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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Fin-eel

I'm sad to say that I can't remember if this flame's title was supposed to be a pun on the word 'finial' or not. I can't figure out why it would be, but, you know...homonyms. I'm always suspicious of homonyms. There's always that little moment when somebody's talking about a vein and I'm not sure if the blood vessels carry conceit, or maybe point in the direction of the wind. There are plenty of leftover syllabic combinations in the English language. Why do we have to make some of them do double-duty?

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Fern Mat

I really like the way the composition on this piece turned out. Most of the mass of the image is spread out, but the focus ends up being that blue and green section around the negative spiral parts. The colors also seem to introduce a little of that false-illumination effect that's shown up in a few other flames. I also think that the beige sort of color goes really nicely with the green and blue shades. Although maybe my saying that is redundant; obviously I liked it or I wouldn't have used it (Well, except for the times I've used colors I don't like and complained about. So scratch the redundancy comment.)

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Infinite Peephole

My favorite thing about this flame is the color palette. That turquoise and orange set is really a nice combination. I don't have a color wheel handy, but I suspect those two shades would be just about opposite each other. Most of the time opposing colors clash, but blue and orange seems to be an exception. That might just be my opinion, though. I don't know. Color perception is such an individual thing.

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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Brushfire

This piece uses a larger range of colors than I usually like to work with, but I like the effect. I don't think the title would work if it were just the orange and red shades. With the greens and whites and grays in there, I can see this flame as a picture of fire running through foliage.

'Brushfire' was a really tricky piece to frame. There were a lot of undesirable elements, and the shape of the main repeats and the curvature of the piece made it difficult to cut them off without leaving straggling chunks of them on the canvas. Obviously I never entirely succeeded at that.

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Turbo Snail

While at first glance the turbo snail appears to be your typical paradoxical creature, he has a secret. He doesn't travel any faster than your average snail, he just fails his eyes a lot so it looks like he's moving faster. Please don't tell anyone. He's terribly embarassed about it.

I really like the orange, green, and blue sections of the color palette in this piece, particularly the gradations you can see at the upper left. They're nice, middle of the range colors, but they're still attractive. I need to use colors like that more often.

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Brain Mold

Is this mold that grows on a brain, or mold that's shaped like a brain? You decide! If it's mold that grows on a brain, I hope it's not growing on yours. That would be gross. Although maybe it would work like mycorrhiza do for trees, allowing your brain to...leach extra thinking from your surroundings? It's obviously not a perfect analogy.

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Sound Bomb

This piece continues the trend of dangerous looking noise started in 'Sound Beam.' If you were to listen to it from a safe distance, it would probably make interesting bass crackling noises overlaid with an oscillating squeal. If the sonic weapon imagery doesn't appeal to you, think of it as a vortex of space-time stresses leading to the collapse of the universe as we know it. I'm fairly sure that would be my second choice for a title. You know, if the first were taken or something.

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Executive Desktop Gadget (recolor)

By 'Executive Desktop Gadget' I mean the sort of thing that comes up when you search Amazon for "Newton's Cradle": Pointless, nifty little toys for people who don't have anything better to do than sit behind a desk and look important. I have a few of these on the desk in my room, and while they're fun, they tend to be dust catchers that don't get touched in months. I'm not certain what manner of gadget the flame at right represents, but I'd want one if I knew.

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Alchemical Mix

I'm about 98% certain that this is the same color palette I used for 'Pyrosquid.' It's kind of an interesting mix of hues...I think it says 'noxious chemicals' pretty well for this flame, though. That's kind of what I was going for. Looking at this flame today, it strikes me that this could be a hand that's been dipped in the aforementioned noxious chemicals. I wouldn't put it past some of those kooky old-time alchemists. They did all sorts of unsafe things with their work.

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Fractured Cosmos

This piece is one I did in early February of this year, and I'm really pleased with the way it came out. It almost reminds me of a flower, but I wouldn't recommend trying to slot it into that mental box. When I try to do that I start noticing the way the different 'layers' appear to flip and twist.

This is a very simple flame on the technical side, with only two repeats involved. I think that's why it has such a definite fractal pattern; there's nothing else getting in the way. That also made it a great deal easier to color, although I ended up spending quite a bit of time on that part anyway. I had a hard time making myself stop working on this one, actually, just because there were so many small tweaks I could have made.

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Nauplius

I couldn't come up with a name for this flame, so I asked someone else. My brother suggested the name 'Nauplius', which is apparently a crustacean larva, a figure from Greek mythology, or a type of flower. Take your pick. I think he was going for the crustacean larva though.

This piece is very much a 'many repeats' flame. There's not much distortion present in the basic repeats, although there's plenty in the peripheral stuff. This flame is another that used gradient 209, although it pulls from a different part of the palette than most of its siblings.

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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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Time Lapse Candle

Take a candle. Put it in a slight breeze. Point a camera at it for a few minutes. I figure this is what it would look like, if you could avoid having the picture come out hideously overexposed. That bit probably wouldn't be very easy. Not being a photographer I don't know how technically challenging it would actually be.

This piece is one that stayed up as my desktop background for longer than most; I found it very soothing to look at. Probably because there aren't any jaggedy bits. The colors aren't eye searing either (I've gotten better at avoiding eye-searing colors, really), which some of my pieces from the same time period are, unfortunately.

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Motley Hat of the Apocalypse (recolor)

What kind of jester wears an apocalyptic hat? I don't know, but I bet his jokes are terrible (Ba doomp KSHHH). The original version of this flame was darker blue and more reddish, but the colors were the same in relation to each other. Sometimes I render a flame and realize that I've just picked ugly colors for it, and then I have to go back and do it again. It's rather irritating when that happens, but I'd rather add a little more work in than lose what I've already done on a 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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Edge of the World

Growing up understanding that the world is a sphere (mostly) spinning around the sun, I've always felt that the 'Flat Earth' theory was a bit preposterous, especially for those sailors who were most superstitious. Couldn't they see the curvature of the earth from the top of their masts? Why would the sails of a ship show up first if the earth was flat? Nonetheless, the imagery of an ocean of water cascading over the greatest waterfall in the world is quite powerful. This flame is my take on that. It's not blue because...well, I get tired of doing things in blue. Maybe it's lit from below by an otherwordly incandescence. Maybe it's sunset. Or perhaps, that close to the precipice, light becomes twisted and strange. Take your pick.

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Path

I imagine this piece as a trail through a rocky canyon, walls arching up overhead both sides, sunlight shining patchily on the walls. Sure, it takes a little effort, but the really fun interpretations usually do.

This flame has some very confusing fractal elements to it. I'm fairly certain that the segments at the bottom are repeats of the segment at the top, but both parts contain repeats of themselves aas well. The easiest identifying mark on the repeats is that row of four dots that shows up at the tip of the top segment spines. You can follow that all the way down the bottom chain until the resolution blurs out in the large images.

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Landing Signals

It's an unfortunate truth that I am occasionally stricken by fits of whimsy when I'm working on a flame. In this case, it was during the coloring phase of the process. Hopefully nobody's violently allergic to neon purple. I'm almost tempted to call that a neon brown as well, but I think that's just the blur effect messing with my perceptions.

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Silicon Autotroph

If I didn't like using fancy science-type words so much this flame would probably be titled something like 'Glass Fern' or 'Stone Bush.' But I do, so it's titled 'Silicon Autotroph.' A slightly more generic term, to be sure, but also a less limiting one. Make of it what you will.

This piece is fairly straightforward, technically. It's got quite a few repeats involved, but most of them are the standard 'linear' type. They don't have any distortion except stretching and skewing. That's probably why this flame calls to mind a plant of some sort. It's closer to a 'pure' fractal, and plants are very fractal things.

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Bumblebee, from above

I'm sure there are some of you out there who will look at this flame and say "But that doesn't look like a bumblebee at all!" My response to you: Phhhhlbbbbt. Almost never are these titles hard and fast rules about what a flame 'is'. Obviously there are exceptions, but very rarely do I have a fixed object or thing or theme that a flame must be interpreted as. The title of a piece is a suggestion to try and make the piece more interesting.

think the best example of what I mean by this is the piece 'Magnetic Flares' from the store. It started life with the lowly designation 'Apophysis-041219-100', which is about as unpoetic as a name can get. It simply means that it was the hundredth random flame done on December 19, 2004. I ask you, which title makes you more likely to really think about the flame? Even the pieces that I title 'Abstract' get a better reception than that designation. The word invites you to think about the piece and decide what it is for yourself.

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It should be fairly apparent which title goes with which piece here. This pair of flames was created as a pair, and in fact they only differ by one repeat and a slight adjustment in canvas placement. It's often startling to me how very slight alterations can cause such fundamental changes to a flame. That's part of why I enjoy this medium so much.

Phoenix Molt

I've often considered that I stick the word 'Phoenix' into too many titles, especially considering that the original mythology claims there was only one in existence at a time. But I don't really regret the slight overuse; the idea of taking a peacock or other ornamental fowl and then lighting it on fire is just too wonderful.

Mythical incendiary avian origins aside, this flame has some rather interesting things going on. That hard yellow edge is a fairly standard fractal boundary, but then it has those long wispy tails swooping off of it. I quite liked the effect. Someday I might see if I could do something different with the colors, but for now I like the impression they create of the flame slowly burning away.

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Dragon Egg

It takes a touch of imagination to imagine an egg shape in this flame, but I think the texture and color fit the title quite nicely. Besides, who says dragons have to have round eggs? I think misshapen, leathery, scale-covered sacks would be just the thing for a pyromaniac infant.

What's really interesting about this flame to me (besides the pretty-to-look-at part) is that it doesn'tuse any distorted repeats. It's all just flat, and all of the shapes you see are produced by rotated repeats, and maybe a little bit of stretching here and there. It makes for some interesting textures, and quite a bit of blurriness where the detail goes too fine for the computer to render it.

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Resonators (recolor)

Sound effects are not optional for this flame. I encourage you to make a noise such as "Vwoooooooorn" or "Bzzzzzzz" or possibly even "WOMwomWOMwomWOMwomWOMwom" as you view this piece. If you imagine all the blurry spike things vibrating back and forth as you do that it will help.

This is the second version of this flame, and unusually enough I didn't do it right after the first version. I liked the original well enough to feel like I needed to go back and tweak it a bit. The first version was more brown and less orange, and it was just too dull. I'm still not entirely happy with the color scheme. It's rather monotone. But it is an improvement.

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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Downdrafts

The combination of orange and grey in this flame really appeals to me. It's one of those color sets that seems to turn out really well on computer monitors. It's not too glaring, but it still has some actual color to it. That seems to be really difficult to do with some other shades, especially greens and purples.

The bedrock of this piece is that hollow oval shape. Everything else you see is a repeat of that, or interaction between those repeats. It's really quite a simple flame, but it doesn't appear that way because the basic shape is more complex.

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Detonation or Flower

This is a fairly basic 'many repeats' flame. But both flowers and explosions are pretty, (even if one is preferably viewed from a distance, or both, if you're allergic) so there you have it. I really recommend looking at one of the larger versions of this flame, as the fine detail is really interesting. Looking at this today I'm noticing that little bit of blue up near the top for the first time. Not sure how that got there, but it's kind of fun.

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Pyrosquid, Pyrosquid (inset, rotated)

This is not a restful flame, any way you look at it. Unless of course you like stygian horrors in fun fruit colors. Or alien horrors, in fun fruit colors. Or possibly scientifically mutated horrors (in fun fruit colors!). Restful or not, it's one of my favorite pieces which I place in the 'whimsical' category. The inset version might fall outside of the whimsical category into the 'kind of creepy' category, but that bulging cephalopod cerebrum was ready for its close-up. And the textures there are just plain cool.

On the technical side of things, this was a moderately complicated flame. At the same time, though, it's readily divided into sections, which made it easy to work with. I can look at this flame and account for each piece that went into it, which is a very rare thing to be able to do (This is after looking at the parameters, by the way. I'm not doing this from memory).

Haunted Ocean

Between the slightly creepy color scheme and the thin protrusions that could be mistaken for masts or spars, I feel pretty good about the name for this piece. Haunted oceans have to have ghost ships, right? The stormy, heavy seas sort of look helps, I think.

I couldn't tell you how this flame is put together precisely right now, as I'm in the middle of a batch render. I'd rather not joggle its elbow by digging around for flame parameters. But just from looking at this I can tell you what a couple elements of this flame are. See where there are those very defined curved lines coming out of the orange part? The way those scale and twist indicates a plain repeat with down-scaling and some rotation on it. You can see this along the top edge of the flame as well, same thing (probably the same repeat, actually). There's also a foreshortened repeat of those lines coming off at a ninety degree angle to the first, but it's a little hard to see. The rest of the piece is probably foundation material, but it's hard to make distinctions as to which bit counts as what with these. Every piece influences every other piece, so it's mostly a matter of what came first when I was building the flame. It doesn't really matter overall.

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Explosive Chrysanthemum

Whose idea was it to make 'chrysanthemum' so hard to spell? I had to look up the spelling when I named this flame. It doesn't look particularly like a chrysanthemum anyway, but I couldn't think of a kind of flower with lots of spiky petals. Perhaps the petals are spiky because the Explosive Chrysanthemum is a rare variety. (Bred by the same people who brought you the Detonating Daisy, Blast Buttercup, and Incendiary Iris! Buy yours today!)

Since I'm starting to make up fake infomercial segments I'd better cut this short. I'm not entirely satisfied with the composition of this piece. I suspect it needs either a square frame or a skinny rectangular frame with lots of dead space. This flame shares a color palette with 'Prismatic Splash,' among others. I tend to slap this gradient onto flames a lot to see if it will work. It usually doesn't.

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Plasma Bolt

I don't have very much to say about this flame. It rather speaks for itself. Granted, it talks in comic-book sound effects, like "THOOM" and "FWOOSH" and possibly "ZZZAP!" I think that's all it really needs to say.

I really had a hard time waiting until now to post this flame, because it's one of my very favorites. Just about every time I've looked at my folder of flames that I have rendered to post here I've thought "Ooh, I should post this one! It's really cool!" and then I've made myself put it off because that kind of thinking results in all of the fun flames getting posted in the first two weeks of a render cycle, followed by a couple weeks of less interesting stuff. But since I've only got a week and a half worth of flames left before I need to do a new batch, and there are at least two other good ones that I haven't posted yet...here you go.

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Hypnosis

Go buy something...go buy something...the swirly thing commands you...

This flame is a surprisingly complex result from a fairly simple set of parameters. There's one 'body' element in it, and three basic repeat elements twisted to form the spiral shape. I have to say that this one didn't remain as my desktop background for very long. I prefer something just a little more restful. Still, this would be a lot of fun as a piece of wall art. I really hope I get the chance to print it some day.

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Tentatively Tenebrous Tendrils

Tenebrous: An adjective meaning dark and gloomy. So...I guess the tendrils are only a little bit sinister. They're not really sure if they should be looming, threatening, and being generally creepy. Give them a little time. I'm sure they'll be properly gloomy in a few days.

I really like the basic structure of this piece. It only has two real 'shaping' elements in it; they form that blueish section with the pink tinge that runs along the long axis of the flame. Everything else is just fractal repetion of those, and some color changing. I will admit to overusing my vocabulary in the title. But a chance to use alliteration, at least one type of rhyming (I don't have the formal education to tell you which one. Assonance or consonance, maybe both.), and an obscure word at the same time, and have it fit the piece? Too good an opportunity to pass up.

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Rainbow Sherbet

I may or may not have been craving ice cream when I made this fractal. I confess to being slightly baffled by this flame; I didn't think rainbow sherbet came in a soft-serve variety.

Something has been bothering me as I've been writing all these entries. There's no specific verb for making a fractal flame. If it was a pencil sketch, I could say that I drew it. If it was a blob of clay, I could say I sculpted it. But to my knowledge there's no word for the action of creating a fractal flame. I suppose I could coin one, but it would probably turn out to be ridiculous. What word would you use?

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Erinyes

Whoo, gratuitous mythology references! I can't say that this flame looks particuraly like an avenging spirit bent on punishing oathbreakers, but I'm not sure what does. I do like the impression of hands or claws speeding down on something, and I suppose that's what inspired the title.

The ray effect in this piece (the long thin lines going off to the top left and top of the canvas) isn't one I use very often. Typically if I'm looking to create an illusion of motion I'll use a fractal repeat that diminishes in size with each iteration, producing a trail that tapers as it moves away from the main body of the flame. I've done the opposite here, with the repeats getting larger as they move away from the main piece.

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Crystalline Beast

This isn't your ordinary looks-like-an-animal-only shiny crystalline beast. This is the kind that blends perfectly with rock faces and shambles out at you unexpectedly, screeching and vibrating hideously.

Okay, so the previous paragraph may be evidence of an overactive imagination. But something about this flame begs to be...de-abstracted. How you go about it and what you de-abstract (Sorry, english language! You know I don't really mean it.) it are up to you. I merely offer a suggestion.

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Mud Vortex

I think the textures in this piece are just cool. It rather reminds me of a crocheted (that's crow-shayed, not crotch-it-id, people) doily, although I don't think I've ever seen one done with quite this color scheme. The lack of symmetry inhibits the effect somewhat, but maybe they just haven't finished all of their repeats yet.

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Pebble Mosaic

Hey look! Gradient 209!

This flame is far more regular in shape and appearance than most of my works. If my memory is correct (by no means a certainty) this piece was made during the period where I was first experimenting with using the linear variation to create spiral shapes. Obviously this is something of a 'proof of concept' for the technique. 'Filigree' came out of the same period, about two weeks later.

The one thing I've never been happy about with this piece is the pattern of bright dots that show up on the lower right. I really wish I could have gotten rid of them while keeping the texture the same, but it's those dots that make the speckled repeats throughout the flame.

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Feather Fan

I think this piece comes closer to the texture and shape of something real than anything else I've ever done. The fact that it looks good is really just an added bonus. The colors may need a little tweaking if I ever get it printed; that green is just a little hard to see.

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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Sponge 1

The phrase 'fractal to a fault' comes to mind regarding this flame. I don't know if it really is or not, but it gets close. I very much dislike making flames that are too predictable, too geometric. This piece has sharper angles than I like, although the slightly distorted repeats and color variation hide it in the body of the piece. It's easy to see around the edges, though.

There is a 'Sponge 2,' but you won't get to see it for at least another month, if then. I'm in the process of getting the next batch of renders to go up on this page ready, and it isn't on the list.

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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Dragon Eyes

Between the color scheme and the slit-pupil effect, this flame has a bit of an 'Eye of Sauron' vibe. Maybe if he had a bunch of annoying relatives who were always hanging out at Barad-dûr. I imagine it would get crowded up at the top of the tower.

Be warned that the larger versions are significantly creepier. Or at least, they seem that way at two in the morning with a migraine. But, you can also see a little of how this flame was constructed. This is another of those 'many repeats' flames I like to point out. They tend to be fairly interesting pieces. I'm not sure if that's because they're just better, or if I only render the really good ones done using this technique. They do seem to turn out a little more pass/fail than other methods do...

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Hot Spring Scum

If you've ever been to Yellowstone you'll know what I'm referencing here. I've never been there myself, I simply watch too much documentary television. Do a google image search of 'Yellowstone hot spring' and you'll see what I mean. It's cool stuff.

This flame has some very interesting fractal patterning going on. It happens to have been highlighted by the green color, which makes it one of the more noticeable features. But there is also a very pretty repeating pattern that starts in the middle of that blue are. It has smaller repeats going out to the edges of the piece, although most of them aren't as variably colored as the initial shape.

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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Spiral Inversions

Far too many of my titles end up being half-hearted attempts to describe the flame. By the time I finish with a piece I'm usually ready to move on, so unless I've thought of a name while I'm working, I don't want to spend much time on naming it. I suppose that's one of the failure points in my 'process,' and I should change that. Old habits die hard, though.

Today's piece didn't really get the consideration it deserved come naming time, but I rather like the piece itself. It's a little difficult to make sense of at first, which makes me want to keep looking at it. That's usually a good sign for a flame.

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Stained Lace

I really like the way the colors are distributed in this flame. For the most part, they merge seamlessly. The dark red and blue down at the bottom don't, but I think the piece would be boring if the colors were that uniform. The observant may recognize Gradient 209, but I have no shame over using it in this particular piece. It's a much more recent work, and I hadn't used it in months, I'm sure.

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Explosion with shrapnel (inset)

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Smoldering Spiderweb

I bet that smells really bad up close. Like burning hair. I don't know, what does burning spidersilk smell like? The lines and textures in this piece are really fun. The main variant combination here is the same as the one I used in 'Abstract 7-21-07,' although it produces a slightly different effect here. It seems to be quite a versatile technique.

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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Primordial Pasta

Primordial soup had noodles in it, right? All those archaic bacteria had to be eating something. Unlike yesterday's flame, 'Primordial Pasta' does beat you over the head with its fractal elements. The whole thing is made up of those little bowtie-noodle shapes. It's really a nifty effect. I especially like the way they tendril out over on the right. Even though tendril isn't a verb.

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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Roaring Fire

First off, the colors are currently messed up on this page, so if the text in the image has a greenish tinge it hasn't been fixed yet.

This flame doesn't have a lot of subtlety to it. It is what it is, and that's a big old bonfire. I suppose if you're feeling creative it could be a strange looking leaf of some sort. The flame-like textures and shapes turned out really well. The colors could use tweaking, (even if you can't tell what the colors are supposed to be right now) but they're pretty close to where I wanted them.

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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Birdwing

Hey look! It's gradient 209 again! In my defense, this was only the fourth flame I used it on. Sure, I'd only done 10 flames total since I came across it, but...still! Only the fourth one. This flame also marks the first time I started doing many-repeats flames. I made 'Conch' a couple days later using this technique. 'Birdwing' itself isn't terribly interesting, but I really like the radiating lines. At the time it was pretty far up the list of cool flames.

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Stepping stones through grass

The title may be longwinded, but I still like it. This flame has several things going on at once: There's that negative-space circle that gets repeated, seven or so rotations of it (look at the petal things the lower left and count), and a spiral variation, probably on its own triangle. The spiral variation is the piece you see intruding onto the negative-circle. The colors on this piece add nicely to the complexity, shading from a sort of olive green to an orange. They're a bit understated, but I think that works for this one.

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 Reef

This is a recolor that I spent maybe two minutes on. I still like it better than the original color scheme, which was pretty much the same one I used in 'Chinese Cloud' with a little bit of purple thrown in. It wasn't very attractive. I love the textures in this flame, and the new colors enhance them a lot. This is just about the only flame where I've achieved that billowy, fabric-like effect that you see over on the right. I should really see if I can duplicate that in an interesting way. All too often a technique that's interesting in one flame is ugly in another, or just doesn't work without so many elements identical to the original flame that it might as well be the same one.

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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Napalm (fiddled)

The (fiddled) in the title of this piece indicates that it is not the original version of this flame. The original had some nasty line thingies (technical term, there) that kinda ruined the fireball effect. This flame really taught me a lot about selecting specific elements of a flame and de-emphasizing or removing them.

Plus, it looks like a fireball. What's not to like?

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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Sand Garden

I figure that the monk who tends this particular sand garden has mastered some of the more unusual meditative principles, like how to control the very fabric of space and time. You know he'd use his newfound talent to make his sand garden the coolest one in the monastery. C'mon, wouldn't you? The widescreen version of this flame is matted. The edges that get chopped off were kind of ugly, so you don't get to look at them.

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

This piece is slightly more abstract than usual, in some ways. It makes use of the hyperbolic variation, which kind of looks like a diamond with the points stretched out and the sides left in the same place. (Or a set of four hyperbolic arcs arranged around a central point, which is what it really is) Because it has a tendency to stretch the flame off screen, I typically only use it for full canvas pieces like this one.

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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Autumn Attacks!

Yes, this is a silly title. But I couldn't think of anything else for a flame that looks like a pile of fallen leaves turning into an amorphous monster and swooping up to devour you.

What, you don't think it looks like that? Well, that's okay, I guess. To each their own. But there is a general 'speed lines' sort of effect to this 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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Boiling planet

Uh oh...looks like somebody drifted a little close to their primary sun. Bye bye, atmosphere! Aside from the astronomy analogy (which I enjoy far, far too much), this flame is the wrong shape. Or at least, for this canvas. It really ought to be centered (mostly) on a square canvas fo the best effect.

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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Coral Garden

While there are things about this image that I don't like, the overall resemblance to coral and sponges and other underwater beasties wins out. This flame is a bit messy, especially over on the upper left. I think I'd need to mess around with the 'weights' a bit to get it to work. (Those of you who have used Apophysis will probably know what I'm talking about.)

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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Holes in the universe

I'd probably been reading a lot of sciencey stuff when I named this one. Or science-fiction, possibly. For whatever reason, this flame made me say 'three dimensional representation of a four dimensional phenomena; what kind?' And since there were hole-type thingies in there...Anyway, the mix of colors in this one is fun. They're all fairly muted, but they cover a pretty good slice of the rainbow.

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Dustbunny

This is what happens when magicians and mad scientists forget to do their housecleaning. The dustbunnies come alive, and start hunting, painting themselves with spilled strawberry milk mix and tang powder, and wearing little tiny tribal war masks. Soon they may escalate to stealing the cat's hair while it sleeps.

'Dustbunny' really has a lot of different things going on at once, maybe too many. I think it works okay, though, mostly because everything that's happening in the piece is passed through or wrapped around a central area.

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Babushka

Today's flame (and it's particularly flamey: huzzah for orange color schemes!) is one of the few that I've gone back and retitled. It was originally an 'abstract,' but I decided it had too much character to leave it like that. 'Babushka' means 'grandmother' in russian, as well as a kind of headscarf that russian grannies probably wear. This image reminded me of the illustrations of the grandmother in the storybook 'Babushka's Doll' by Patricia Polacco, hence the name. Something about the cheeks, I think.

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Something 10

Today we have another of the 'Something' series. (Here is the first one I posted) I quite like this one, for reasons I find myself unable to articulate. Maybe because it looks kind of tufty, and kind of like a fruit, and kind of like a seed, or maybe a flame, etc. etc...

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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Precious Metals

Ah, 'Precious Metals.' The flame that began my terrible addiction to gradient #209. It's a good gradient, really it is. But I used it far too often instead of learning to work with my own gradients or finding other good color schemes. You can see this color palette in Filigree, Conch, and Rusted Workings in the store, as well as in several posted to this blog. It's a little surprising how many different sets of colors can be pulled out of it, and it did at least teach me how to put the color I wanted on a specific section of a fractal. But I still wish I'd branched out a little more.

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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Plasma

Today's piece is an old one. Done in April of 2005, this is one of the last fractals I made using enforced symmetry. Symmetry is nice, but I've come to think that balanced asymmetry is more interesting. 'Plasma' is a good piece; it's one of my favorites out of my early work. But the symmetry deadens it just a bit.

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Chaotic Flare

I both really like this fractal and am subtly dissatisfied with it at the same time. I can't quite say why, either. Maybe it's the orange. Anyway, 'Chaotic Flare' is interesting mainly for the textures. The impression of the surface of something roiling and bubbling and reaching out wispy tendrils is pretty cool too, I suppose.

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Dueling Saxaphones

I am at a loss to explain how fractal saxaphonists ended up in this flame. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Hm. You know, it still seems like a good idea. 'Dueling Saxaphones' needs no other comment.

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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Spectrum Flow

This flame reminds me quite a bit of some of the video of lava flows I've seen on TV, with that kind of dip where the surface slides almost out of sight in a fold and then flows up again (Essentially I'm thinking of the stereotypical stock footage that the National Geographic channel always uses whenever they have a shred of an excuse). Just...more colorful. The shiny-bumpy texture and the slide through most of the rainbow are a fun combination. I tried this flame with a blander color palette, but it really needs the range of colors to shine.

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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Shipkiller, parts 1 and 2

This set of flames really needs to be seen together for full effect, so you get a double today. 'Shipkiller' and 'Shipkiller 2' are essentially the same fractal. As I recall, I only changed one variable and fiddled with the color a little bit between them. I wasn't even intending to make a set at the time, but I really liked the way it looked when you put the two of them together, so here they are.

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Shipkiller:

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Shipkiller 2:

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Vanishing Feathers

I really like the way that the colors, shape, and title of this piece work together. I'm always pleased when I can come up with an image that first, looks good, and second, can look like something with a little nudging. That moment of 'Oh, hey! It does look like...' is one of my favorite things about this art medium. 'Vanishing Feathers' is one of those images. I have to wonder what that poor bird is being sucked into, 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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Molten Wave

One of the interesting things about fractal flames is that more complexity is not always better. Some of the coolest pieces I've ever done have used just a couple fractal repeats. 'Molten Wave,' however, is definitely not simple. The smooth look of this flame comes from lots and lots of fractal repeats, just subtly different enough from each other to blend together. If you look at the larger versions of the image you can see faint lines inside the circle on the left and in the densest section next to it.

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Liftoff!

I have to grin every time I look at this fractal. 'Liftoff!' has a delightful sense of movement to it. I almost wish I could add sound effects to this: 'Pyew! Pyew! Whoooosh!' The lower half of the image does a fair impersonation of a body of water reflecting the objects above it, too.

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Galactic Abalone

This flame reminded me very strongly of the patterns you see on the inside of shellfish. Real mother of pearl is more of a pinkish color, but the texture seemed about right. The technique I used to make 'Galactic Abalone' is one I learned fairly recently.

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Inscriptions

At first glance, 'Inscriptions' appears to be symmetric both vertically and horizontally. It's not. Can you spot the difference? And no, it's not just that the upper and lower sections are colored differently. While you're trying to find the asymmetry, try thinking of the bottom half of the image as a sheet of perfectly flat water, reflecting a ceiling or wall. It'll be fun, trust me.

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