And other sophisticated blooms. I’ve been tinkering with Apophysis blooms again, because I can. That, and I can leave the program up, running a render, and come back to it, make a few tweaks until I find something I like, render that and walk away… It’s much cleaner, this digital art thing, than traditional media is. (As I look at the other half of my little desk which is jammed full of inks, pens, books, and more boxes of art supplies).

I’m mostly working off a tutorial base for these, then playing with the variations to see what I can find in the fractals. It’s an easy way to learn more about the different effects than trying combinations at random – I do that, too, but not when I don’t have a few hours to lose falling down the rabbit hole.
And it’s not just about the forms and structures, it’s learning how to manipulate the background, and paint with color palettes, and then refine the whole thing in postprocessing. Which! I am excited to tell you I am not doing in Adobe Photoshop right now! I am trying out Affinity Photo, having picked it up when it went on sale this week (I have been waiting for this moment) hoping that it will enable me to finally and forever cut ties with Adobe. We hates adobes, we does.


And one thing about the blooms, is the clean and crisp look of them, while allowing me near infinite variations. As long as I don’t break the program (if you do too much, it freezes. Oops). Plus, postwork adds yet more I can do, like the flame rose in the header image, or playing with dark (above) and light (below) backgrounds to the transparent png renders.
Comments
6 responses to “Glass Roses”
Sounds like the program is still working on the concept of infinity.
Beautiful, and a lot easier on the fingers than the ones I used to construct with an oxy-propane torch. (Lesson of those years: just because the glass is no longer glowing does NOT mean it won’t burn you.)
I’m trying to think of a way to work magical roses into the third Dragon Speech book so I can get you to put one of these beauties on the cover.
@Margaret Ball: “I’m trying to think of a way to work magical roses into the third Dragon Speech book so I can get you to put one of these beauties on the cover.”
Indeed. I can kind of picture some scenes featuring magical flowers: Real flowers, maybe, with some magical qualities, or maybe ethereal ones, glowing brilliantly for a few precious seconds.
Would the scenes be sweet and romantic or dark and foreboding? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?
Given Adjdaak’s character, the real question is whether they can prevent him from eating the flowers.
is it freezing, or is it trying to process every little instruction?
23 skidoo