Half of my creative accomplishments stem from happy accidents. I don’t care, I’ll take them any way I can get them!
Today is a very cold, snow-covered day, so I was convinced I’d come up with all sorts of winter-inspired things. Well, that wasn’t looking likely after I’d spent several hours making this:
Which actually started out as this:
I liked this version, but it seemed just a bit too dark for most purposes. Still, I like it on its own.
And I came up with this one, too, but I can play with other colors and make it not green (although I LOVE green).
The nice thing about these abstract backgrounds and base layers is that they can be stretched or compressed, then combined with other layers for interesting effects. All told, this is me just having fun. There is no goal other than to see what I can come up with. No symmetry, no pattern, usually not even a specific color scheme in mind. Just play.
Then I started fiddling with things, trying to come up with something to put on a background, and played around with kaleidoscopes. I’m still working on figuring out the math. What I really want is for someone to make a decent free plugin for Photoshop that will work easily. I have an old one, but it’s not working in my version.
Here’s one of my “unaltered” kaleidoscopes.
This was a “true” kaleidoscope, in that all the layers were flattened, then the flattened image was turned into a kaleidoscope image. This next one was altered after the fact, so it won’t tile correctly.
This one is a bit hard to see on the smaller image above, so go ahead and click on it to get the larger version.
I called this one “Winter Warriors” because I saw what appeared to be small toy soldiers surrounding a large 8-pointed star. Then I saw the alien-looking dudes standing behind them. Not sure what I’m talking about? Look here:
You might need to click that image, too.
Then… THEN! I saw it! Did you see it? DARTH VADER’S FREAKING HELMET! And I swear, I didn’t put it there on purpose. It just showed up. What? you don’t see it? Here, let me show you:
Yeah, go click that image, too.
Happy accidents are AWESOME! I love it when that happens!
Oh, and some good news! I’m getting ready to publish my first book. It’s a short and sweet guide on ways to beat a creative block. This one is for artists working in 2D. I have more ideas for additional guides, so don’t be surprised if you see more news soon.
Well, it’s nearly 3:00 in the afternoon, and I haven’t showered or dressed yet, so I guess I need to go do some of that. Until tomorrow! (Or, maybe later today, if my Muse slaps me around too much.)
