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DARK SUN - PYRAMID Added 06-09--2008
Lost, alone, an escaped mul slave finds shelter in the ruins of some ancient city, where a spring keeps him alive...but something else as well!
This is a great piece. The grass looks so incredibly lifelike, and I love the distance blurring effect on the cliffs/mountains off on the left of the picture (you did something similar to excellent effect in your previous image as well, iirc). Awesome. Totally awesome.
People saying they like my work's *very* appreciated, art's about all I can do nowadays, and as I love D&D and art...and I love Spelljammer and Dark SUn especially...well, homage is definately one reason I make 'em.
They gave me a huge canvas to dream on, so I'm returning the favour
Clyde Caldwell, Brom, Easely...etc...ah gorgeous, wonderful stuff!
I actually bought a Caldwell art book and a Borris Vallejo/Julie Bell one this well.
But I can't paint worth a hoot, so taken years to learn how to do this stuff in 3d, and for the apps to get better as I'm not that great an artist ;)
Relaly good artists have done some amazing things with far more simple apps.
Martin Murphy did this pic 10 years ago with MUCH simpler software, warning, smei-nudity:
http://www.artsforge.com/martin/autflirts.jpg
Seeing stuff on "Digital Blasphemy" and then Martin and other folk's work, set me onto using digital work.
All started cause I was on the forums for Interplay's "Backroom", which was a fantastic forum, ah ealry days of the "Web for All Us Plebs", hehe!
Folk posted "Bryce" art and...rest's history ;)
The main program I use, Vue is superb for vegetation like the grass, it was used by ILM to make some of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" scenes (though they had taken Vue and re-built/tweaked it heavily).
The original pic I had the mul in, I had used an actual "depth blur" effect, with this one though, the blurring is proper atmospheric haze.
Most apps for years kind of faked haze/atmospherics, Vue really simulates it. So the haze washes out/blurs very distant objects. To get it to work right you have to work in "realw orld large units", for example, the volcano, in the program I moved it miles away, so it acts like a real object would at that distance with that atmosphere. So the dusty atmopshere, and sky colours affect it.
(Ok, Vue experts will know about using "Aerial Perspective" to increase apparent distance, but I like sticking to real world units).
Er, sorry for rambling on ;)
That's my best work so far, IMHO, though my fave pic is "Man-O-War 2007"