Possum Roadkill

You have so many abstracts that are my favorites I can't pick just one anymore. "Sometimes Life is as Sweet as Honey and Silky Smooth" looks like lace trapped in amber or frozen honey, so smooth and pretty. And "Shades of Luster" is simply beautiful, like blown glass or liquid abalone. Beautiful !

Your new landscapes are simply awesome. The look like they could have been painted on a canvas. You are showing a broad range of styles in your work. Very nice stuff.

Thanks ! I was really happy with the way it turned out. It's the same technique as I used in the mountain scape. It's Yellowman's technique using the alpha displacement. Wow it's an amazing tool ! I'm working on an idea with the spider theme, not sure where it will go... Here's the latest just in time for October, (also posted in realistic images section). The Pumpkin Patch !

There is a tut in the text section by Yellowman for text in a circle and also how to animate it.

Beautiful new abstract. I get the name now, as in all sorts of things you did to create the image. Very very nice. Reminds me of a very complex dream catcher.

@ theonlychad, Great job on the paintbrush. Very realistic. Nice job on the wood texture. @ Croat, Nice planet texture. I like the atmospheric glow around it. I would leave it in. You do need to work on the star field however. There are a couple of really great tuts on doing a spacescape and you should also look at Goonfella's work. @ Yellowman, That is amazing. So realistic. I agree with Welshblue, it does look like a foam roller. It looks new too ! I have a bathroom that needs painting, can I borrow that for a while? Something funny about the planet. Is the a thing on the planet or is that a crack in the planet? If it's a crack in the planet, it looks like the shading is wrong. If it's something flowing out of the planet and across the surface then it's ok. It's almost October and for me that means pumpkins and Halloween! Just feeling a little goofy ! This is intended to be more of a cartoon-ish style as in the other alien images I have done.

Excellent image. I really like your style. The stems are just awesome. Do you have a gallery? I'd really like to see more of your work. Inspired me to do a pumpkin patch. Larger version in the Realistic Images section.

I'm not sure I understand your question. The effect Yellowman came up with is the texture. A lot of what comes out of it is what you start with. Is that what you mean? In this case the clouds are the basis of what creates the base image. There are several things you can do to get the final texture that is created by the alpha displacement. It also depends on how many times you repeat the alpha displacement tool. Check out his tut and you will start to understand. Get the basic idea first, and then on your next image try some other effects to the base clouds before you do the alpha displacement.

Thanks Helen ! I know this is four spider images now, but there is a method to my insanity.....somewhere in there. :shock: I really do have a plan in mind for this. Really ! I think I'll link to the original sized image in my gallery tomorrow. This smaller version doesn't show some of the detail and some of the background. Thanks man, I really hope that he would be. I do want to see that WIP though, soon ! Don't hold it back ! Where do you think I get my ideas?

@ Sokagirl That is sooooo beautiful. It might be my favorite thing you've done. It looks like a gem photographed through a distorted lens of some kind. @ Frontcannon Beautiful image, very peaceful looking. @ A Fleeting Glimpse Wow another beautiful image. That is really amazing. I can't even begin to figure out how you did that. Ouch ! I think I hurt my brain again ! I hate to post this image now....this was just messing around with the drost plugin and shape 3d....I like the bright colors though...man is that ever a lot of orange...I don't think I've ever used that much orange....just scroll on by if you are squeemish....... Track Ball

I have said many times that I owe a lot to others like you, Ash, Oma, Welshblue, Goonfella, LFC4EVER, members who are no longer around, and newer members who have joined since. There are so many great things to learn in the tutorial section it is almost overwhelming sometimes. This is another piece using your alpha displacement effect to get the texture on the mountain in the landscape and the planet fragments in this spacescape. That is just the coolest effect for this kind of stuff, it's just perfect. This was inspired by Roger Dean's work on the Yes Songs album. I can't seem to escape the style I've developed, so I'm trying it on other kinds of ideas. It is also another in a recurring theme featuring my little red friends. This is The Exodus....

@ A Fleeting Glimpse, Beautiful landscape. I saw your others in your gallery, stunning. Very nice. Sorry for the late response ! Yes that is alpha displacement. After seeing Yellowman's tutorial it gave me a lot of ideas on new textures and it lended itself to the mountainous texture that I was looking for. I have been wanting to do something different, something realistic but with the feel of a painted image. Yellowman's texture was the inspiration for the mountain landscape and this image. This is a mix of space, fantasy, and landscape. It was inspired by the works of Roger Dean. He is the artist who did many of the Yes albums. The Exodus

Wow, I had forgotten about this tut. Oops sorry ! :oops: Sorry I had only been on the forum for a short while and did not want to break any rules. Nope, not even close. I would not have been able to think of such a clever method as your's at that point. Like I said, I had only been using PdN for a short time and really just lucked out on this effect. I have used it a number of times and it never comes out the same. In fact sometimes it comes out pretty ugly. I gave your method a try and it created something really cool, but not quite the same, but something that I will use. This is the method I used to create this texture as best as I can remember it. Keep in mind that at that time I had no idea what I was doing and was just messing around. So I might have forgotten something. Start with a couple of similar but contrasting colors like brown and tan use clouds default settings duplicate layer three times turn off all the layers except the top one use the magic wand with it set around 30 % select the either the lightest or darkest color and delete it so it leaves patches of the other color. turn on the second layer from the top and do the same thing except try to leave bigger patches. I may have changed the wand settings to get larger patches on the other layers. work through the layers doing the same thing with each layer getting bigger patches than the last. When I get through the top layers, adjust colors to a little lighter or darker and create another layer, duplicate it four times. I do the wand select just the opposite for the bottom layers except the very last layer. I leave the last layer as it is. Make sure you turn off the top layers while doing this. Then turn off all the bottom color layers. Turn on the top layer colors and merge them down to one layer. Magic wand select a blank area, invert the selection and apply the relief effect. Turn off the top layer and repeat the same step with the bottom layers except the very bottom layer that was not cut up. Turn on the remaining bottom layer and run the relief on it. At this point you can either flatten the image or you can run the feather on the three layers and then merge them down. It all depends on the effect you are looking for. You will need to play around with the settings on the relief effect to get what you want.

Thanks guys ! I appreciate it. I made some changes based on suggestions from Oma and my own gut feeling that there were things about the image that were wrong. It's so great to have people who are willing to help someone make their work better and in turn, make the whole site better for it. Thanks Oma ! This is the revised version.

Oh I wouldn't, but when you're right, you're right ! I also found some other errors ( :shock: ) that I cleaned up, and added a few small stars to the night sky. I think it looks much better (and I have a tree for another image to boot !).

Thanks ! I think I like the oil version the best. It seems to have more depth. I'm thinking about removing the tree. Oma made the suggestion that it distracts from the waterfall, and I agree. I added it in at the last minute and I think it would look better in a different image. The whole image is about the mountain and the waterfall and the tree just doesn't fit in well. I made a robot ! I've been messing around with it for quite a while. It's supposed to look like the robots in the 1950's and 60's sci-fi movies.

@ yy10, Very creative image ! I really like it. I agree that it would benefit from some feathering. The fork/knife is very clever and the finish is really good. The spoon should match the fork's finish more. Maybe if you try other gradients you might also get a more 3-D effect on the spoon. The ant and the crack in the plate are very humorous touches and really make the image. The checkerboard tray is awesome. It looks like it was rendered with a 3D program. Very good, very, very clever ! This is a robot I've been messing around with for awhile. It's inspired by the sci-fi movies from the 1950's and 60's I used to watch as a kid.

Thanks for your help Oma. I see what you mean about the tree. I started the tree early on in the image and set it aside because it wasn't working out for me. Then I figured out how I wanted it to look and was able to finish it. But in the mean time, the image took on a different feel than when I started it. That happens to me a lot. I was going to leave the tree out and then talked myself out of it because I had spent so much time on it. Maybe I should have listened to my instinct to begin with. I guess I need to read about the rule of thirds. Not really good with rules though I agree it is distracting from the waterfall though. I do like the waterfall as the central point though, so I think the tree needs to be in a different image. I'll clean it up tomorrow and see what I can do about the grass as well. I'm not sure how to make it crisper though. I'll have to look at it again in the morning. I didn't realize how late it was. I still have to put my parrots to bed ! Boy will they be mad ! Thanks again ! I appreciate the help.

Thanks ! I don't know what it is about green, but it is refreshing. I have always loved the texture of bamboo, I can't believe I actually was able to do that image. This is such an amazing software. Reply to you PM is in your inbox ! I agree with you, and that is why I have always been drawn to realistic images. This is a different kind of "realistic" for me. I have always found it amazing how a painter could make something look so real with a few strokes and blending of the paint. Some time I will post a painting my late cousin painted. He was a painter and illustrator all his life. We both dreamed of becoming artists and he is the one who followed his dream. Maybe in some way, I'm making up for all those years that I didn't follow mine. This is my Mountain Landscape. I did some variations with the artistic plug-ins, here are a couple of the better ones. This is such an amazing piece of software it has really changed my life.

@ Sharp. That is one of my new favorite images. Love it. Very clean and sharp. No pun intended.

Thanks, I tried to do the sun as a "vector-ish" but for some reason I couldn't get it to work out right. I've not used the plug-in much so maybe I was missing something. I think you are right though, it would look much cooler if it were that way. I guess I need to try it again. Good thing I always save the pdn file ! @ theonlychad That is a real nice image. Great texture to it. How did you do it? @ nemo Love the falling water. very nice. I've been trying to work with water a little lately, but my computer keeps getting wet. Seriously, it is a really hard thing to paint. Seems like every image I have used water in, I have to use a different technique. For some reason, I can't seem to stop using the blue colors and get to a more realistic look like Ash does with glass. But then again, I didn't understand how to do glass very well either.

@ YY10 I like the drawing but I agree that the arrow is a little large for the bow. Also, the shadow is all around the bow and arrow, I think it might look better as a drop shadow on one side. This is a landscape I started on today and just finished. I was going for a more painted look as opposed to being more photo realistic. I've been wanting to broaden my style a little, so what do you think? Is this different from what I usually do? This is the original image and the thumbs are variations run through the artistic filters. Pencil Ink Oil Pastel

Thanks Helen. I'm a big fan of your work. Your stuff looks so professional like it would be in a magazine or book. I don't remember if I mentioned this or not,(getting forgetful now) but have you ever marketed your work to children's book authors? I could see your stuff being very appealing to a publisher of children's books or magazines. Thanks for the compliment. It's nice to know that people think my work looks realistic. I've been thinking about branching out into a more surrealistic style or more of a fantasy style. I always loved the album covers of the band Yes. I love Roger Dean's work on their earlier albums. I was also a big comic book fan as a young lad and still have a fascination for the comic book art of Neal Adams and Jim Steranko .

@ Oma, It does look like felt or maybe even velor. Very nice use of colors. Beautiful !

Thanks Possum, i was kind of aiming for a roman helm but i think it has a bit of trojan thrown in . Quite like that idea of chrome, i may look into it I also recall a brushed metal tut that would look good on your helmet as well.