Skullbonz Art Gallery - May, 5th- Train Set and more

[Daniels]

Wildly impressive new works, good sir I always enjoy popping by and seeing what you've come up with.

[Seerose]

 

That is really a great picture. You play with Paint very well. Thanks for sharing. 

[Red ochre]

Castle in the clouds is great Skullbonz - cool image, well done!

[JulioCoolio]

I agree with the above statements! Your images are really cool. I really liked the castle one as well as the clouds one with the planet, very cool images!

[toe_head2001]

Hoooly Cow! Maybe one of these days I'll have enough patience to make detailed scenes like yours...

 

A little constructive criticism/feedback... Your light sources and shadows don't always match up. Not that I'm an expert at accomplishing it; It's a very hard thing to simulate in a 2D image program.

[Pixey]

Just love Castle in the Clouds and your new Gallery Picture is really spectacular too

[skullbonz]

Thank you everyone, it's pleasure showing you all my hobby.  

[skullbonz]

It's been a few weeks since I posted anything in here and I wanted to show you my latest craze. I have seen others online mixing space photos from Hubble with on Earth photos and thought I would give it a go. These three came out the best in my opinion and none are used for any profit,just enjoyment. I used local pictures for all the foregrounds, Hubble pictures for the backgrounds, one planet/moon from Hubble and one planet of my own making, oh and an Enterprise model pic,lol. Although I love making space images of my own,this time around I used real space images to see how it looked.  

Edited September 13, 2014 by skullbonz

[HELEN]

I saw the title, "Castle on the Clouds" and went off singing "There is a castle on a cloud. I like to go there in my sleep..." Very beautiful image!

 

And the space images. Wow! Perfect combination. You have a great gift! Your space images that you create in Paint.NET and the real photos (like you've shown us in your latest work) have a great resemblance. Are you sure you don't live up in space? 

[Goonfella]

Superb series of images Skullbonz! Great work ,

 

I love Castle in the Clouds. Has a real eerie mystique about it . I can imagine fishermen in an olde worlde tavern telling olde worlde tales of this huuuge mysterious castle handed down through the olde worlde generations.

I was going to suggest adding a single tiny boat drifting past the castle but on second thoughts I think this image is all about the castle and a boat would only divert peoples attention away.

 

As for the space images I think you have done another awesome job and I just had to have a go at identifying which galaxies they are. Now let`s see  - the galaxies. The Star Trek one is the Sombrero galaxy, Enterprise version NCC-1701 or 1701A from the original series. And I think the planet in this image is yours.

 

The other one was trickier but I think it`s the Andromeda Galaxy. I recognized the small distant galaxy just below . I reckon this is the Hubble planet/moon but for the life of me I just can`t think of it`s name!

 

The Nebula I have no idea whatsoever but it looks spectacular!

 

Great images Skullbonz, I really enjoyed them and had a bit of a challenge as well. Keep `em coming.

 

[skullbonz]

Talk about a challenge Goonfella,lol, it was a challenge for me to find the names of those. I usually write any links or names down when I use pictures I don't make, but this time I was so excited on how they were coming out I didn't do it. 

 

In the first guess you were right all the way around. The foreground is a pond in the next town over.

 

The second guess you are right about Andromeda and the planet is Saturn's moon Enceladus. The foreground is a cemetery in the town I live in.

 

Your third guess got trickier and I finally came to the conclusion that I blended two different Hubble pictures and have no idea which two,lol. I looked for this one for hours. I knew I used one of the pictures I had saved on my pc so that narrowed it down a bit but not knowing which one I used where is like a needle in a haystack because blending modes changes everything,specially multiply. I also might have removed the black with Grim color reaper before blending with my own star field behind it.  The only thing I do know is the foreground is at the lake down the road from me and my van.  

 

 

That was so much fun I added a couple more but this time I wrote down the info.  

 

Thank you both and Helen sometimes I wonder if I am or was,lol. A couple times I have made a space picture and a few days later space.com comes out with one similar enough to make me wonder.

Edited September 15, 2014 by skullbonz

[Seerose]

Photo mixing set: the concept and result are awesome! Thank you for your beautiful gallery. 

[skullbonz]

Thank you Seerose, I'm having fun with this project.  

 

 

Goonfella, I found the one we couldn't identify and there was no blending involved.  It's  Messier 17    

[Daniels]

The new Hubble/Earth works are spectacular! Everything is expertly blended together-- you almost had me convinced that The Northeast is closer to the rest of the universe than the rest of us... I watch way too much sci-fi...

[skullbonz]

Thank you Daniels.  

 

I am having so much fun I added three more in the photo mixing set. The sky = Hubble space pics, The ground = Local pics of my own.  

[barbieq25]

Goodness! Skully! Unbelievably great works - just love what you have done.This one is my fave fave fave: 

[skullbonz]

Thank you Barbie, been having fun with it.

 

I had said a while back that I was working on a train and wanted to show you all how it's coming along. I have over 40 layers so far and I am far from being done. This is the hardest project that I have worked on yet and have been working on it off and on for several months now while I figure out how to make all the parts. I am very happy about how it is starting to shape up and there is no way I could have done this with the new version of pdn. It will be an old steam engine sitting on an old track that isn't used anymore so it should look pretty cool when I am done.  

 

(gallery link under sig)

[Red ochre]

 

I had said a while back that I was working on a train

- Must be hard to keep the mouse steady!

The old train WIP looks great! - nice rusty textures.

[HELEN]

I extremely love this train. You keep outdoing yourself!

[Pixey]

OMG @Skully - That is an adorable and beautiful train.  I love it and a minature would look fabulous on my mantle piece .  I see (maybe) a few Plugins used in there.  Perhaps Red's and TR's - like cogs and wheels.  Actually the wheels are so smooth and shiny.  Great work!

[skullbonz]

Thanks Red, I use image stabilization    

 

Thanks Helen, that's what I keep trying to do and it's getting harder and harder.  

 

Thanks Pixey, copy it and put on the mantle.      And no I did not use the gears and wheels plugin, all were from scratch on the old version of pdn using old plugins and is something that would be very difficult or impossible with the new version. I did however use Red's Cobweb and Fur Blur on Gradient Bars to make the grass in the finished picture.  

 

It rained all day yesterday so I had a bunch of free time on my hands and finished the train. I call it " Old Lucky 7 retired to a lucky place. "   The bell was pretty tricky but I did it using Shape 3D and the Bulge plugins. All together before I merged all the layers I had 64 layers and a 4000x3000 size, my biggest project yet and my quad core computer sure felt it.  I cheated on the sky though,it's a photo.  

Edited October 5, 2014 by skullbonz

[Goonfella]

Brilliantly done Skully, love it!  Great idea for the bells and the fact that the wheels were made from scratch makes it even better. One thing I have picked up on though is the placement of the rods driving the wheels. You have them both at the bottom of their stroke on both sides of the train whereas in fact as one side reaches bottom the other side should reach the top of its revolution. But great work anyway. Well done.

[HELEN]

So much depth....extremely stunning, Skull! 

[Seerose]

Again a great job! I always like to go with the train. Thank you very much.  

[barbieq25]

Amazing work Skully! It's such a lovely image & just in time for Halloween too. An incredible amount of work but well worth it. There has been a lot of thought & skill put into this, not to mention detail.