This time I'm experimenting with making some artwork that doesn't use my usual kaleidoscope-based symmetry.

In this case, I tried to represent some slight symbolism.
It might not be immediately apparent, but the work you see above was actually first passed through an ASCII art generator, so pretty much everything was composed of Ω's and other greek letters.

But maybe it's best I get into the details of how the work was created, instead of spoiling all the fun in the description ;)

Flame Painter 4

I love Flame Painter, and I've been using it a lot to construct the bases (or "raw materials", as I like to call them) for my artworks recently.

I got it at a huge discount through Humble Bundle, which makes bundles of anything from games (most of them) to (audio)books. sometimes even art software, as in this case !

In any case, I got several "brush bundles" alongside the software, and this piece uses a few of those.

In this case, I uses the Moon Dust brush to make a central shape, and the Autumn Leaves brush for the background.

Yeah... the colorful background was initially made of tiny leaves :

I interjected a few rather small spots using some of the other brushes too, but they only had a minimal effect on the base work:

Here's a sneak peek at what I do on the side. which might or might nor have inspired part of the work too.

I'm currently rather taken with the Browser-based Fallen London game, which is mainly narrative-based, and has over 10 years worth of stories in it !
Definitely worth a look, if you like stories and having agency as to how they progress.

GIMP image manipulation

Once Flame Painter was done, I took to GIMP to experiment with a few filters and their effect on the work.

I realized pretty fast that there was something that could be done using the ASCII Art filter, which I had yet to successfully integrate into one of my artworks:

and some other filters to work on the appearance a bit, give it a more fluid feel.

Of course, now it's beginning to be a bit faded.
Gotta fix that.

Hmmm... too monochrome. gotta work on those parameters a bit

Yes... this is looking much better !
This was actually made by combining the layer that was monochrome with the one that had lost all of the symbols.

Now to give it a bit of personality using Deep Style.

Deep Dream Generator

I always experiment when it comes to the Styles, using some from the official list:

Screenshot_20200418 Generate • Deep Dream Generator.png

But I often also use a collection of pilfered or Creative Commons images from the internet.

I'll always cite whose work I've used, and ask for permission if it ends up being a major factor in the artwork (Fair Use principles apply), but the whole Copyright discussion on whether copyright infringement includes using the 'style' of someone else's art is a whole can of worms I skirt away from as much as possible.

Reminds me of that "Trash Art Versus Real Art" debate some vocal cryptoartists and collectors are having.

I say, let them yell at each other, while we artists keep creating ;)

In any case, here's one page from my "custom" styles tab on deepdreamgenerator:

Screenshot_20200418 Generate • Deep Dream Generator1.png