Flower’s Pearl
When I make a flame like this, I start thinking I don’t know nearly enough about the possible tricks and techniques of this art form to say I have anything resembling a ‘style’ yet. So here you see how to make fractal art by hand. There are so many wildly divergent possibilities, and I’ve only scratched the surface. Maybe that’s a good thing; if this stopped being a learning process, it wouldn’t be as much fun.
When I re-rendered this piece in the 16:10 ratio, something surprising popped up: A line spiraling outwards from the center of the pearl. It’s repeated elsewhere in the piece, although the distortions make it difficult to pick out. I have no idea where it came from, or why it doesn’t show up in the only-slightly-smaller 5:4 render. It doesn’t mar the piece any, but I’d very much like to know why it’s there.
Fireworks Bombardment
This piece is hot off the processor, to use a horribly trite metaphor. I did it this afternoon, and I’m pretty happy with it. My brother pointed out to me that it’s got a similar spiral pattern to what you’d see in the seeds on a sunflower–fractal shapes are everywhere, folks.
On the technical side, this flame is pretty tame. That’s probably why it’s more obviously fractal. No truly distorting variations are used; the least fractal element in here is probably the ‘radial blur’ variation that produces those lovely starburst effects. I generally don’t like flames that have this little deviation from the perfect geometric shapes, but I think the colors and the starbursts are enough for me to make an exception.
Descending Hues
I like the range of colors in this flame. It has that nice deep purple that I love so much, and it has some pretty good green shades. There are enough shades mixed together to prevent making any one of them the focal point (although the purple tries to steal some attention, I think it’s just dark enough to work).
This piece is one I did last Monday, and it’s really meant for a widescreen format. Since I now have a widescreen monitor, I’ve been doing 16:9 aspect ratio flames instead of 5:4.
I don’t particularly care for the 5:4 version of this flame (such as seen at left), although I can’t say exactly why. I know it’s something to do with the change in composition. If anybody really wants me to I’d be willing to fiddle around with it to make the 5:4 version work. I suppose I’ll need to figure it out eventually anyway if I ever want to get it printed. Learn here how to start with Fractal Art.
Painted Conch
My mother owns a little seashell that has had the outer layers polished off of it in spots, exposing the mother of pearl underneath. (A little bit of googling leads me to believe it may be the shell of a Turbo Sarmaticus) It gives it a very unusual coloration; not quite like the flame at left, but pretty close. The real object has less blue. I wasn’t really thinking of that seashell when I created and named this piece, but I was reminded strongly of it when I looked at this flame again. It’s odd how stuff like that happens.
Flash Flood
I figure this is a pretty good representation of a wall of water crashing down a ravine. The lighting must be pretty odd though, because the other option is the water being purple, and that just isn’t right. Maybe there was a paint factory upstream. Let’s also take a look at some other great Fractal Artists.
Internet in Motion
So this first flame is either an abstract representation of the connections that the internet creates between people in different places or a cross-section of an energized fiber optic cable. Not sure which. I kind of like the way the colors fade out towards purple at the edges of the flame itself. Click here to learn about how to begin with this great art form.
Stained Glass
This flame is meant to be a ‘what it says on the tin’ kind of thing. If it looks like stained glass to you, great. If it just looks pretty, great. If it’s at least mildly interesting, that’s also great. It’s not one of my better pieces, but I got some enjoyment out of it, and that’s all I ask.