Autumn” but the result wasn’t very muted 🙂

Multiscreen versions coming soon!

DB 2.0 is almost ready!! Some things will be shut down here on 1.0 soon to prepare 🙂 For now the new images will appear here first but once my new system for adding work is ready 2.0 will be the new default. Members can migrate their user data here.

All Hallows Eve (Happy Halloween!)

Posted on October 27, 2021

Since 2003 I’ve managed to create a new (or revisited) Halloween render every year for the season. It’s really one of my favorite holidays to create wallpapers for because the iconography is so darkly delicious. This year I chose to revisit an old favorite from 2007. I decided to simplify the background a bit, add some fog and some splashes of color here and there.

I hope you guys enjoy it.

I also wanted to mention that I’ve put some of my NFT earnings to use purchasing some new software. I’ve purchased Cinema4D and Houdini. Stay tuned!!