art

[egypturnash]

After that crazy painterly picture of Sosael, I felt like doing more AI. Of course, I swung back to the reflexively hypercrisp thing it makes so easy.


(bandwidth: VCL)

I was at an utter loss for the title, until I looked in my LJ friends view and saw this post from postvixen. Ah, yes, "Numbers station"! The numbers were already present in the rough sketch I'd done a while back - this was the first thing I found when looking through my sketchbook, you see.

The background effects are mostly overlaid line blends; there's also some transparency mask stuff going on. I did a bunch of screengrabs while making this yesterday and today, and may put together a little tutorial on my AI workflow...

Amusingly, in the time between uploading it on DeviantArt and clicking on the 'upload finished, view it here' link, it'd already garnished two comments. Go figure. I guess smirky hypergraphic babes stand out like a sore thumb on the front page there.

[ PS. Not approved on Epilogue: "composition needs work". Whatever. ]

Comments

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

""Hmmm. I wonder if I could get a Puzzlebox character out of that.""

Seriously, a) how much do you know about numbers stations, and b) do you realize how much mysterious groups of numbers press my psychological buttons? It's not quite a fetish, but it's not just an intellectual fascination, either... Any speculation on what this one's about, who the figure is, or what the numbers "mean"?

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Mostly I know they exist. I've never actually gone to the effort of tuning in to one.

All I know for sure about this drawing is that it was done at the same furry party I did that drawing of Grace at. The original sketch had a few ten-digit random numbers floating on the far right, at about the height of her head. I'm not sure why I'd put them there; I might have been thinking of Add N To X's song Large Number, or I might not.

Mysterious numbers just belong with this image. But not Matrix-y cascading numbers.

The mysterious numbers have always seemed like a cloak-and-dagger thing to me, and she certainly has a sultry knowing smirk. She's standing around in mist, she's surrounded by numbers, she's smoking a cigarette... something's going on there, probably something a little bad.

And why the halo around her head? (Well, to set it off better.) The long nearly-white robe is almost angelic. And all the jiggly business of the background, contrasted with her serene calm. She's waiting for someone. Maybe you.

9:20. Press [return].

[liquid-memories.livejournal.com]

When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun, so once when I was six, I did. At first the brightness was overwhelming, but I had seen that before. I kept looking, forcing myself not to blink, and then the brightness began to dissolve. My peoples shrunk to pinholes and everything came into focus and for a moment I understood.

11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.

You want to find the number 216 in the world, you will be able to find it everywhere. 216 steps from a mere street corner to your front door. 216 seconds you spend riding on the elevator. When your mind becomes obsessed with anything, you will filter everything else out and find that thing everywhere. But Max, as soon as you discard scientific rigor, you are no longer a mathematician. You become a numerologist.

12:30, Press [return].

884509627386359275033751967
943067599621731590401694134
434007629683591574337516791
197615733475195375920401694
343151239621353184932676605
800621596380716399501371459
954387507655892533875618750
354029981152863950711207613.

There will be no order, only chaos.

Re: 9:20. Press [return].

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that movie did things to me. Bad math, good plot, great numbers. :)

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

I think about half of my recent submissions were not approved for Epilogue. >.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

"Unrefined or lack of detail"? all images must be painted with the digital equivalant of a #000 brush!

[pobig.livejournal.com]

Gotta watch out for those comment collection agencies. Let too many months go by without a comment, and bam, there they go, garnishing you left and right.

[medox.livejournal.com]

Love the color combination! And I really dig the compostion -- it feels very 1960's graphic design-y. Which works perfectly with the whole mysterious vibe of the piece. Beautiful.

[fourprint.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's what it makes me think of! That sort of "1970s architectural" style (I associate it with municipal documents and architectural renderings of that era, but that's just me). Lowercase Helvetica everything and Letratone textures. It doesn't have the contour-drawing outlined look, but the colours and textures, yes...

[hydra-velsen.livejournal.com]

Great piece, but I can't look at it before 10 am!

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Something's happened to your art.
Something subtle...

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This one was affected mostly by laziness, I think:

I feel like doing more Illustrator crap.
What will I use? Let me flip through my sketchbook.
Oh, here's something decent...
*scan* *lay down paths*
Needs a better background. Huh. I saw that interesting thing on DA, I forget where, where the guy said he did nothing but lines, lemme try that... huh, controlling blends is harder than I think... this isn't working... neither's this... maybe a big angular window-shadow thing? hey, why not do the window-shadow thing as hatching? okay.

But if you see something more meaningful going on, I'd love to know!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

Outside you made yourself a ghost?

Nothing, really... :')

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This image wasn't intended as a self-portrait... I just draw smirky evil women sometimes!

[kensan-oni.livejournal.com]

I admit, it's the hair. It's just so your hair. :')

[mutleyjames.livejournal.com]

Let me think on it.
It's just something....different.