Originally done in September 2004.


I took quite a lengthy hiadis between Tao and Ages. Actually Ages was a mistake if that is possible to define it as such. It was nothing more than a lunch break tinker. This entire piece took only one hour to complete from the ground up. Original planet, original starfield, original everything.

Ages garnered a lot of requests for a tutorial on my methods for planet creation. After talks with Greg concerning the detrimental effects of tutorialization and cookie cutter work being done in the genre. (which was the reason for the hiadis to begin with. I was frustrated with the lack of inginuity in the genre. Mostly it was kids grabbing a ripped copy of Photoshop from the internet and following a few tutorials to be cool and nothing more. Most of which have moved out of the fad and moved on but there are a few left, I find, that still for the most part have this same mindset but are getting plenty of attention so they stay fed. To my disappointment. Several of the pros felt the same and thus little interaction has become the norm for several of them. The genre has become a stepping stone and in those regards it has lost a bit of it's original flare.) /end rant.

Through conversation with Alyn and Greg I finally decided to simply release a walk-through of the Ages process. As expected it got mixed reviews. Some took to the mindset I had hoped would not surface and blasted the walk through as trivial and not clearly defining my method which I refused to do from the beginning and even stated as such in the description. Others it seemed were able to pull from it the loads of information that were hidden between the lines so to speak and gleened from it what they would. It was those comments that affirmed I had done the right thing.

Hmm... it seems I'm ranting more about the pros and cons of this genre and the ultimate effect it had on me rather than discussing this piece. My apologies.

Ages is a staple of my gallery to me personally. I did some intricate things in the work and kept it minimal. I always enjoyed the minimal approach as it laid bare the idea without overwhelming the eye. I'm still drawn to the simple ones more so than the extravagant and large images. Large, flashy and colorful never means sound illustration and in such I've tried to remain simple in approach.

-absolute halo-




EDIT:

Holy Crap!!! I've been busy and away for the past few days and I check back in and find a ludicrous amount of attention on this piece. I visit the piece and find that it has recieved a Daily Deviation. Thank you to Zebravissimo for the suggestion and Aeires for featuring it. And to all who have viewed the work and found my vision as I saw it. Thank you.