Dec 21

Gorgeous photo from unlit side of Saturn’s rings

Good stuff, art No Comments »

This photograph from Cassini is simply amazing.

This is from here -

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=2348

Amid an archive of many other amazing new images of Saturn.

Here is the full resolution .jpg of that image:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA08304.jpg

Dec 20

Attack of the Five Year Olds

Awful Stuff, blather No Comments »

21

This is factoring that they are five year olds and deserve a bit of mercy. If they were all zombie or vampire five year olds, forget it, no mercy - they’re goners in their state - I could take on 40 or 50. If it happened. Okay, I don’t have any proof, and it’s all theoretical anyway.

But I could take ‘em on. Yeah. I’m tough. I have this badge here to prove it.

Dec 14

Planet Z (3D Studio Max Render).

Books, art 1 Comment »

I modeled and textured (and lit - which was difficult) this invented planet. I’ve long thought that green should be/is the primary color for exuding, uh.. coolness.. awesomeness.. awe.. in space. So I made this planet green.

Hmm.. I wonder if that idea didn’t have to do with The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, where, if I remember, two kids fly to a decidedly green planet. I love the illustrations in that book. I’m going to my library and xeroxing them. Er.. looking.. at them. There seems to be a reprint out with a cover that is too comic, IMO. Although it is in the comic style of the era. Maybe I’m just biased to what I read as a kid.

Oh, duh. It was inspired by this. Well, many people have thought of green planets.

Oh yeah. I made this green ringed planet here. If you like it feel free to put it on your computer’s “desktop”. The thumbnails link to larger.. er.. huge.. images (1680 x 1050). Tell me what you think. There’s also a smaller one I did inline here trying to composite with a Terragen image I made. Not sure that one fully worked out.

Here’s a link to the same, with attempted enlargement and noise/retouching to make it look originally at 1024 x 768 (the Terragen 2 preview only lets me render the terrain I composited this into at 800 x 600 :( )

I composited these last two in Photoshop, using a “darken” mask to make the sky eliminate the black shadows on the planet and rings.