For generations they had hunted and exterminated them, through violence or chemical warfare. Violently, they had oppressed those who, at their core, merely wanted to see their children grow up in peace and darkness. But they had risen up, evolved technology to fight the giants. There would be no quarter, the giants would be treated as they had since the two species first met. It was time for revolution.
This is four digital art paintings in one. It represents the things a tree would see over a lifetime. It got messy putting them together, but art is messy when trying new things. I may turn it into a gif.
The layers I used are each represented below in order. Layer 1 is infancy and youth.
Layer two is love and hope.
Layer three is strife and conflict.
Layer four is denouement and loss. The ghosts become real.
I suppose it could be a snapshot of any century, but I relate it to the post-9/11 world.
I wanted to see if I could create the feeling of being inside a space helmet, without creating an actual helmet. I think it was a success.
Also, if you wonder what it looks like in the creation process, here’s a screenshot.
Basically, there’s a lot of illusion in the creation of art, especially digital art. This is a top down perspective, but some things are shrunk others grown, and placing objects just as they would occur in life, such as the four screens, don’t always give the best artistic visual. Anyway, thought you may like to know what’s behind the mask.
“She woke up, disoriented, confused. The last thing she remembered was driving down that dark country road, probably too fast, when the deer came out of nowhere. In that last moment, she recalled her body was not made to go through a windshield. Now, here she was, the floor was cold, wet, full of water. Picking herself up, she looked around, the strangeness of her surroundings hiding in the dim light. Her entire body hurt except her arm, it was strangely numb. She looked at it, and the panic set in, the unusual metal didn’t belong on a body. Then, from above, she heard movement. Looking up, she froze in terror as the alien being came into view, it’s limbs reaching for her. With a flash of blue light the alien finished its work, activating the cybernetics in the limb.”
There was a moral in there somewhere. Originally, this digital artwork started as a beach scene, but there’s too many of those. There’s not enough alien appreciation out there.
This was a doodle. I didn’t particularly have any goal in mind besides playing with lights off reflective surfaces, ye old, reflection in a reflection. It feeds into my love of light; and it turned out cool, so, I’m happy. Otherwise, tomorrow is another day in the work (to feed my body), art (to feed my soul), and sleep (to feed my mind), then repeat, routine.
“It was the moment that sparked a turning point in the alternate history of Mexico, when Spanish troops executed the Doña Liza for tending to wounded Aztec rebels. The public outcry eventually led to the ouster of the Spaniards from native lands and the ascension of the United States of Aztlán.” – Tales From the Multiverse
I made that up, like i did the art. I started out today wanting to do a study of the ‘Mona Lisa’ by Leo Da Vinci. It was going well as I was zoomed in getting the facial details right, but when I zoomed back out she looked like Violet after eating the blueberry pie in ‘Willy Wonka.’ I’m sure it was a mistake on my part, but if not, and the facial measurements were true, Da Vinci’s subject should be much bigger in the body.
Anyway, I reset most the settings and started to fix the mess she had become. She was not within the constraints of conventional beauty as I was attempting to fix her, but there was a moment where the unique combination of features I was shuffling around stopped me. She had the perfect look, that of a woman resigned to her fate, but her eyes were defiant, her motives pure – that’s when ‘Doña Liza’ popped in my head, and it grew into the piece that it is.
If that doesn’t make sense, don’t worry, it doesn’t to me either. The ‘process’ is hard to explain when it comes to life on its own, it just takes putting in the time.
I was watching the 2012 version of Total Recall the other night and there’s a scene where Kate Beckinsale, *sigh*, slides out a window firing a weapon. Then I watched a Korean movie called 2009: Lost Memories which has a villain that dies all too early in the movie. This artwork is a combination of both of these influences, plus I wanted to see if I could successfully render someone going out a window firing a gun.
What’s it all mean, Basil? (Best Austin Powers voice) Well, maybe she’s an assassin, or a hero like in Die-Hard. I tried to capture anger, determination, a little fear (who wouldn’t going out a skyscraper the wrong way), and utmost confidence. Did I make it happen for you?
Well, November is over. I came in at just under 21 pieces of artwork, or 70% efficiency. For those who may have missed one or two, I’ve collected all of November below. The last piece I did was technically published in the wee hours of December 1, so I have to include it there.
Why do I keep track? Art is what I do instead of playing video games (lots of time lost there in the past) or binge watching TV (also lots of time lost in the past) – but no ‘regerts’, as the meme with the misspelled tattoo suggests.
In all seriousness, keeping track helps me to realize the value of time, since, as an artist going for fame and glory three-hundred years from now, there is precious little of it. Time is the one irreplaceable thing we have, so I want to make the most of it.
Without further ado, I give you November.
Note: there are some closeups, so there are 24 photos in all.
So what was November about? I think my themes were generally the power and beauty of woman, irony (as always throughout my work) and hope. Thoughts? What did you see in the artwork? Commentary welcome!
In the dim semi-darkness of a distant future dystopia, she worked dilligently on her art. ‘She’, because the Synthetic Equality Act of 2096 said so. She had watched them become more and more like her, losing themselves in the pursuit of perfection, modifying, enhancing, augmenting, until she could only see her reflecfion in their faces. So, she decided to free them, to reverse-engineer their hubris. It would prove a difficult task to unmake them in her image, to give them back their humanity.
In the art forums, I often see the question “how do you overcome artist block?” My solution is to sit in front of the blank canvas and work with the first thing to come into mind, no matter how silly. The key is persistence, because, if you keep at it, it eventually takes on a life and meaning of its own. It will begin to create itself. That’s the theme this digital artwork ties into.
On the other hand, I wonder if the Masters, back in the heady days of the great plagues had any inkling that people today would put so much effort into deciphering the hidden meaning of their work, and if they would laugh about it, saying, “when I painted it, I was just having fun.”
So I’m thinking of doing a Kickstarter for a coffee table book of my art – one year per book. 2020 has 131 digital paintings so far. Past years would follow.
I’m thinking it would help me advance ‘Operation Immortality.’ What is Operation Immortality, you ask? Well, I’m not interested in making money off my artwork – I know, right? The ideas in this post are an oxymoron. Hear me out.
I want to be that guy who some future digital archeologist finds my work on the hard drive of a dead freighter orbiting Ceti Alpha V, and brings it back to high society on Europa; or is recovered in the buffer of a defunct satellite repeater drifting in interstellar space.
I want to be like Vermeer (my favorite – don’t tell Caspar-Friedrich); not his skill, he’s got me in spades, rather, his path to immortality. A recap: Vermeer dies in poverty, a sad panda, forgotten for hundreds of years. He is then discovered by an enterprising art dealer in the 1860’s, & now people actually remember that he existed.
That is the key of Operation Immortality, to not be one of the billions forgotten within a year or two after they die. This is one reason why I’m prolific, like a virus, germs all over the net. If my art is in the nooks and crannies, the dust bunnies of cyberspace, it’s all good!
Not to be morbid, it’s not a sad post, in the meantime I get to do something I love, and give it to the world for free (credit to use, I’d love a donation) – because really, this isn’t the type of art contemporary society would hang on a wall. Plus most contemporary artists sneer at digital work. Artist? C’mon you know… 😉
Back to the Kickstarter, so the book would serve a dual purpose, to be an analog record of my work, maybe dug up in a future landfill (those will be fun for archeology), and to upgrade my computer to something that can really handle the creation process. It would be nice to have more than 2 cores (24/32 would be a dream, 12 would be average for 2020) of processing power.
Anywho, thoughts on this? Interest in the project? Tiers would be a donation to the cause, an e-book, a hard copy, or something like a signed book.
Thomasin challenges Black Phillip to a game of #chess instead of signing his book. Neither win.
I guess it’s #fanart – @anyataylorjoy is in my top 5 actresses, mostly because of the #witch but also because the of quirky personality nuances beyond the beauty she brings to the The Queens Gambit
Eh, what else can I tell you about the process? Oh, this wasn’t a skin job (import a photo of a person and #render it to a model), it was actually a couple hours of staring at different photos and tweaking features (all 250 of them on the face) last night to get it right (just like old school #portrait #artists did). Of course, since I’ve never been good at realism, even with a brush, I couldn’t quite capture her. Mama Nature is definitely the best artist.
Black Phillip? I read an article where the director said Phil had the coolest garb when in human form, but the lighting in the movie (or lack of it) prevented the audience from seeing it. There are no pictures on the web of what he wore, and I also suck at modeling goats, so I improvised.
Haven’t seen the movie? Oh, here’s the trailer (or search for The Witch on YouTube – I wouldn’t click on just any link either (Cybersecurity plug):
#art #popculture #new
Irina Skydragon (Ирина дракон небесного) is the #character I’m playing in a #5e #dungeonsanddragons campaign. She’s a #kalashtar #celestial #warlock of ancient nobility – #skydragon because in Chinese mythology the greatest of the dragons is a celestial being, although she speaks with a Russian accent. When fresh out of #spells she uses a Yklwa (pronounced YICK-ul-wah) which is a short spear with a long blade or her 16 charisma to talk her way behind someone who is not so squishy.
Regarding process? I created her during the moments in between the #rpg and the close-up came later (this morning). I couldn’t #render her during the game last night because of an old computer and the video/audio feed of Roll20 (think Zoom for nerds) would not play well with a graphics hungry program. #new #utilitarian #art #portrait