Among the things I did this week that did not involve talking or reading about race: the fractal gallery over at tears-of-gold has been given an update and facelift. I'm pleased with the result, and the new style will be easier to keep updated -- every new set of ten fractals gets a new page and a link on the main page, and that is all.

The next site component that needs attention would be the e-cards, and I'm hoping to get to those this weekend. They do work, and do actually see a fair amount of use, but their style matches the old gallery instead of the new one, and I need to update the underlying software.

Then I need to tackle the main pages. That, I am not looking forward to. At least I will not be bored, or something.

I'm playing with background colors a bit, and happy with what I achieved on this one.

This one is for Paul, who loves sailboats.

Quite literally, because it took hours to get the gradient and light source the way I wanted them.

... Devourer of Worlds.

... Stop laughing. You'll hurt her feelings, and you don't want her to come over here, do you?

Also, completely different:



The Bremen Town Musicians. This title probably only makes sense if you had the same Collier's Junior Classics encyclopedia set I had as a child: the illustration for that story was very similar in feel to this. Cock atop cat atop dog atop old grey donkey, all set to frighten the wits out of those horrid old robbers.

No, I don't know why I'm awake, either.

Happy Holidays. Thank you all for a great year past (and not the first great year with you, but only the latest) and here's to another one ahead of us.

A quick reminder that I'm not writing directly to LJ any longer; those of you on my friendslist can go here for the new location. This was only the surest and quickest way to reach all of you. :)

Not sure what it is that appeals to me about this one; when I figure it out, I'll play with it some more, try to narrow down the right location. In the meantime, it'll stand on its own.

"seahorse" version:

I had forgotten that there's a point where zooming in fails to yield anything measurably different, a sort of intangible limit: "beyond this point, there is no more." You can zoom in infinitely, yes ... but beyond that point, you simply get lost. The possibilities *end*.

There are worse lessons, and worse places to find oneself.

Back to very basics tonight. I toyed with Apophysis for awhile but got nothing I liked enough to keep playing with. So this is pure UltraFractal.

Uplift

Not exactly the first new one in awhile, but almost. I'm happy with this one -- I was hoping for a feeling of faith, of following a path with minimal assurances, and of being borne up despite fear. I fought hard for the glimmers of sunlight and the impression of motion. And I think it stayed true to that. I don't think I could have done any better with this one, I honestly don't.

Autumn Fires

This one, if you can believe it, started out in shades of blue. That lasted all of five minutes -- I can take a hint when I'm clobbered over the head with it.

It's a failure in that I was looking for something more well-defined, tighter at the edges. The tendency to drifts of colour frustrates me -- I'm used to UltraFractal's crisp shapes. But the result was too lovely to waste.

I'm playing with flame fractals in Apophysis these last couple of days. Just a phase, no doubt... but I love the feel of flame fractals thus far, so who knows?

This is the best result I've gotten yet.


Clouds for Dani

There may not, unfortunately, be prints of these. I have yet to figure out how to bully Apophysis into rendering them at the size I need for that, and they lose something in the transfer if I try to render them from UltraFractal. And I still need work on gradients, as is made obvious by the blinding blue/white at the bottom. But it's a beginning.

Green Glass

I have to admit, despite the simplicity of this, I like the interplay of colours between the layers.

That last fractal is now available as a print here. And as soon as I can convince UltraFractal that it really does want to render them at the necessary size,  I'll make others available as well.  :)