I greatly look forward to seeing your next project. My favourite images are all abstract or space, and since you've announced this is your next subject, I've been waiting excitedly and impatiently, sometimes checking multiples times a day if you've updated. However, I must agree that we can always wait a little longer to have a much better image.

Ryan, your work always amazes me!



I'd like to add my +1 to the request for space renders.



:)

Hi,



Long time fan and member, but this is the first time I've posted here.



I just wanted to say thanks for your work, and I particularly appreciate the "planetscapes." In another time, I think you could have been a great screen painter for movies like "This Island Earth."



As for the demands some fans place on you, I consider your images to be more of a gift, for which we each pay a very small amount to help subsidize your work.



All the best to you,

S. Chapman

Hey, take a break when needed! All the blood thirsty fans can take a break, too! hehe. It's a full moon by the way, better not take the break right now.

Hey Ryan,



Just keep on doin' your own thing... Those who like it will stay, and those who don't will move on... I have been a fan almost from the beginning and you just keep getting better and better every year...



-Dave

I have to say I'm a bigger fan of your abstracts, but everything you have made has been fantastic. Not many artists out there producing your level of quality.

Have you considered mixing some of the terrain elements with some of the abstract space images?



I'm really digging those images that give a feeling of expansiveness on the desktop rather than feeling tight and closed in.



My office is already small enough. I like your images for the escape from the physical.



thanks!

Ryan, I have been a fan of yours for a long long time. Up until a couple of years ago was content with the free stuff you had. But recently I had to get a membership. The stuff you put out is absolutely unbelievable. I like other people are wondering if some of your older images could be redone in an updated form. Between then and now the quality of your work has grown dramatically. Getting a new spin or even a rework of your earlier stuff would be great. Widescteen, dual screen,etc of the early work. Can't even image what you would come up with. So keep up the good work and can't wait for your next creation.





PS: I remember zip drives. I think I still have a working on lying around somewhere with working disks even.

And I might just try what he suggested. I started going through the galleries, but I'm trying to make sure none of the ones I was interested in were already available in widescreen.

Ryan, I just wanted to add that I'm perfectly fine with your output as it's been so far. Your completed pictures are so wonderful, that I like the fact that I can enjoy them for awhile before replacing it with another great image. Keep up the great work!

I've been a subcriber for nearly 3 year now and have never got around to post, but here goes. Ryan thanks for all the quailty and time invested into your works of art. It is a joy each time that I log on to find a new image posted. As I have stepped up to dual and triple screens, you have been right there to bring wonderful work to proudly display at home and work. Thank you Ryan.

Just keep doing what you do Ryan. You obviously love your work. And I for one loved your work so much I became a lifer. Your art fills my screen saver. I know, I don't really need a screen saver anymore but as long as you're around there will still be a USE for one. I would also like to commend you on your website. No popups. No junk. Even before I became a member. Digital Blasphemy is a class act and Ryan is a giant in his field. CHEERS

I can't wait for new abstracts! That's my favorite style of yours!

My spouse's laptop computer is widescreen and I made some of the older images into widescreen images myself for that computer's screen just by downloading the largest version that was available of the particular wallpaper and cropping it to fit the screen dimensions. Even though part of the image was lost by doing that I still think they look very good.

Your comments make me very much anticipate your next wallpaper :)



I don't recall if I mentioned before but I'd love to see you do a wallpaper with a ocean shore scene. I don't think I've seen you do any type of crashing waves on a shore in scenery before, such as like this:



http://www.hawaiianstylemagazine.com/article/content_images/ArtistPortfolio/anthony-casay-perfect-storm.jpg





The beach scenery I have seen you do so far had the shoreline look mostly like a foamy version of a lake shore. I wasn't sure if maybe that was due to software limitations and that the software would not do realistic-looking waves such as that. It'd be cool if you could do something like that though.

I second weeznow's comment - landscapes and planetscapes are far cooler than abstracts or pure space images. Just so you know that not everyone likes abstracts more.

Ryan,

I enjoy the landscape type images you create more than abstracts or space images.

There! I am one person who likes the landscapes more. Keep up the good work.

silverwarden17-frnds@yahoo.com

Just curious, since there are a couple of the really old ones that I'd like in widescreen that aren't available that way (unless I'm looking in the wrong place).

I've always liked the abstracts more than scenery images. I like the contrast between dark and bright colors that are in abstracts. I would like to see more stuff like Riven and Radiance. I currently have the Red Comb on my laptop, and Haiku2k7 on my cell.

I liked some of your older works with dragons and fantasy type settings...would be cool to see what you could do with those now

I don’t comment often; I actually think I may have only commented once before this. This is because I rarely feel that I have something to add beyond what has already been said by others: your work is wonderful and there isn’t anything I would change about the work you’ve shown, and that’s what my comments would consistently say.



This comment is meant to emphasize what others have said, and particularly Laura’s exact words: “You're the artist. You set the schedule.” I would much rather you spend your time working on beautiful pieces of art than to sacrifice the quality for more of them. Don’t feel pressured, just do what you’ve got to do, and who better to know how much time the work takes than the artist himself?



Also, thank you sincerely for all the hard work you put into this.

While I do quite enjoy your gorgeous nature works, it's the space pictures that last longest on my desktop rotation. For example, "Adrift", "ThetisMoon", and "Roche" -- these are ones I come back to on a regular basis.



A recurring theme in the nature shots seems to be "the last of" or a depiction of a surpremely lonely redoubt... Beautiful, for sure, but they often give me a feeling of melancholy.



In contrast, the space pictures are more expansive and convey a sense of limitlessness -- but also have a proximity, as if cosmic wonders are within arm's reach.



In any case, I don't mind the occasional gaps in posting new works, Ryan. A gourmet meal takes longer to prepare...

Something you haven't done in a while is a new planetscape/scenario. I'm always a big fan of scenes involving a shot of scenery with planet(s) in the background. ie: gazebo-esque shots, alternate planet surface/sun shots, or the beach with planet over water. I've always found your most attractive pieces to me have always combined the elements of space, nature and water in such an eloquent ways as to make them irresistable.

Just suggestions of what i'd like to see. That and the pikmin/giant world scenarios sound really cool too. Keep up the good work man.

Good images take alot of time to design and even more time to render.



As a person who plays around with digital art myself I fully understand how long it can take...



Te rendering can take forever even on a dual quad core machine!



Keep up the great work, I paid for the lifetime membership for Quality not Quantity...



Free Gallery viewer since 2002-

Lifetime Member since 2006-

Please, any more that you come up with, they really are the pictures that made me sign up for the site, and at the moment they are the only ones that I have as desktops (on 4+ computers)!

Well, I finally got around to signing up here, after using the wallpapers in the free gallery for a while already.



First off, the pictures themselves are wonderful, as the free ones have been. I especially like the abstracts and/or brightly glowing things; Containment, Azula, Xenotron, and Summoning are some of my favorites.



But I have four systems I'm interested in using them on:

My home machine has an old CRT running 2048x1536, pretty as can be.

My office machine has an (obsolete, soon-to-go) 1024x768 LCD.

My laptop flips to tablet, and runs 1280x800 or 800x1280 (on-the-fly rotation).

My handheld computer (a Nokia N800) runs 800x480 or 480x800 (on-the-fly rotation).



So I've got several suggestions:



1. Add an additional mobile resolution for WVGA devices; 800x800 would be ideal, but 800x480 or 480x800 (portrait or landscape as suited to each image) would work. Currently, I've been chopping pictures to get a suitable 800x800 framing, but it's really a major hassle, as most scenes have to be scaled as well as cropped. A notable exception was "Containment"; an off-center 800 crop from the 1600x1200 version was stunning, with about one-third of the sphere showing.



2. Add one or several square resolutions for tablet PCs, and other rotatable monitors; my normal technique is to use a 1600x1200 image set to centered, but this isn't always framed well in landscape, and the 1200 height on a 800x1280 means I get a 40-px bar of background color across the top in portrait. Using larger images (2560x1600) winds up requiring substantial manipulation, and even less chance of good framing. While I don't presume to know more about framing than you (I'm no artist!), I'd think that for most scenes, good results could be had by rendering to 1600x1280, and cropping both 1600x1200 and 1280x1280 from that, giving an extra (and very helpful) resolution for only marginally increased rendering time on an existing resolution.

(Also, if anyone reading this knows of any Windows or Linux tools to change wallpaper on screen rotation, that would be a partial solution!)



3. Add higher resolutions. You're already doing up to 2560x1600, which does suffice for my 2048x1536 system, so I have no current complaints; however, I think you've been doing that resolution since 2004. This leaves quite a few images suitable for that, even though I assume there were very few monitors that large in use back then.

It's likely, though, that one of my next couple monitor purchases will be a pair of 1920x1200s, used as side-by-side portraits, for an effective 2400x1920 screen. So, though it feels a little weird asking for a resolution I can't even use yet, a step larger seems like it might be timely now. I'd love to have some wallpapers ready to go when I do get that rig, instead of petitioning you then.

My Dad, who's not a member, has two adjacent 2560x1600s (on separate computers) for which he's using one split wallpaper. (He also has a couple dual-monitor rigs and even one 3-monitor, dual-machine cluster, all of which your existing resolutions would cover.) I don't know that he'd subscribe if you had 5120x1600 renderings, but it's likely, and in any event, it shows I'm not the only one running or about to run larger than your biggest renderings. Something to think about, anyway. ;)



And finally, one not related to resolutions at all: I know you've done a number of day/night renderings. It'd be cool, though, to have a full 24-hours' worth of renders for one or two scenes; I'm sure the time to render 16 or so images in multi-screen resolutions would be prohibited, but even if it was only single-screen, and even at fairly low-res, it would be wicked-cool to have that running on a timed wallpaper changer. (And it shouldn't be all that much more than an animated one, I hope; I certainly don't expect you'd be able to do them any more frequently than animations.)

I think more space renders is a wonderful idea! They are what got me hooked on your gallery in the first place so many years ago!

I agree with all the posts lauding your excellent work. I have no complaints at all. I would like to suggest a new subject type: small scale. I'm thinking of Pikmin style environments where everyday things are huge. You could use it as an excuse to play with depth-of-field, too.

I agree with those who believe that you should not rush your art. Yes, we have paid for the right to view fresh new pieces, but on your terms, which are very reasonable. You update us when you can, you do your best to create a new piece every week or two, and you are very professional in how you handle you website, and customer issues or complaints. And LauraS is right, you do deal with your customers/fans telling you how you should fix your pieces, something which I confess I am guilty of to some degree.



Those who want tailored images, constant updates, and more images in shorter time spans should stay with the free gallery if they do not like what they get for their money. You offer an equal return of service/products for what you charge, and those asking for more should be asked to pay for more. That's capitalism, and it's only fair.



It also seems that people forget something important: you have a family. You have a personal life. You work your hours, and then you go on with your life, although since you work from home, you probably work longer hours than you ought to and have a harder time separating your off time from your work time. Many (and I dare say most) of us truly appreciate that, and are more than happy with what we get and what we've paid for. Personally, if I don't see a status update for a week or more, I get excited. The anticipation of seeing what beautiful piece you've come up with is something to relish and enjoy. If you took a month to make a piece, and gave us either scant or no updates, it would feel like Christmas when I was 7. So, take your time, make great art, and update us when you can. That's all we can ask for. :-)

Sometimes it takes me literally weeks to create a new song, sometimes it comes out smoothly and quickly. Art cannot be rushed. Your art is high quality. Take all the time you need :)

I chose to become a member and pay the money for it because I am so impressed with the quality of your work. I would rather be blown away by a few pieces of art than be "eh, it's nice" toward many pieces of lower quality art. Like those who DO notice when you comment on how long a particular piece of art takes to render (not to mention juggling time between working on art and raising children), I am more than willing to be patient in waiting to see your next project.



Perhaps those who keep complaining about how slow you work (as if you have nothing better to do than to sit at the computer rendering art 24/7) should consider finding another place to get their artwork when their membership expires. I, however, plan to keep renewing. As nice as the concept of a lifetime membership is, I'd rather keep paying each year because as far as I'm concerned, it's worth it.



Keep doing what you're doing at whatever pace works for you! Great art cannot and should not be rushed for anyone.

Why dont you use Vue 6 Infinite instead? j/w too expensive?

Here's my vote: You're the artist. You set the schedule.



I'm one who has the money for a life-time membership, but would rather pay every year so that you can see the renewal, and you get paid more, over the long term.



This is my way of patronizing the arts, and not a subscription to some pic-of-the-week.



Carry on.

I have looked for this mentioned bug, but unless I am realy not looking for the right thing, I can't find anything that looks out of place...Am I blind?

Ryan,



I think this is my 4th or 5th stint as a member of DB - I think I first joined when I lived in Brussels in 1998 and I now live in the USA.



Over the last 10 years, your backgrounds are the only backgrounds I have ever considered for my PC's (this is my 8th?)



Keep up the fantastic work - I really appreciate all your efforts and unlike some who may do this as a hobby, I realise that this is your job and this is what puts food on table.



With the utmost respect,



Dark_Knight10

All I can say is, "more, more, faster faster!!!"



Seriously, keep up the good work. Only "criticism" I have is that you don't put out enough! But hey, I suppose that the quality has to come first.



You need a seriously faster processor! ;)

I just wanted to start by saying that you are doing a great job... I really like your work.



I'm looking forward to your new image... and I'd also like to see some new abstracts and space images.

A while back (04/24/08) you said you were going to start adding some triple widescreen renders.



I was just wondering if that got scrapped, forgotten about, waiting for a software update that doesn't distort everything like a telephoto fish-eye lens, or if you have just been to busy to take the hours and hours of extra render time for it.



Thanks!

I appreciate the hard work the pictures are to create. Take your time they will end up better for it.