Swish

Totally abstract, this is all about the motion, the flow, the rhythm... oh, and the colour!

Flesh

WARNING! Do not read on if easily disturbed by the gory side of horror fiction!

Flesh

As soon as I passed through the gateway, standing slightly ajar as though slyly daring entrance, I felt something turn deep within my gut. Three years on the force cautioned against ignoring these feelings, yet there was something else competing, something more atavistic, that impelled the forward motion above the call for backup. I didn't have time to analyse this feeling, but a retrospective suggests that some abysmal kernel of my soul recognised a unique opportunity to confront its nemesis, in the flesh as it were, rather than through a safety-partition of numbers, and restraints, and the sterility of protocol.

The farmhouse yielded no response to enquiry. Around the back, it gave onto a traditional quadrangle of farmyard. Yet this was no picture postcard, despite the high summer weather: there was an air of desolation, of something beyond mere neglect, a kind of depravity of the old stones. Still no answer to my vocal enquiries. Not even a dog, most unusual for such an isolated location. Was I mad to go on? The question was meaningless: Fate was now at the helm. I moved towards a low brick outbuilding, once a stables, and peered through the open top half of the door: a couple of large chest freezers, purring away, plus some assorted and unidentifiable junk. This wasn't it. I left and tried the next outbuilding, an old stone barn structure more recently augmented with brick to shore up time's erosion. This was it: the light admitted from sliding open the door illuminated something suspended from a beam, a something I initially took to be the butchered carcass of some unfortunate ruminant. Two steps in disclosed a different tale: this had once been human, the arms amputated at the shoulder and most of the head missing. Worst of all was the fact of the skinning, the exposed tissue now a magnet for flies and in parts already seething with maggots. Shock had cancelled out the stench, but that now began to impinge. As I turned to exit that charnel chamber (oh, how easily that old word from childhood horror fiction returned!), I became aware of the faint sound of a fan. The freezers next door? I had no doubts now concerning their contents. Had I ever? No, on a large wooden bench to the right, perched, in utter incongruity, a large monitor screen. Also on the bench was a stills camera and a video camera. In the semi-darkness, I clumsily nudged into the bench and the formerly quiescent monitor burst into light. The files visible were all .jpgs - I opened one and began to scroll through the folder, seeing a progressive record of post mortem activity. Exiting the image software, I noticed a large .mpeg file at the bottom of the list. Automatically, I opened it... to observe what was most likely a perfectly ordinary-looking man at any other time, now distorted into a hideous daemon of bloodlust and something beyond, nameless, dragging the trussed and frantically struggling form of a boy, probably IC2, into this building, and beginning his work. I watched until the skinning commenced then closed down the viewing software. I wouldn't have lasted so long with sound - the boy was still alive at this point.

Sick inside, shaking, head full of flashing lights and high-piched whining, I finally stepped outside and vomited relentlessly. I became aware of another noise, external, mechanical. A colossal shadow stole steadily across the yard, and I passed almost thankfully into unconsciousness.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Technical - inspired by these Sunflowers, I set out to create "something with popcorn2". This is the result, made entirely from the eponymous variation. The ability to tweak parameters is what gives this version the advantage over the original. Rendered at medium-high quality with large filter radius, it just wasn't quite 'painterly' enough for requirements so in common with its inspiration, I enlisted the GIMP: a second render at ultra-low quality and small filter radius was layered in at 20% to provide the desired 'distressed' look of well-worked oil paint.

My entry for the June contest 'Fractal stories'.

Shadowboxer

No heavyweight, this, but precise, elegant, the moves millimetre-choreographed...

Wasteland

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers."

- from 'The Waste Land' by T.S. Eliot

Near-miss

A popular style currently, I know, but this is actually a serious tweaking of Riven rather than the product of a script. I fancy it resembles an artist's impression of a potentially cataclysmic astronomical event.

Courtship

I've always loved these gnarly-style patterns, but hadn't realised they were hidden away in Apophysis... until I came across grinagog's wonderful Coffee curls. A big thanks to him for sharing the technique.

Genesis

Something is forming itself from the rarefied ether...

A stone from far away

Even after cooling from its burning passage through our atmosphere, this strange and beautiful rock still glows like nothing native to the planet.

Rain incendiary

"... but when the shingles hissed
in the rain incendiary,
other values were revealed to us..."

From 'The Walls Do Not Fall' by Hilda Doolittle

Interpenetration

Through and through.

First public use of my gradient splicer (for the insertion of the orange band).

Manifold

"A manifold is an abstract mathematical space in which every point has a neighborhood which resembles Euclidean space, but in which the global structure may be more complicated. In discussing manifolds, the idea of dimension is important. For example, lines are one-dimensional, and planes two-dimensional."

- Wikipedia

Candelabrum

Fashioned from the fractal forge of a master, this infinitely ornate candelabrum would grace any "Oh no, it's the singularity!" party table ;)

Wicker world

Crazy coaster collage resulting from a long overdue revisit to the lazysusan variation.

Sanctum sanctorum

"... and it is rumoured that deep within that ancient subterranean temple complex, a sect of wizards and technoshamans have gained access to the sanctum sanctorum and there established a permanent walk-through portal to the twisted multidimensionality that underlies our physical existence."

Finally, I have discovered the foundation of the technique that seems to be gently proliferating.

Undersea exploration (diptych)

Left panel: Bathysphere
Right panel: Ray school

Continuing the series of natural diptychs, this time with a distinctly submarine theme.

#1: [LINK]