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.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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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.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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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.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Iris

As in the flower, not the part of the eye. I'm not certain this piece actually looks anything like an iris, but it has a similar color scheme to some of the ones that grow in my backyard. Of course, those irises are some weird cultivar with lots and lots of ruffles, so my idea of what an iris looks like and your idea of whan an iris looks like might not mesh.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Amber Inset

This flame may look familiar; that's because it's a zoomed in chunk of this flame that I posted way back when. I think the inset version of the piece eliminates some of the worst compositional errors and least interesting parts of the flame. I'm informed that this flame is 'gelatinous' but I'm not sure I see it. I was thinking it looked like...you know...amber. That might just be the colors, though.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Lithic Photovores (recolor)

Sorry this is late; my computer monitor decided to go kaput last Friday, so I didn't have access to the computer with all of my fractal flame stuff on it. Anyway, moving on...

Those of you who are well versed in word roots can probably guess what this flame's title means: Rocky plants. I suppose it's rather similar to 'Silicon Autotrophs' for meaning, but that's okay. I just like the idea of rocks that eat light. Too much science fiction, most likely.

This flame started out purple, and I probably would have kept it that way if I could have gotten the light and dark patches where I wanted them to be. Unfortunately they were just about the opposite of what you see in this version, and it rather badly unbalanced things. I like the blue better anyway; I think the more muted colors work better with the overall feel of the piece.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Green Tide

The color and texture of this flame are my favorite things about it. The green shades go all the way from almost-blue to almost-yellow (although there are really only three gradations present), counterbalanced by the slight purplish tint of the brighter areas. The elongated lines that make up the flame remind me of a photograph with an over-long exposure time; blurred and static, but still conveying motion.

I had a really hard time positioning this piece on the canvas. The dark green section on the right-hand side continues a lot farther than I'd have liked it too, and it started looking fuzzy and grainy, just as the smaller repeats of it do. I generally don't like to cut off just a small piece of a flame the way I've done here, but it turned out to be the best solution without altering the shape of the flame.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Orbital Diagrams

This flame reminds me of the old low-tech special effects holographic-display things that used to get drawn into old sci-fi movies. I'm not sure if the colors match one that I'm remembering, or what, but that's what it makes me think of. It also has this compass rose thing happening too, with the little striated lines coming off of it. I really like the combination of those two elements.

This piece is one of my favorites. I made it about two months ago, and I didn't want to make anything else for a while because I was still having fun looking at this one. It's very much a 'hand made' flame; I didn't introduce any random elements when I was constructing it. I take an obscure sort of pride in that, even though flames that do have random elements are often better than ones that don't. I think part of my attachement to it is that it is hand made--and that I spent quite a bit of time doing so. Longer to fix it in my memory, I suppose.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Khaki Coral

This piece has a little bit of blur effect on it, but I'm not sure I like the way I turned out. It didn't work without the blur--the lines were too thin and hard. But I couldn't figure out how to make it blur evenly across the whole piece. I suspect that now I could make it work, but this piece is from about two years ago. As much as I talk about going back and fixing old pieces, I'd rather spend the time making something new. The creative energy required is the same, and it seems to be in finite supply.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Rotary Hummingbird

The unnatural merging of a hummingbird and a helicopter, the rotary hummingbird was created by a deranged geneticist. I really have to wonder why he bothered. I mean, after all...hummingbirds can already hover. And the poor thing must get terribly dizzy what with all that spinning.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Static Electricity

Bzzzzck! It's been a little while since I've posted a flame that requires sound effects. But this one certainly does. Probably something along the lines of those musical tesla coils. It probably doesn't play star wars music, though.

This flame uses the popcorn variation, which is nothing new by this point. But I really like the way the fractal pattern visible in the center of the flame gets distorted and wonky-shaped at the edges by it.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Upward Path

Nifty little switchback things, see? I suppose it looks like the sort of thing you'd see as a cartoony fortress of evil, perched on some absurd precipice.

Not that that's a bad thing. Absurd precipices are fun.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Stellar Navigation Hazard

I find this flame's title delightfully vague. What are we looking at, here? Is the object seen the navigation hazard itself? The star exploding? Or just a warning beacon with bright flashing lights on it? Personally I like the last option, but it does have a little bit of an exploding feel to it.

This flame uses an orange/blue color scheme, but I'm not quite sure I got the correct hues to make it really work. I think the blue needed to be a little darker in comparison to the orange color, or the orange a little lighter. This just doesn't seem to be the right angle on the color wheel.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Lasing Cavity

I consider the name on this piece to be mediocre, but I really like the piece itself. The textures and shapes have a really fluid, billowy feel to them that is just cool to me. A lot of the pieces I really like have that sort of...mental sensation, I guess you could call it, to them. I don't like the squiggly jet quite so much, but it does provide a needed contrast to the rest of the piece. The colors could use some work, though. This piece is from back when I was still learning how to use them effectively.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Ectofoliage

This flame was another experiment with the 'blur' variation, and I really like the way it turned out. What's happened, in essence, is that there's another copy of the thin lines of the flame overlaid on the first, but smooshed out from the blur effect. There are also some color differences between the two sets of lines. It's difficult to see what I'm talking about, so I recommend taking a look at one of the full sized images.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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Lace Nebula

This is one of the first pieces that I tried using the blur effect on. I only used a tiny, tiny speck of it, but it was enough to soften some of the lines. There was a good deal of fiddling around with it to see how much was too much and how much was not enough. I wanted to add enough blur that it created a sort of out of focus effect that got more pronounced as it moved outwards from the center, but not so much as would make it really blatant.

Download links: Right click and hit 'Save Link As' to download. If you just want to look at a larger version of the image, simply follow the link.

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