Posted on November 6, 2016

Approaching Asgard

Every so often I’ll be reading a good book and a particular description or scene will stick in my head. “Highland Spring“, “Temple of the Leaf“, “The Winter Rose“, “Fire Made Flesh“, and “Arrakeen” are examples.

“Approaching Asgard” was inspired by a scene from the third installment of Pierce Brown’s excellent “Red Rising” trilogy. I won’t describe the scene further in case you haven’t read it yet. The scene describes one of the main characters approaching a fortress on a “floating mountain”.

You may recall that when I posted “Class M” I mentioned it being a warm up for a particular scene that I wanted to render. Here it is 🙂

I hope you enjoy it even if you haven’t read the books.

Posted on October 26, 2016

Attempt No Landing

My very first experiments using Quadspinner’s “Geoglyph” plugin for World Machine resulted in a set of fractured terrains that brought to mind (for me) the surface of Europa. I actually created this one before “Alpine Autumn” but it only finished rendering on Bucephalus just recently.

After adding Jupiter in the background I thought it would be fun to pay homage to one of my favorite science-fiction films. I hope you enjoy it!

Posted on October 23, 2016

Alpine Autumn

This piece started out as a learning exercise using Quadspinner’s excellent “Geoglyph” plugin for World Machine. The background mountains and foothills were modeled using this software.

Unfortunately my render bogged down unexpectedly around the 2/3rds mark and I paused it to work on another idea. Unfortunately when I tried to reload this project the scene file failed to open. Grrrrr!

Fortunately I had saved my render in progress and was able to use a few tricks to finish it off. Unfortunately this means I don’t have any scene data available to render a multiscreen, winter versions, further revisions, etc.

I hope you can enjoy it as is though!

Posted on October 20, 2016

Cogito Ergo Sum

While looking up at the stars one recent evening I had the idea that if you were to look directly down on someone floating on a calm sea at night, they might appear to be drifting in space. I liked the idea so much that I paused my Autumn landscape render (which is very nearly finished) and set about crafting it.

“Cogito Ergo Sum” (I think, therefore I am) is a companion piece of sorts to The Dreamer. The boat and the boy are the same (though altered slightly for this scene). Where the action in that render takes place beneath the surface of the water, this piece uses a reflected sky. I hope you enjoy it!

Posted on October 10, 2016

Slender Man (Happy Halloween)

Seeing as my new Autumn landscape (which, btw, I think you folks will really enjoy) still has some time left to render I thought I might as well post this Halloween project that I put together on Bucephalus.

This one is still has a few issues to work out so don’t be surprised if I post another version before Halloween. I will get cracking on the multiscreen versions ASAP though!