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11/19/09 -- I've added the dual and triple screen versions of "Cerulean" and "Canopy Creek (Winter/Night)" to the Members Gallery this morning.
I've also added a "Gallery-at-a-Glance" page where you can see all of my work in one go. Whether it remains up depends on the hurt it delivers to my server...
Lastly, I'm running a promotion for new Members. Visit "this link" to get $5 off the Membership of your choice (the coupon code "FIVEOFF" will be applied). You could download my whole collection for only $10 (90 day membership w/coupon). New Members paying by credit card only (no PayPal). The offer is good until midnight CDT 11/22/09.
11/17/09 -- I've added a new abstract, "Cerulean", to the Members Gallery this evening. It was a lot of fun using Lightwave after a long stretch of Vue d'Esprit images and refreshing to have an image render in only a few hours (as opposed to few days).
Speaking of multi-day renders. The multi-screen "Canopy Creek (Winter/Night)" is busy rendering on my other box and I hope to have it up before the weekend.
11/14/09 -- It was meant to be a "pickle jar" image but my Members felt it deserved a place in my gallery. My final version of "Canopy Creek (Winter/Night)" is now available in the Members Gallery, now with falling snow and few other surprises.
11/12/09 -- I've posted over 220 wallpapers sized to fit the Droid, HTC Touch 2, and Nokia N900 phones in the Members Gallery. I also have a new abstract in the works so stay tuned!
11/07/09 -- I replaced "Green and Gold" with "Red and Gold" in the Free Gallery this morning.
11/06/09 -- I've added a winter chapter to my "Canopy Creek" series in the Members Gallery.
A few of other items to mention:
First, I upgraded my Vue d'Esprit software to version 8 earlier this week so I will be using that going forward. I'm particularly excited about the new 3D terrain scultping (allowing for overhangs) and the new atmosphere rendering.
Second, for owners of the new 27" iMac I have added 2560 x 1440 versions of my last 8 renders to the Members Galery. I'll try to add more in the near future.
Lastly Zazzle is running a 40% off sale on all posters. I doubt they will be running any more 70% off deals so this might be as good as it will get for a while. You can check out my gallery here. Use coupon code "HISTORYPOST4" at checkout.
10/26/09 -- Happy Halloween! I've added "A New Playmate" to the free gallery this morning. The rest of my Halloween wallpapers are available in the Members Gallery.
10/20/09 -- I've added a Halloween theme, "Dark Wings", to the Members Gallery this evening.
10/12/09 -- I've posted an autumn version of my "Canopy Creek" wallpaper in the Members Gallery this evening. My new project is taking a little longer than I had anticipated so consider this an appetizer.
10/01/09 -- I was just about to close the book on Oasis but instead I started playing around with the atmosphere. The result is a moonlit version when I have posted in the Members Gallery this morning. Definitely a different vibe than the sunlit version.
09/29/09 -- From here on out I will be using the iPhone wallpaper version of my latest project for both the DB Facebook fan page profile pic and my Twitter profile pic. If you own an iPhone (or other 320 x 480 device) and wish to use the image for your wallpaper please feel free to visit my profile on either to download and use it.
09/25/09 -- A few weeks ago I received an eloquent email from a soldier stationed in Iraq (here it is on my Facebook page if you are interested). The email garnered quite a response. One gentleman (thanks Bob!) went so far as to purchase a Lifetime Membership for her.
A member named Matt posted in the comments thread that her email "would definitely inspire and oasis", which gave me the idea to refresh my 1999 "Oasis" render.
The first step was to create the pool, but I took a little detour in developing it to render out my prismatic pool. I went back on task a couple of days ago and now my updated "Oasis" is available for your review. I hope you like it. It's dedicated to Alecia in Iraq and everyone who wishes they were someplace else.
09/24/09 -- I should have a new render done fairly soon. The prismatic pool was actually created for something else entirely. You will see.
In the meantime, Jessie gave me a idea for a t-shirt the other night. Instead of using one image, why not use them all? I've created a couple of different mosaic designs so far and the first two are available in my Zazzle store. It's strange looking at them all, nearly 15 years of rendering, in one glance.
The "spectrum" was created using a program called "AndreaMosaic". The program is free but I will definintely make a donation to support it.
The 25 x 25 grid was created by using a modified version of my gallery page. I used the "Screengrab" Firefox extension to snapshot the whole screen (not just inside the browser window) to create a 5000 pixel wide semi-chronological grid. The grid only has images from my main gallery while the spectrum has picklejar images as well (a lot of stuff that I hadn't seen in years).
Both are available on t-shirts and as prints if you want my whole collection on your wall.
09/21/09 -- I've posted a 15 month calendar on Zazzle. I've made this one customizable so subscribers are welcome to take the 2560 x 1600 images from my gallery and use them to replace the images I chose for the calendar.
09/19/09 -- I've added my latest project, "Prismatic Pool", to the Members Gallery this evening. It was inspired by the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone (which I visited a few years ago) but I took plenty of liberties as well. This straddles the line between scenery and abstract but I think it makes a colorful and interesting wallpaper. Hope you like it!
09/17/09 -- I've added a poster version of "Fluorescence (2009)" to my Zazzle collection.
In other news, I've made some adjustments to my TrialPay setup. I've removed the 1 year option and lowered the price threshold so there should be some more interesting offers available to score you the 90 day Membership. Tt's a pretty easy way to get two products for the price of one so I hope you will consider it.
I hope to have my new wallpaper ready to post either late tonight or early tomorrow so please either check back here, become a Facebook Fan, or sign up to follow my Twitter Feed.
09/15/09 -- DB Member "Walo" is giving away a free 1 year Membership (via a gift certificate he purchased) to the person he feels is most deserving. All you need to do is leave a post on his blog explaining why you should get it over someone else.
09/14/09 -- Just a heads up. My $75 Lifetime Membership price will be returning to $99 at midnight on the 20th. If you want to lock in the discount I suggest you act quickly as the price may never be this low again.
09/11/09 -- I'm celebrating a birthday today (#38) so I thought it would be a good time to post a new freebie. This one is called "Green and Gold" and it replaces "Hidden Falls".
09/05/09 -- The reaction to my new multi-hued version of "Fluorescence (2009)" has been so positive that I have decided it will replace the blue version in the Members Gallery (it will remain available in the Pickle Jar).
08/26/09 -- My new render is available in the Members Gallery the evening. I call this one "Afterglow", though it doesn't really bear much resemblance to the original.
As long as I have been using landscape programs, I have never been able to work with a real (round) planet. I've always built my scenes on infinite plains. This only really comes into play if you move the camera really high or move the sun below the horizon. It is basically impossible for the sun to cast light on clouds if it is below the horizon of an infinite plane. Being able to render my scene on a giant sphere makes possible (without cheats) scenes like "Afterglow" where the clouds are lit by a sun that has set. The only light in the scene comes from the clouds and the sky (so it may seem a little dark to some of you).
It is a scene that I have always wanted to do (this probably won't be the last you see either) and I'm glad it is now possible. Unfortunately, Vue d'Esprit crashed every for minutes while making this. The planetary render mode was designed to render these spheres from high altitude (think pictures of planets rather than the surface of them) so perhaps that it why it got unstable.
Anyway, sorry for the long explanation. I hope it was worth the wait!
I should also add some new pricing is going to be rolled out in the next few weeks. I'm not going to say much else beyond the fact that if you like the current price I offer for Lifetime Memberships I would recommend you not wait too much longer.
08/16/09 -- A couple of items to mention this morning. There is an interesting discussion on the merits of purchasing a DB Membership going on on my Facebook Page (more here).
Also, I have added a "New Images Only" Twitter Feed this morning. If you are only interested in when new graphics are posted to the (Members) gallery and don't want to hear anything else from me, you can follow at http://twitter.com/dbnewimages or subscribe to this feed ("http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/66129689.rss") using your RSS reader of choice.
This page (along with the "main" DB Twitter account and Facebook Page) will have posts that are a little more in depth, more frequent, and not always related to my graphics.
All additions to the gallery will be documented as they have been before, but the new feed will be for those who are only interested in the gallery updates and not the posts I make in between.
08/13/09 -- After receiving the umpteenth email regarding the "Fireflies" Firefox Persona ("is this stolen?") earlier this week, I decided that it would be a good idea if "MaDonna" just transferred the Persona to my fledgling account. I wrote her(?) and asked if she could do it.
She wrote me back saying she would just remove the Persona, but this was not a good option. It had become the number 3 theme popularity wise and the link she had added to the description was bringing me some nice traffic to my Free Gallery.
I sorry to see the link go but happy I would not be receiving any more emails regarding the manner. Then, somehow, the staff of the Mozilla project stepped in and said they would move the file to my gallery (popularity intact). Sweet! The move was made last evening.
To celebrate I've renamed the Persona back to "Summerwood" and added "Autumnwood", "Winterwood", and "Springwood" versions. Big thanks to the folks at Mozilla Labs!
08/07/09 -- I have a few renders going at once now so they should come pretty rapid-fire when ready. In the meantime I have added over 175 1366 x 768 images to the Members Gallery. My laptop and Jessie's computer use this res and I didn't offer it as a download option. I've posted a zip file so Members don't have to click all of the images to download.
08/03/09 -- I've added the dual and triple screen versions of "Fluorescence (2009)" to the Members Gallery this morning. I played around with a number of different configurations when designing this one and I hope you guys enjoy what I finally settled on. It seemed a waste not to put anything in the extra frame(s).
I've also added coupon codes to my signup options. Unfortunately they only work when using my credit card signup form (no PayPal yet, but soon). Enter "5DOLLARSOFF" or "20PERCENTOFF" in the signup form to get the respective discounts.
07/29/09 -- I have good news and bad news. The bad news is I have replaced the 1920 x 1200 images in the free gallery with 1680 x 1050 versions (that shouldn't effect too many of you). The 1920 x 1200 and 2560 x 1600 images will be available only to Members moving forward.
The good news is that I have added one of my favorite wallpapers, Circumpolar, to the free gallery this evening. Enjoy!
07/28/09 -- I was messing around with Twitter last week, wanting to update my Avatar, and I decided to open up Lightwave and render "Fluorescence" in the size I needed. Well, I started playing around with the scene and made a couple of tweaks. One thing lead to another and I ended up doing making quite a few changes. The result is now up in the Members Gallery (you can preview it here).
I didn't change the mushrooms themselves, though I did play around with them in Zbrush. I decided that I liked the original geometry. The ground is new though and I've added some volumetric /dof effects which may or may not be controversial ;-)
Anyway, I know this image is a favorite of a lot of people and is probably my most well known piece. I don't take changing it lightly. I hope everyone enjoys the updated version, and if you don't then remember that the previous versions aren't going anywhere.
07/28/09 -- I've added a "Pay it Forward" program to the Members Gallery. It allows users to purchase a renewal for a random member (with no identifying information exchanged). The hope being that the recipient will then "pay forward" the kindness by purchasing a renewal for someone else.
I just need someone to log in and get the ball rolling...
07/23/09 -- I tweaked them a day or two longer than I thought I would, but the dual and triple screen of "Canopy Creek" are now available in the Members Gallery. "Enshrouded" is still rendering on my other box and will probably be doing so for at least the next week or so (that one takes forever).
07/20/09 -- I hit a rough patch healthwise over the past few weeks (see the end of my bio for background on that) and it's kept me from working. I think I'm coming to end of it though and I got a chance last week to sit down and do some creating. My lastest project, Canopy Creek, is now up in the Members Gallery.
07/15/09 -- I have finally found a use for the "ryanbliss.com" domain that my Mom purchased for me many years ago. I'll be using it as an extended "artist bio" with pages about me, my family, and a brief history of my artwork. It is a work in progress but check it out if you are interested.
07/07/09 -- My workstation finally finished its 10 day re-render of "Enshrouded" and it's up now in the Members Gallery. I probably wouldn't have allowed it to go on that long, but since I've been laid up the past couple of weeks I didn't have anything better for it to do. The cloud effects look a lot better in the new version IMO.
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