Picto Synthesis

The amazing portraits and characters from kjun & 97bzo were featured on the cover of Expose 3 this year.

This is a site to visit for a glimpse of the intricate details of their 3D models. Believe it or not, this is all 3D.

Boring3D is a nice little blog featuring a new computer graphics image every other day or so. The images are small, very imaginative and poetic.

If you want to catch up what you have been missing, check out the Boring 3D archives.

At the occasion of a recent Slashdot story about the POVRay competition, I came across the work of Gilles Tran.

What amazed me at  first was the incredible level of control over the creation process of Computer Graphics, especially considering they are all done with POVray. If you don't know POVray, just know that it would be an understatement to say it is user friendly. Using POVray is an extremely powerful way to make 3D images, but the amount of components and scripts to learn, and the lack of mainstream graphical interface for both composing and rendering scenes is a blessing as well as a curse.

As I browsed through the galleries, the sheer poetry of the images is what really stayed with me. The 'variations' gallery, for example, has a very surrealistic theme. Even the most realistic scenes have something poetic in them, like a flock of birds in the shape of a gigantic hand, or a concerto of streetlights above a busy street.

These galleries are a labyrinth of magnificent images, detailed tutorials and resources for fellow graphists available for free. To make it even better, most of the site is placed under a Creative Commons License.

It is comforting to see more and more sites embracing that idea.

When I first came across Kishars in Expose 1, I was amazed at the amount of details in the character. I just assumed most of the scene was digital painting - I was wrong. The work of Hyun Kyoung Up is actually made of incredibly detailed 3D models as displayed on his website.

Rendez-vous 3D, a french sister site to Renderosity is no more. The site closed soon after an announcement that sales of 3D items were no longer sufficient to make the site profitable.

It is always sad to see a site fold., especially one with a distinct identity and welcoming folks running it.

Hopefully, this will not be the last attempt at making a gathering place for french speaking enthousiasts about 3D graphics.

It has now become some sort of ritual. Come November, I wait impatiently to receive my copy of Spectrum and enjoy one of the best collection of Fantasy Art available..

This year was no exception. With this year’s edition, Spectrum 10: The Tenth Annual Collection of the Best in Contempoary Fantastic Art celebrates a decade of science fiction and fantasy illustrations.

Each year, artists submit their entries to a jury made of a small selection of their peers such as Rick Berry, Michael Whelan or Bob Eggleton. Their selection represent a view of some of the best artworks in book covers, comics, illustrations, figurines or statues. 

I received my first copy as a present from my brother. I bought the second copy as a present back to him. After that, I was hooked. finding the missing issues was dificult but not impossible thanks to eBay

This series is a must have, a reference for anyone interested in fantasy artwork, be it to study them or just enjoy watching them. each volume is a beautiful display of a variety of styles, from baroque paintings to colorful acylics or dark sketches.

The introduction to each book is an overview of the passed year. Like last yeat, I was surprised to see little mention of the growing part of digital medium in the selection. Digitial artworks were once limited to elaborate works using Bryce - chromes, geometric shapes, robotic figures - or mixed with oil or photographic elements. This year, some digital artworks have the same quality and feel as paintings (take Blendboy 2000 by Brian Despain for example).

Just as the Spectrum series is a brilliant demonstration that Fantasy and Science Fiction art is as legtimate as classical masterpieces, the growing part of digital artworks helps the recognition of computer aided art as an legitimate artform. For many of us, this seems like stating the obvious. Just think of what it would be like to create a Museum of Digital Arts and you will see how far we have yet to go.