Posted on October 10, 2010

I’ve done quite a few different Halloween pictures over the years and I think I’ve covered most of the basic themes (jack-o-lanterns, black cats, ghosts, graveyards, etc). This year I thought it would be fun to try something different.

It all started when I heard about the passing of Benoit Mandelbrot (the father of fractal mathematics) last week. Fractals play a huge part in my work so I wanted to do something as a tribute to the man. Halloween was quickly approaching however and I wanted to do something for the holiday.

I thought it would be fun to combine the themes and created “The Haunted Nebula“, my first fractal Halloween planetscape. Hope you enjoy it and have a happy Halloween!

Posted on October 10, 2010

I’ve added the sunset version “Gotham Garden” to the Pickle Jar this morning. As I mentioned before, I felt the leaves in this render were lost in the background color so I instead went with a much darker background.

Working on the multi-monitor render now!

Posted on October 10, 2010

I’ve added the autumn installment of my “Gotham Garden” series this evening. Originally I rendered this as a sunset scene but found that the orange sky and the autumn leaves did not contrast enough.

That version will make its way into the Pickle Jar shortly. Now to set about producing the multiscreens asap!

Thanks to everyone who took advantage of my 25% off special (to celebrate my 25,000th Facebook fan). The coupon is now expired, but we’ll see what happens when I reach 30,000…

Posted on October 10, 2010

In honor of my 25,000th Facebook fan I am offering 25% off my yearly memberships and renewals for the rest of today. Use coupon code “facebookdb”. Huzzah!

Posted on October 10, 2010

“Highland Spring” is one of my most complicated scenes (it contains hundreds of billions of polygons) so adding realistic clouds for a summer version really knocked the render times through the roof.

I tried to mitigate this with my first attempt by making the clouds fairly opaque (the more you can see through the clouds the longer the render), but the final effect wasn’t quite up to par with the original.

Back to the drawing board and, two weeks of render time later, I’ve posted my final version of “Highland Summer” this morning. I’ve tried to make the clouds more wispy and “fog-like” and I’ve strengthened the shadows from the higher cloud levels. The clouds, I think, are the most realistic I’ve attempted to render (detail crop here).

It feels strange posting a summer picture while the leaves are falling outside my window, but I’m sure my fans down-under will under enjoy a timely seasonal wallpaper for a change. I will try to get the multiscreen version of this going ASAP, but it will probably be a while. More renderers would speed up this process for me…

The first two renders will remain in the Pickle Jar for your perusal.