Dark As The Grave - Eerie digital art

My participation in the Artify threads in the dslreports.com Digital Imaging forum has occasionally inspired me to show my darker side. Here are some examples.

Georgetown Steps (Bloody Edit)

Park Bench (Eyes In The Dark Edit)

Greenhouse (Horror Film Edit)

Children On Beach (Creepshow Edit)

Wasp (Alien Edit)

I did not take the original photos from which these were made. However, all "artification" was done by me. I did not indicate the steps I took to create these, but I would be happy to answer specific questions.

This is how I earned the name Fractalman - Part 4

I am working on gathering some music news. In the meantime, I thought everyone might enjoy a few more of my fractals. These were done with Iterations in 2006.

I've Got My Eye On You

Fracture 2

Time To Fly

All of these were enhanced with PhotoShop. To my knowledge, Stephen Ferguson abandoned Iterations several years ago. Thus, I'd be happy to e-mail a copy to anyone who leaves there e-mail address in the comment section. I'll warn you that there is a bit of a learning curve, but you can do quite a lot with it once you learn the interface.

You might notice that 2 of the 3 fractals indicate copyright to Endeavour Experiment in the bottom right. That is my musical identity. Actually, Endeavour is the musical identity. The experiment included music and fractals. More on Endeavour at a later date.

This is how I earned the name Fractalman - Part 3

Today, I thought I'd share another handful of fractals with you. These were all done with Iterations back in 2000 and 2001.

Alien Sport

To me, this looks like an alien kicking something. Hence, the name Alien Sport.

Obsidian

Gamers out there might be familiar with the PC game called Obsidian. Unfortunately, it came out just after Myst and did not receive the attention that it should have received. The graphics and game play are far superior to the original release of Myst. This fractal reminded me of something that could be created by nanobots. Since nanobots created the Obsidian universe, I gave it that name.

Anchor

A mystical glowing anchor splashing down into the water.

Atlas II

For those that are curious, yes, there is an Atlas I. It may appear in a later post. This sort of reminds me of a topography map.

Palm Sunset

Fractal palms and colors of a sunset. Iterations is not a fractal plant generator. ;^)

Pastel Dawn

A rainbow of color appears over a silhouette treeline.

Microbe

Something you might see under a microscope.

Taking Root

These roots appear to be firmly planted in the sky.

Fish - A Tribute to Chris Squire

Well, he had to get that fat fillet-O-Fish bass sound from somewhere! The bass, not used to being out of the water for so long, died. Chris ate it for lunch. {chuckle}

Fracture

For some reason, King Crimson came to mind when I saw this image. Thus, I named it after their song Fracture.

I apologize for the low resolution. These were done on a Pentium 233 --That's right, a 233MHz machine! I still have the files that Iterations generates with the image. So, I can reproduce them at much higher resolution at a later date.

Frank Zappa alumnus forms the next supergroup!

Wow! A Frank Zappa alumnus! Who could it be? Warren Cuccurullo? No. Terry Bozzio? No. Steve Vai? No.

Need a hint?

He played with Roxy Music and Jethro Tull.

Still not sure?

Well, it's keyboard and electric violin extraordinaire Eddie Jobson!

The new band is called UKZ. The band also includes bassist, Warr guitarist, and Chapman Stick player Trey Gunn!



More to come . . .

The Bravery - Euro Rock from an American band!

The Bravery, like many "naturally" formed bands, was born in 2003 by combining musicians from 3 different sources. The 2 founding members, Sam Endicott and John Conway, had played with several different bands through college. While they were living in New York, they placed an advertisement for a guitarist in the newspaper. They got a 2 for 1 deal when Michael Zakarin answered the advertisement and brought bassist Mike Hindert with him. These 4 musicians were introduced to drummer Anthony Burulcich by mutual friends from the New York band Bishop Allen. The band played their first gig at the Stinger Club in Brooklyn in November 2003.


Being more of a Euro Rock band, The Bravery moved to London in late 2004. From there, they toured the UK, France and Holland. Their debut, self-titled album was released in February 2005.


I can see why The Killers were jealous of this band! In my opinion, they're better than The Killers! Bassist Mike Hindert, though he certainly has his own style, reminds me of original Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes. His playing is very melodic. Yet, he keeps the rhythm section cohesive as well. Founding member and keyboard player, John Conway, adds great atmosphere and electronica style melodies to their music. Guitarist Michael Zakarin is great with rhythmic and melodic roles. He does some innovative work on the first album, a couple short, but blistering and tight guitar solos on the Sun version of the second album, and some great acoustic work on the Sun version of the second album. Anthony Burulcich certainly seems to be an ample drummer. Not having heard the band live, except for a few performances on late night talk shows, I don't think I've heard Anthony's full potential. In fact, I think it's safe to say that I haven't heard The Bravery's full potential period. Nevertheless, their debut album and The Sun And The Moon are definitely worthy additions to anyone's rock collection.

Focusing more on The Sun And The Moon for a moment, I like both versions of the album. Oh! Did I forget to mention that explicitly? Yes, that album is available as a 2 CD set. The same songs are on both CDs and in the same order. However, the second CD is quite different from the first. Where the first is very guitar oriented with bass and keyboard taking somewhat of a back seat, the second is much more rhythm oriented. In other words, bass, keyboard and occasionally drums are more prominent. If the album had to be released as a single CD, I would say to keep the acoustic songs from the Sun side, combine the styles for several of the tracks, and include both the Sun and Moon versions of Believe.

As far as influences, without reading them from other sources, I'd say that bands like Simple Minds, U2, Duran Duran, The Cure, and even --believe it or not-- The Clash played a big role. Although I have ZERO experience in the studio as a producer, working with a band like The Bravery would be a dream come true for me. I would love to be heavily involved with the making of their next album. Being a musician myself (although not professional) and a huge fan of Euro Rock --especially Progressive Rock--, I think I could pull the very best out of everyone in The Bravery and make their third album a very memorable one indeed. OK. I woke up from the dream now. Man, that would be awesome though!

If you have and like The Bravery's debut album, go out and buy The Sun And The Moon Complete (2 CD set). You won't be disappointed!

Turning a digital photo into digital art - Part 2

Now that Saga has a new lead vocalist, I find the final product for this edition of Turning A Digital Photo Into Digital Art a perfect way to celebrate!

The main component of this "artified" digital photo is a photo taken by Cabana. It was quite nicely cleaned up by Camare.


The photo was taken in Berlin and the prominent damaged building in the foreground is Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.

The next component can also be found in Germany. It's Einstein Tower located in Potsdam, Germany.


Germany is significant with regard to Saga because that is where they have the largest fan base. That fact and the cover of their album Images At Twilight is what inspired the finished product below.

But wait! There are more components to this complex work of digital art! No art inspired by Saga is complete without one of the many variations of the Saga "bug"!

The final component is the moon.

Those of you who are fans of Saga will realize that I have used items that inspired both the Silent Knight cover and the Images At Twilight cover as components in my final product.

Without further ado, here it is:

Best viewed full size! (click image)

"How did I do it?" you ask. This one was complicated. As I recall, I worked on the Einstein Tower first. I started by adding 3 stories to it. This was accomplished by taking a very precise slice of the 2 middle stories. Then, cutting that slice in half for the third story addition. After that, I carefully masked out the top of the tower. Next, I stacked the 3 stories together taking care to align them as precisely as possible. After aligning them, I put the top back on the tower and removed any jagged edges. This was quite a challenge because the front sides of the tower aren't simply flat vertical lines. I then changed the orientation of the tower so that I could insert it into the left side of the final product. The next to last steps were changing the color of the tower and adding a lighting effect. The final step in editing the tower was masking out the background so that I could pull the tower from the image.

The other components were a bit easier to prepare. I had to mask the bug from the Images At Twilight cover and resize it as needed. I borrowed the photo of the moon from another digital photographer on the dslreports.com site. Sorry. I don't remember who so I can't give appropriate credit. I made some minor adjustments to it and changed the opacity so that the background color showed through a bit. Oh! I nearly forgot! In placing the Einstein Tower into the final product, I masked out the buildings that appear to be in front of it. Then, I put them in a separate layer so they would cover the bottom section of the tower. The final touches were changing the color of the sky using "selective color" and adding a lighting effect for the background.

The new voice of Saga: Rob Moratti

Funnily enough, Saga found their new vocalist just 2 days after my first Saga post. No wonder no-one signed the petition! It would have been a very cool way for Saga to get some much needed publicity though. It's truly unfortunate that Saga is nearly unknown in the U.S. --at least to 99.9% of people under 35. If Rush is the king of Canadian prog rock bands, Saga is certainly a prince!


So, just who is Rob Moratti anyway? At the moment, there's relatively little reliable information on the internet except the Final Frontier page on myspace.com, the news on the official Saga site, and the interview (linked above) on the AOR Dream Zones site. Assuming the birth date on the latter site is correct, Rob is nearly a year younger than me! It seems that he released 2 albums under his name and 4 albums with Final Frontier. Though his voice is noticeably different from Michael Sadler's, I do see great potential for him as the new Saga lead vocalist. I am looking forward to hearing his unique contributions to Saga's music; both new and old.

Related Articles: Saga is seeking new vocalist, New Releases - June 2009

Close To The Edge And Back tour cancelled

The summer 2008 tour has, regretfully, been cancelled due to Jon's recent respiratory attack. His doctors have told him that he needs at least 6 months of rest in order to avoid further health complications.


While it is disappointing news, Jon and the rest of Yes aren't spring chickens anymore. Thus, it is important that they focus on their health even if it means disappointing millions of fans. We can hope that they are all well enough to hit the studio and do a little touring in 2009. That will be their official 40th anniversary anyway as the band released their first album in 1969.

To show gratitude for Jon's 45+ year musical career, I'd like to create a "get well" card. You may "sign" the card by leaving a comment in this post. The tentative deadline is July 1.

Related post: Yes 2008 Close To The Edge And Back Tour