Archive for the 'Persistence' Category

New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Sight Indigo

Published on 2008/12/22 in Graphic Design, Persistence, Wallpaper and creativity. 0 Comments

Winter has begun for the Northern Hemisphere of Earth which means it’s time to release yet another new version of the Snowy Sight desktop wallpaper. Incredible to think that it’s been five years to the day since the original Snowy Sight wallpaper was released in 2003. Today, Snowy Sight 2009, the fifth wave in the ongoing Snowy Sight wallpaper series, is released in 4 funky flavors: the standard Blue Aglow and Blue Deep versions as well as two new variations.

Snowy Sight 2009 Indigo Deep preview

Probably the first thing you’ll notice about this year’s version is the new color. For the first time I’ve created two Indigo variations: Indigo Aglow and Indigo Deep. I stumbled upon this color scheme while experimenting with different hue and saturation adjustments in Photoshop, and now I prefer the Indigo versions above anything that has come before them. Who knows, perhaps next year I’ll take the next step down the color spectrum and create a violet version. (If you’d like a violet version, please let me know in the comments. I’ve been known to respond to demand.)

The second major modification I’ve made is the addition of the illusion of motion by blurring the six snow flakes in the foreground. This subtle effect took much trial and error to achieve in a pleasing way, but the result was worth it. And this brings me to something I learned this time around…

Tedium is Sometimes Necessary

Snowy Sight 2009 Indigo Aglow preview

Creating this year’s wallpaper took hours of perfecting and was a good lesson in how to be patient when confronted with tedium and false-endings. A false ending is when you think you’re done with a task only to realize that there’s a minor problem that will bother you ad infinitum until you fix it. For instance, first the motion blur wasn’t blurred enough, then the color wasn’t quite right, then the snow flakes’ positions weren’t pleasing, then I needed to decide on a better way to crop the fullscreen version…. you get the idea.

Sometimes a certain level of tedium is required to produce something worthwhile—in fact I’d say there’s a level of tedium in every worthwhile task. In many aspects of life, this tedium can be reduced or even eliminated, but in artistic creation, the tedium of experimenting with variations, such as in hue and placement, is necessary in discovering something new. What separates a good artist from a great artist is the ability to have persistence in the face of tedium.

I hope Snowy Sight 2009, available in widescreen or fullscreen sizes, helps get you into a holiday spirit and ring in the new year. Until next time, Merry Christmas, Happy Christmahanaquanza, and have a wonderful Festivus.


Recommended Reading:

  1. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Crystal
  2. The Dam Ice and New Snowy Sight Wallpaper
  3. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Indigo Island
  4. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Ocean of Twilight
  5. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Crescent Nightfall
  6. New Widescreen Wallpaper & Be A Mind At Play
  7. How to make a Wallpaper Mashup


Magellan's Travel



New Widescreen Wallpaper – Crescent Nightfall

Published on 2008/05/31 in Graphic Design, Persistence, Wallpaper and creativity. 0 Comments

Today I’d like to tell a tale about intuition, persistence, and 7 mysterious orbs.

Six years ago, I created a 3D scene in which a crescent-shaped island sat in a calm blue sea. I came across the crescent shape somewhat by accident as I was playing around with Bryce’s modeling tool. The island shape felt intuitively correct for me, and I soon discovered that any alterations I attempted only seemed to reduce the attractiveness of the island’s shape. I named this scene Crescent Island and have been using it as a desktop wallpaper off and on for six years.

Two years later, I began experimenting with the idea of a nighttime version of Crescent Island, but I never achieved a scene that felt intuitively correct for me. Then, a few days ago I came across some of the original Bryce 3D scene files for some of my earlier wallpapers. The file called “Crescent Night” seemed to be calling out to me to finish the task I had started, and then shelved, four years before. But this time things felt different, and I decided to delve in again.

Fresh Perspective

Back then, I had been experimenting with placing orbs into the side of the island, but the lighting was not placed in an aesthetic way and gave the orbs an unattractive shadow. Since 4 years had passed since I had looked at this project, these glaring errors jumped out at me at once, and I began reinterpreting my old intention — creating a night scene in a more realistic light. In a way, this is an extreme version of what I talked about in How to Renew Your Perspective in 5 Steps, but usually 4 years is not required to gain a fresh perspective on a scene such as this. Although I do wonder if the wallpaper wasn’t being looked over far far in the back of my mind for the past 4 years and my mind was simply waiting for the opportunity to unleash these new ideas.

Unexpected Surprise

Once I had correctly lit the scene, Bryce produced an unexpected surprise. A pleasant reflection of the island was created in the water, and the overall texture of the water was even more vivid than the original scene I had created 6 years before. Positioning the stars in the sky in a pleasing way was the trickiest part of creating Crescent Nightfall, but after literally dozens of tries the effort was worth it. Then later, I discovered that the stars reflection on the water looked more like dust on the screen than stars reflecting in an ocean and found a way to smooth out this effect in Photoshop. Following that, I had to invent a way to create a fullscreen version without creating a moon that looked like it was on a diet. All of these situations reminded me of one of the Great Truths I’ve discovered about art:

Persistence distinguishes a highly creative person from a person with just another good idea. Without persistence, how can we achieve our highest potential?

Crescent Nightfall preview

Persistence paid off and after 9.5 hours of render time and still more hours spent refining in Photoshop, I present: Crescent Nightfall. Checkout the widescreen and fullscreen sizes.

Why have 7 orbs been built into the island? Who built them? What is their purpose? I’ll leave those answers up to you. Enjoy!


Recommended Reading:

  1. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Ocean of Twilight
  2. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Sight Indigo
  3. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Indigo Island
  4. New Widescreen Wallpaper & Be A Mind At Play
  5. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Snowy Crystal
  6. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Charamandala 1
  7. New Widescreen Wallpaper – Liquid Lazuli


Magellan's Travel