@Jansu
Brandon Ballenger

Incandescent Desert Cave
Incandescent Desert Cave by @Jansu (Brandon Ballenger)

Haven't had anything to post in a while. Haven't worked on a lot, lacking in creativity most of the time. Lacking in desire to work on anything, especially not having internet at home right now. I really don't have the desire to sit in front of my home computer for any length of time at all these days.

But in any case, this was something I randomly whipped up a couple nights ago. I'm really falling in love with fingerpainting in Photoshop, I think. This is nothing but fingerpainting. I really enjoy blending colors and shaping things that way.

I'm really not sure on the brightness. On my home monitor it looked fine, but when I was uploading it I thought it looked pretty dark and you couldn't see any of the "outside" or the figure at the entrance. So I brightened it a bit. I didn't want to brighten it too much, because it's not like anything is well defined, especially the "outside" part of it.

I really was just playing around and mixing colors in swirls, and part of the image stayed that way (bottom center), but then I was kind of shaping it into points on the right side and I thought it made a cool rock formation, and so I continued on with it, switching colors quite a bit and mixing them together and making them glow here and there. The center rounded shapes are pools, though I made no effort to give the water definition. The figure doesn't reflect the lighting in any way, and I didn't really have any reason for adding him in. I just did. Pretty random. The outside hint of dunes and a mountain in the night came last when I was playing with blending darker colors.

Category:
Rating:
Everyone
Class:
Finished Work
Submitted:
20y18d ago
Tags:
None
Other Work By @Jansu

Comments & Critiques (4)

Preferred comment/critique type for this content: Any Kind

Posted: Friday, 22 October, 2004 @ 03:53 PM

This is so nifty! It does look like you have a lot of fun with your fingerpainting in Photoshop! It's really neat how you're able to create stuff like this without any premade lineart or anything like that... The bright, irridescent colors of the cave really jump out at you! The different shades of purple and the pastel-y blues are particularly beautiful... Much of the picture is really soft and not too defined, but I really love how "real" the swirls in the bottom center and especially the rock formation in the lower right looks. They almost seem like they were sculpted from Play-Doh or something!

This place actually seems kind of dream-like with the bright colors and lack of definition... I don't think I noticed the figure and the shapes in the darkness when you first showed it to me, but they make a nice touch. It's neat how the figure does reflect the colors in the cave. Never would've guessed that there were pools in there, though... ^^;;; Though now that I look at the ground, I can see that's what it is... ^^;;

I'm not sure what else to say, except that you have such a great imagination for really neat backgrounds! ^-^ Hope you get more inspired soon!

Posted: Monday, 25 October, 2004 @ 06:28 PM

Hmmm...ahh....wow. Okay, I think the contrast between the cave interior & the outside landscape is what makes this image great. Without the contrasting colors and images, it would seem more like a colorful doodle. But what we have here is a story. Here's what it feels like to me.

The desert at night isn't necessarily threatening, but it is cold, lonely, and hauntingly beautiful. She rode on, staying close to the rocky cliffs, her only landmark. Her horse was kicking up a cloud of sand that caught the moonlight and glimmered behind her. Blah blah blah. Is the lady lost? Searching for something? For whatever reason she happens upon this wondrous cave in the cliffs and is captivated by its otherwordly beauty. It throbs with light and warmth. She walks deeper & deeper into it, her footsteps bringing the pools to life with ripples and shifting colors. Then, a sound -- a voice? Shifting sand? A footstep? -- startles the woman, and she whirls around to see a stranger standing at the cave's mouth. She is motionless, and for a moment the only visible movement is the stranger's breath condensing into an icy vapor.

All that to say....great work, Janus. ^_^

Posted: Wednesday, 27 October, 2004 @ 10:50 AM

Thank you.

I think I should draw more just for these stories.

Posted: Saturday, 30 October, 2004 @ 03:43 AM

[eek] W... Wow... [dubious] ... [oro] ....... [nuke]

...

I think the sheer beauty of this brained my damage... [red]

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