HOME | DD

Description
Fox-Orian's influence map meme: [link]

Since I am feeling somewhat stuck, I hoped this would help slash that knot. No luck so far, but it definitely got me thinking, and was a lot more tricky to finish than I'd like to admit.

1: The Silmarillion - self-explanatory, if you look at my gallery. It's the foundation of most my photomanips, though to be fair I should have added the Lord of the Rings and HoMe series as well, for completion's sake.

2: Cave art - I don't know where this particular image originated, but I've always found the skill with which cave art in general was executed rather amazing. And to think that there is an artistic tradition going back 35,000 years (if not longer), and still visible today - how is that not a reason for inspiration?

3: Vienna Teng - lovely music that will always help carry me through a difficult manip, and with a particular quality to the lyrics that very much appeals to my creativity. Have a snippet from Mission Street to demonstrate:

Well my hands are cold tonight
But the sky is bright with stars
And I'm tearing through the veil that keeps me blind

4: John William Waterhouse - people keep telling me that my manips remind them of pre-Raphaelite paintings, which I think is too big a compliment to make, but truth is, I do enjoy Waterhouse's work, and have been trying to emulate him here and there.

5: Ancient Cultures - here, some generic rubble from a Greek agora, but really just a stand-in for the universality of my fascination with that topic. Perhaps more apparent in my writing than in my art. Not so long ago, I mashed together elements from several different cultures (Mesopotamia, Rome, a few tidbits from the Maya) to come up with a viable water system for Tirion in a fanfic, even though that bit of worldbuilding would never crop up in the fic itself beyond the question if a particular character could safely drink a glass of water. And that's the status quo rather than the exception, so it definitely counts. Beyond that, similar to cave art, it's an indicator of the amazing things humans are capable of.

6: Arthur Rackham: Another artist whose skill I admire and tend to have on the back of my mind when working on a manip.

7: Neil Gaiman: Probably my favourite contemporary writer, and another source of inspiration that I like to turn to when I get stuck, whether that's the Sandman comics, his poems, short stories, novels, or script work. I was lucky enough to attend a reading and Q&A with him a few years ago, and I think I learned more about writing in those few hours than I did by fumbling around on my own for more than a decade. Much in the same way as Tolkien, he's another writer to tickle awake the magic (of whatever kind) of the words he uses.

8: Kamil Vojnar: Deserves a much bigger segment of this. Probably the artist who made me take up experimenting with Photoshop again after a very long, dry stretch. My love for textures is directly derived from his work, the slightly surreal touch most his images possess is something I've tried for in my occasional original art, and I count myself very lucky to have stumbled over his images at some point.

9: Alan Lee: Looking at his art showed me the ropes of what Tolkien fanart could be. John Howe and Tad Nasmith (who has influenced me a great deal as well) also deserve a mention, but Alan Lee is my favourite and his art very much something I aspire to in a different medium, at some point.

10: Doctor Who: Timey-wimey madness. If given the chance, I'd hop in the TARDIS without second thought - just imagine all of time and space at your fingertips. Beside that, surprising, challenging, just plain fun and never averse to putting a different spin on apparently trite matters, which is a good thing to keep in mind everywhere, not just art.

11: Xlendi Bay on Gozo: My place to retreat and recharge. I've only been there a few hours in person, but diving there has been nothing short of an amazing experience that I like to revisit.

12: T.S:. Eliot's Four Quartets - similar to Vienna Teng, Tolkien, Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who, put another different, "magic" spin on things. I usually come away with new ideas when reading these poems, and the surreal imagery (in my mind) plays out similar to Kamil Vojnar's images. Besides that, I adore the literary and mythical traditions these poems are chock-full of, and they're incredibly fun to spot and ruminate about.

So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.

13: Nature. I don't have to say more about this one, do I?

Description
Fox-Orian's influence map meme: [link]

Since I am feeling somewhat stuck, I hoped this would help slash that knot. No luck so far, but it definitely got me thinking, and was a lot more tricky to finish than I'd like to admit.

1: The Silmarillion - self-explanatory, if you look at my gallery. It's the foundation of most my photomanips, though to be fair I should have added the Lord of the Rings and HoMe series as well, for completion's sake.

2: Cave art - I don't know where this particular image originated, but I've always found the skill with which cave art in general was executed rather amazing. And to think that there is an artistic tradition going back 35,000 years (if not longer), and still visible today - how is that not a reason for inspiration?

3: Vienna Teng - lovely music that will always help carry me through a difficult manip, and with a particular quality to the lyrics that very much appeals to my creativity. Have a snippet from Mission Street to demonstrate:

Well my hands are cold tonight
But the sky is bright with stars
And I'm tearing through the veil that keeps me blind

4: John William Waterhouse - people keep telling me that my manips remind them of pre-Raphaelite paintings, which I think is too big a compliment to make, but truth is, I do enjoy Waterhouse's work, and have been trying to emulate him here and there.

5: Ancient Cultures - here, some generic rubble from a Greek agora, but really just a stand-in for the universality of my fascination with that topic. Perhaps more apparent in my writing than in my art. Not so long ago, I mashed together elements from several different cultures (Mesopotamia, Rome, a few tidbits from the Maya) to come up with a viable water system for Tirion in a fanfic, even though that bit of worldbuilding would never crop up in the fic itself beyond the question if a particular character could safely drink a glass of water. And that's the status quo rather than the exception, so it definitely counts. Beyond that, similar to cave art, it's an indicator of the amazing things humans are capable of.

6: Arthur Rackham: Another artist whose skill I admire and tend to have on the back of my mind when working on a manip.

7: Neil Gaiman: Probably my favourite contemporary writer, and another source of inspiration that I like to turn to when I get stuck, whether that's the Sandman comics, his poems, short stories, novels, or script work. I was lucky enough to attend a reading and Q&A with him a few years ago, and I think I learned more about writing in those few hours than I did by fumbling around on my own for more than a decade. Much in the same way as Tolkien, he's another writer to tickle awake the magic (of whatever kind) of the words he uses.

8: Kamil Vojnar: Deserves a much bigger segment of this. Probably the artist who made me take up experimenting with Photoshop again after a very long, dry stretch. My love for textures is directly derived from his work, the slightly surreal touch most his images possess is something I've tried for in my occasional original art, and I count myself very lucky to have stumbled over his images at some point.

9: Alan Lee: Looking at his art showed me the ropes of what Tolkien fanart could be. John Howe and Tad Nasmith (who has influenced me a great deal as well) also deserve a mention, but Alan Lee is my favourite and his art very much something I aspire to in a different medium, at some point.

10: Doctor Who: Timey-wimey madness. If given the chance, I'd hop in the TARDIS without second thought - just imagine all of time and space at your fingertips. Beside that, surprising, challenging, just plain fun and never averse to putting a different spin on apparently trite matters, which is a good thing to keep in mind everywhere, not just art.

11: Xlendi Bay on Gozo: My place to retreat and recharge. I've only been there a few hours in person, but diving there has been nothing short of an amazing experience that I like to revisit.

12: T.S:. Eliot's Four Quartets - similar to Vienna Teng, Tolkien, Neil Gaiman and Doctor Who, put another different, "magic" spin on things. I usually come away with new ideas when reading these poems, and the surreal imagery (in my mind) plays out similar to Kamil Vojnar's images. Besides that, I adore the literary and mythical traditions these poems are chock-full of, and they're incredibly fun to spot and ruminate about.

So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.

13: Nature. I don't have to say more about this one, do I?