Time Wisp
Now:
For me this was a landmark piece in several ways. It marked the first time I combined a 3d rendered image with processing and effects in a 2d raster image application (in this case Corel Photo-Paint, probably version six or eight).
This piece also sticks out as a mental image that popped into my head fully formed, and subsequently started to show up on screen as I translated it. To this day such strong inspiration is rare for me, and often the resulting translation of an idea is less acute (though that might also be related to the fact that this was a pretty simple image).
Then:
This was one of those images that suddenly popped into my head, complete with a major light source and overall composition. Unfortunately, I still haven’t trained my brain to do that as often as I could hope for, or when it’s convenient (it seems to occur most often when I’m in the middle of another project). I guess I like the freedom of abstract images, which might take place in any locale or time, or might not even fit into our world at all; still, I have fun imagining them, and just as much fun bringing them to life.
Time Wisp was my first journey into what I would now consider post processing; before this project my 3D images were done when the raytracing was done, but here I started to use Photo-Paint effects in conjunction with the 3D stuff (and beyond simply creating textures). The glowing wisp, with its tail and lens flare, were added in Photo-Paint, and I had to try and line up the lights ahead of time with where I thought the wisp would be hovering in space (you can tell I only used three, since raytracing didn’t allow for soft shadows and the columns have three separate shadow outlines).
This image was created in December of 1997.
