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Old images
3 February 2012 • permalink

Today I added to the gallery three images that I did back in the mid 1990s: Arctic spikes, Intruders detected, Sunset flight. They are all low resolution (640x386 pixels) and were done in the first version of Bryce. At that time I had a Mac, a Performa 5200 with 12MB of RAM and a 75Mhz 603 PPC CPU, which was much faster at 3D rendering than the equivalent Pentium. The fast CPU was actually the main reason why I bought a Mac instead of an Amiga. Initially I wanted to buy another Amiga with the new MC68060 CPU but they were too expensive and not as fast for rendering. All in all, the Mac was a good buy although the operating system was quite unstable.

Cosmic vista
18 January 2012 • permalink

I start the new year with a space artwork. I actually wanted to do a space landscape with an icy or snowy terrain, but as you can see, I ended up doing something different. The snowy terrain idea will have to wait for later use. By the way, I have added a few more mousepads to my Zazzle store.

One And All - new space video
17 December 2011 • permalink

To end the year with a nice collection of my recent and other popular space artwork, I made this video with the music from the latest Anosphere album. The track is called One And All and so is the video. You can watch the video on youtube as well. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

New mugs
10 December 2011 • permalink

I have added many new mugs to my Zazzle store. Available in multiple colors and sizes, even in frosted glass! Dishwasher and microwave safe. You can choose which type you prefer in the easy to use selection menu. Ideal for drinking your favorite beverages. (Mine is water by the way).

200 light years away
29 November 2011 • permalink

In September 2011 it was announced that Nasa's Kepler telescope discovered a planet orbiting two suns. The planet lies some 200 light years from Earth. This inspired me to do this view from a planet orbiting around two stars that are pretty far apart. Original rendering resolution: 12000 x 7754 pixels.

New mousepads in the store
25 November 2011 • permalink

I have added many new mousepads to my Zazzle store. They look great and the quality is outstanding. I have been using them myself and have given some to my friends and they love it.

By the way, one really cool feature that Zazzle has recently added to the store is the ability so see how a poster or framed print looks like in different rooms with different wall colors. You can even upload a photo of your own room to see how well an image will work in your room. This is really neat!

For international orders just select the country you prefere to order from: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea, UK, USA.

Drifting Planes II
20 November 2011 • permalink

A new lovely addition to the Drifting Planes series of vibrant colors and forms interwoven in rectangular motion.

A few days ago I bought a new 2TB WD external harddrive. It's hard to believe how much space there is on it. I still remember when I got my first 30Mb harddrive for my Amiga back in the early 1990s. That was so exciting. I could load the OS from it really fast and store so many files. It was a huge improvement over a floppy.

Anyway, after partitioning and formatting the new 2TB harddrive, I set windows to check and fix all partitions for errors. This took about 6 hours... Then I had to copy all my files from my old 0.5TB harddrive which took about 7 hours because I have so many small files. And I couldn't copy all files at once from one partition to another because windows can't figure this out - after several minutes of preparing to copy it said: too many files (cancel). So I had to copy the files over several steps. But now, everything works fine and the new harddrive mounts faster and doesn't get as warm as the older one, which I will now use for backup.

Ancient stars
8 November 2011 • permalink

Ancient stars, a big moon, and a calm afternoon on foggy shores... a perfect vacation destination.

Some people have asked me about the 2012 calendar. Unfortunately I won't be doing a calendar this year. Due to the state of economy and very slow sales it is not worth the time and effort. I keep doing images because they help keep me going by nourishing the spirit.

Synergy
25 October 2011 • permalink

The interaction of elements that when combined produce a total effect that is greater than the sum of the individual elements.

Due to the sad state of economy, I have been wondering lately what is more worthwhile: 1) increase artistic output, thus more frequent updates with new artwork, or 2) focus more on promotional activities which will pay off once the economy will get better.

Actually I have been doing the first option for some time now. And now I'm thinking about shifting focus to the second option. There will still be regular updates with new artwork but not as frequent.

A million stars
16 October 2011 • permalink

globular cluster seen from a planet - space artwork

A view from a hypothetical planet near a globular cluster of stars. A typical cluster contains over 100,000 stars but can contain several million stars - billions of years older than the Sun. In the Milky Way galaxy there are currently over 150 known globular clusters. Most of them are located in a halo surrounding our galaxy.

Strata
8 October 2011 • permalink

Strata is the third piece in an ongoing series of abstract renderings of the primordial. Lately I noticed that the more abstracts I do the more I enjoy the genre. There is so much freedom of expression... the unlimited possibility for exploring this largely uncharted visual dimension makes it even more exciting to work with. It is also more forgiving. When I'm low in creative energy I turn to abstract work, and something good always comes up and that lifts my spirit.

Desert moons
28 September 2011 • permalink

two moons above a desert space landscape

In the two previous space artworks there has been plenty of snow and ice, so I though about doing a space landscape of a dry and hot desert environment. At first I actually made a green sky with some funky colors and patterns on the rocky terrain. That looked unusual and kind of cool, but it was not what I wanted. So I remade the sky with blue tones, and made the terrain colors more desert like for this otherworldly landscape.

Deep time
24 September 2011 • permalink

I have been listening to Landmass by Steve Roach while preparing to put this new abstract online. It is a great ambient album. Somewhat different from his older work, and it's hard to describe the music. It has a metaphysical feel to it, a sort of quantum physics meets shamanism...

Anyway, for the past couple of years I have been experimenting with acrylic painting. If the economy doesn't get too bad I will start offering original acrylic paintings on canvas. Not sure how soon, as there is a lot of stuff I need to sort out first, but I'll let you know as soon as I have anything ready.

Cosmic sunset
18 September 2011 • permalink

A sunset in a snowy space vista with a nebula

A sunset over snowy space vista with a grand nebula above the horizon. It's been a while since I did any nebula work so I thought about doing one for this far away space landscape. Lately I started doing landscapes with a snowy or icy surface because that contrasts nicely with the dark sky. The blue frozen surface on the ground is also something new that I'd like to explore more in my future work. Original size: 7484 x 5100 pixels with a total of 397309 unique colors in the picture.

Red Moon Chronicle interview
28 August 2011 • permalink

I have been interviewed by Wayne Gerard Trotman at Red Moon Chronicle. Wayne is a British author, filmmaker, artist, photographer, composer and producer of electronic music. We talk about digital art, my learning process, my favorite artwork, and other interesting matters. Make sure to check other interviews at the Red Moon Chronicle as well, which include the highly respected sci-fi artists like Syd Mead and Chris Moore!

Snowy vista
10 June 2011 • permalink

Snowy vista is the latest addition to the ever growing space gallery. A tranquil view of a snowy landscape on one of the planets in the vast universe.

Another news is that Zazzle, the print on demand store I use, is well on its way to world domination, as it has opened online stores in even more countries around the world. So if you live in one of these countries, and I know many of my regular visitors do, ordering can't be more convenient: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea, UK, USA.

The explorer
19 April 2011 • permalink

The surreal gallery has been updated with a new addition: The explorer. Every person is an explorer of his own life. Sometimes one ventures into areas of experience or understanding that are entirely different from every day existence. Such explorations expand the perception of reality.

I rendered this image at the highest resolution ever: 12000 x 8177 pixels. I could go much higher but images so large are very heavy to work with.

Mekanika
8 April 2011 • permalink

A new abstract has been added to the gallery. Mekanika is the first one done on the new monitor and it looks sharp.

I've been adjusting the monitor settings even more and ended up not using the monitor profile that my calibration device created. Just setting my monitor to sRGB mode actually gives better results than using the calibrated profile. If I only started with that it would have saved me few days of hassle...

New Eizo monitor
4 April 2011 • permalink

My CRT Samsung monitor, which I have been using for the past 7 years, started to flicker recently and sometimes made some buzzing sounds. So I decided it was time to buy a new LCD monitor. After few days of research I ordered an Eizo ColorEdge CG223W at the cost of $1700. The ColorEdge line from Eizo is specifically made for professionals who work with images. I calibrated and profiled the monitor to ensure color accuracy and am happy with it. The only thing that bothers me is that some of my images now look too saturated. Actually everything looks more saturated and some of my images have color saturation that is unacceptably high. I'm not sure if that's because LCDs in general produce brighter and more saturated colors, or perhaps it's simply the old annoyance that all monitors display colors a bit differently. But it sure is nice to have more space on a wide screen :)

UPDATE (2011-04-05): I did some more calibration and profiling and arrived at an almost ideal configuration. Everything is still a bit more saturated compared to my CRT monitor, but the colors are more consistent now and the images on-screen are practically identical to their printed versions - which is the most important thing. Now I can sleep better :)

Fantastic Visions - new art video
6 March 2011 • permalink

Since Cosmic Voyage is such a great success with over 32 000 views on YouTube, I decided to make a new and better video showcasing my artwork. It took me about a week to create, and despite long rendering times it was great fun to make. I rendered a few animations based on some of my 3D images and included them in the video. To spice things up a bit I also did a few cool effects - as an extra eye candy boost :) The wonderful music was composed by Anosphere.

It was fun to make but the whole process reminded me why I don't do animations. The rendering time takes forever. Just to give you an example, the first animation sequence in the video, the one with the "Fantastic Visions" sign, is only 15 seconds long but took over 12 hours to render at 640 x 480 resolution on my 3Ghz dual core CPU. Then I always need to tweak something and start rendering again... Fortunately the other 3D scenes didn't take that long. May you enjoy this one :) You can see the video on YouTube as well.

Cheerful structure
8 February 2011 • permalink

I finished this abstract a couple of days ago. It was real fun to make with all the vibrant colors and angular structures. I find such colors uplifting to look at :) I have been thinking about doing some distinct 3D abstracts but somehow never got around to it. Maybe next time. I also got a couple of ideas for new surreal images. So the surreal gallery should have a new addition soon.

Starry isles
29 January 2011 • permalink

I start the year 2011 with a late space evening on a faraway planet...

Over the years I learned how to minimize 3D rendering time without sacrificing the visual quality of the image. Whenever possible I construct my 3D images in such a way that the final hi-res rendering time is rarely over two hours. But this one is heavy on refraction and transparency and some of the textured surfaces looked so jaggy with standard anti-aliasing settings that I had to increase it to the highest available. This obviously greatly increased the rendering time: from 16 minutes to over 10 hours at 7200 x 4096 pixels on my 3GHz dual core CPU, but it was worth it :)

Free wallpapers update
11 December 2010 • permalink

The free computer wallpapers page has not been updated for at least few years, so I thought about adding two additional wallpapers. They are Stellar vista from the space gallery (which currently ranks as the 3'rd most popular image from all galleries) and X2 flight from the Sci-Fi gallery. On a second thought, perhaps I should start rotating some of the free wallpapers on a regular basis?

Digital frames are becoming increasingly popular and eventually large sizes will become affordable. Which is yet another reason why I should reconsider selling wallpapers again. Anyway, I hope these two additions to the free wallpapers page will make your computing experience more enjoyable :)

New abstract art: Tranquil evening
27 November 2010 • permalink

abstract waves of colorful and tranquil impressions

Impressions of a tranquil sunset suspended in memory. A simplified design that proved more satisfying than what I originally intended.

You can save on shipping costs in my Zazzle store: free shipping on orders of $50 or more. A great way to save on Christmas online shopping. Just Use Code: FREESHIPFORU. Offer is valid from October 16, 2010 through December 31, 2010 at 11:59pm PT. Your order must be placed during that time to qualify for this special offer. You can read about the details of the offer here.

New space artwork: Distant system
10 November 2010 • permalink

Space landscape with a Saturn like planet

I was watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos documentary, and there is a beautiful galaxy in one of the episodes which inspired me to do this space landscape. Initially I painted a large galaxy above the landscape. Unfortunately the galaxy looked different (terrible) on the LCD screen I have here at home (I use CRT for all art work) and even tweaking the colors did not help. I got discouraged and decided to do a large Saturn like planet instead. Nevertheless I'm quite happy with the final result.

New abstract: Camo
25 October 2010 • permalink

Just added a new abstract creation to the gallery. A result of a brief, but direct input from the source: Camo

By the way, Zazzle has a 50% off 2-day shipping promotion to U.S. addresses. Use code: SNEAKUPGRADE for 50% off 2-day shipping and get your order before Halloween! Ends Tuesday at 3PM PT!

They also have another offer with free shipping on orders of $50 or more! Just Use Code: FREESHIPFORU. Offer is valid from October 16, 2010 through October 31, 2010 at 11:59pm PT. Your order must be placed during that time to qualify for this special offer. You can read about the details of both offers here.

New space art: Far away
16 October 2010 • permalink

Far away took me one day longer to do than I estimated. There was some quite noticeable color banding in one area of the image that was difficult to eliminate. I tried every trick I know of, but none worked well enough. In the end I re-rendered the 3D parts of the image in a different way and did some of the haze in 2D. It all ended up working better than I expected.

15 Years Online and Birthday Sale!
12 October 2010 • permalink

After surfing the web for over a year I decided to establish a personal existence in cyberspace. So at the end of 1995 I started learning HTML. Back then things were much simpler online so my first website consisted of just a single page with few of my images. As my HTML skills improved I eventually expanded the site to several pages. And this is how the Sci-Fi gallery looked like until 1997 :)

To celebrate this anniversary I offer a 20% discount on posters and framed prints until the end of October. So, whether you need new artwork to hang on your wall, or a nice gift for a friend, see what my store has to offer.

With any luck, there will be a "30 years online!" update in the year 2025, which is only 6 years after the Blade Runner movie took place. Will we see genetically engineered organic robots and flying cars by 2025? Sounds too soon to me, but I suppose it could happen by the "60 years online" update :)

The effect of the recession...
3 October 2010 • permalink

Yesterday I have been looking at my statistics from the last few years. Although the recession made a huge impact on the numbers, there are other disturbing trends.

Since the recession started, my traffic gradually declined from an average of 2500 visitors a day to 1300. My sales suffered the most and my overall online income went down to about 20%. While the frequency of image commeting went down from an average of 23 a month to 8, the comment spam increased several hundred percent. And the click through rate of my email updates has been steadily declining and is now 5-8%.

On the positive side, few of my important keyword rankings went up considerably. And interestingly, although Suburbs 2100 is my most popular image throughout the years, Planet scape continues to be a best seller even during the recession. Overall however, the numbers are depressing. Yet, based on what I hear from other artists, things could have been much worse...

Cyberian flight
25 September 2010 • permalink

SciFi retro illustration with two vessels and landscape

It's been a while since I added any new artwork to the scifi gallery so I thought of making a new addition. Back in 1996 I did a rendering called "On the patrol". Since I like the idea of scout vessels patrolling snowy terrain I decided to do something similar: Cyberian flight. Two vessels on a reconnaissance mission gathering intelligence data.

On another note, few people have asked me why they don't always receive my email updates. The most likely explanation is spam filters. Adding my email address to your contact list in your email client should help. As an alternative you can subscribe to my RSS feed instead. The content of the updates is the same, I just offer two different delivery methods.

Featured Artist of the day!
21 September 2010 • permalink

Today I received a very nice email from Imagekind:

"Congratulations! You have been selected as the Featured Artist of the day at Imagekind.com! Imagekind is the fastest growing online art site and it is our privilege to showcase your work as being outstanding amidst a field of so many other great artists and photographers."

Thank you ImageKind! This is the second time I have been selected :) You can see a list of Featured Artists of the day here. Imagekind is one of the largest online communities for buying and selling art from thousands of unique and independent artists around the world. I've sold much of my artwork through them and can only recommend them!

The Cosmic Voyage update
17 September 2010 • permalink

It turns out that the Cosmic Voyage video I did last year is becoming increasingly popular on YouTube. In fact it is now one of the most popular space art videos and has already been seen over 21 000 times! The second most popular of my videos is Future Visions with over 16 000 views. I have other videos on YouTube but they are not nearly as popular. Perhaps it's the timing of transitional effects and the music that makes all the difference?

On another note, I updated the mugs section in my store. To simplify things there are now two mugs: colorful and standard. And they are black on the inside to minimize the possible visibility of stains :)

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Cosmic vista

Top images

The most popular images during the past 365 days:

   1. Planet scape
   2. Cosmic shores of the subconscious
   3. Distant system
   4. Endless opposites
   5. Stellar vista
   6. Cosmic awareness
   7. Singular ambience
   8. The executioner
   9. Psychedelic dimensions
   10. Edge of perception

New comments

Dawid Michalczyk:
@dale Thanks. I do not sell CDs with my work due to piracy concerns.

dale_wright:
Your images are incredible, to say the least. Would it be possible to obtain a CD of Surreal. I would love to purchase these if not to incredible if t... (more)

Sangeetha:
Amazing..:)

lincolm:
something never before seen pictures somewhere but put a compelling world, I can say that his art is "encantadora".

damien:
it look’s just like the skin of truffle ( an underground mushroom )

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