These images were all made on or before 2008, and most before 2002. This was before I was using Blender, so they were made in Carrara or Ray Dream Studio. I'm not particularly proud of these, especially since I obstinantly refused to work from reference or concept art. Still though, it is offered here as a demonstration of my creative journey.
If you have comments or feedback, feel free to leave it here. If you'd like to commission a custom 3D model, I can help you with that.
My first big commission job, before I was charging for commissions. Unlike the others, this was made in Blender.
Probably the most polished of my old 3D images
Fan models I made of the police mech from the Megatokyo webcomic
Based on Christian imagery
Designed for an in-game party headquarters
I've always had a penchant for puns. These are some pun pictures.
A friend wrote a book, and I made these illustrations for her
I think this is the image I went back to polish more than any other. If only I had done some concept sketches first. The composition is so boring! Still though, paradise as a walled garden isn't a bad image to fixate on.
For comparison, here's what Midjourney thought I was trying for. Prompt:
brick path through a garden, brick path by a curved park bench, storybook illustration, in the style of tranquil gardenscapes, combining natural and man-made elements, hikecore, arched doorways, colorful gardens --v 5 --q 0.5 --s 250
Some kind of giant flying city thing. The name of "Air Base" is something of a pun, but not enough to move it to the puns category.
I've forgotten why I made this. I think these are all models that came with the software I was using. It's clearly some sort of traditional scholastic statement.
What else is CG good for than making pictures of perfectly reflective spheres? Interestingly, AI tools are garbage at replicating this kind of image.
What if the Borg from Star Trek assimilated a chicken egg? Well, you'd get this, presumably.
A domestic festive scene of a chess game by a fireplace. Again, using many canned models.
A jeweled circlet crown sitting on a marble plinth.
Orion Drive spacecraft
One of my original designs that actually turned out half-way decent. A turbojet powered baloon? Sure, why not.
Fire raining from a burning sky
This tree is called a "Fungi Gungi" but don't ask me why. I think it is made of emerald, the trunk is metal, and the fruits are edible? I seem to recall this had something to do with justifying modding a terrain type into Civilization that gave you 20 money, 20 industry, and 20 food per turn. It's just a grove of these trees!
Just from the name, I'm guessing that the "Fungi Bungi" pictured below as a crystaline insect creature goes with the crystaline tree thing pictured above. But maybe it's a lava creature that climbs up out of the Thermal Borehole?
Floating sky islands with an infinite waterfall
Island in the Sun. Basically garbage I made to justify playing around with a plant generator.
I rather like how this mountain covered in teal mushrooms and pink lichen turned out.
This one turned out rather well too. Nothing like a few space crystals! I did a Space Crystal AI Style Study on this image as well.
This image of blue crystals tiles seamlessly. I was so pleased when I got this working!
This was a texture experiment which was dubbed by my friends the "moldy swiss-cheese moth-eaten Borg Cube", a name it still bears to this day.
A magic book assembled from stock models.
A friend I met in online Latin classes wrote a fantasy story set in Maychoria which featured a locket described as pictured below. I also made a bunch of 3D Maps of Maychoria, or is it Madra? Anyway, here are my copies of the Maychoria pictures.
I think my brother Ben actually made this one. A mech from our imaginary games. I did an AI Style Study on all three of these images.
Ben made this too, a recruiting poster for the fictional para-military organization, set in the StarTrek setting? The organization was called NLES, which we think stood for New League of Elite Systems, and was a platform for attempting a serious military treatment of the technology in the Star Trek setting. I did an AI Style Study on all three of these images.
Same here. A planetary outpost for one of Ben's ship designs. I did an AI Style Study on all three of these images.
Another by Ben. A spaceship in space with a planet in the background.
Ned's Bed from the Dr. Seuss book "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish".
Olyphaunt
I thought, at the time, that this image turned out convincingly similar to Riven. Looking at it again, I can see some similarities. The high-contrast textures, lack of water interactions, somewhat abstract height-map terrain. Perhaps similar to Catherine's prison island? No? Well, I thought so at the time.
The bulk of this catapults attacking a castle scene was the result of following the introductory tutorial for Ray Dream Designer 4. Still, I added my own touches, and it turned out fine.
This should probably be in the pun section because it's a table of the elements.
Another excuse to play with stock models and the tree generator.
Turns out Midjourney is great at this style of image. Midjourney Prompt:
small house with a tree in the grass, low angle view, dark atmospheric storm clouds background, raw versus finished, midwest gothic, wood, dramatic lighting --v 5 --q .5
You can see a Super Padd animation based on a previous version of this thing. I think it was supposed to be an upgraded Padd from StarTrek?
An underwater treasure chest
Desert valley to snowcapped mountains. Experimenting with making trees using the hair system.
My attempt at making a village in a wooded valley. Same trick with green hair as trees.
A bunch of weapons stuck in a dart board.
A christmas tree from the year 2000
A christmas tree from the year 2001
A blue gas giant surrounded by a ring of rocks
This is a few stock models of an arch and some marble railing rendered over the top of a photograph from near my home town.
An impractically sized deep mantle bore hole, inspired by the Thermal Borehole from the Alpha Centauri videogame.
Midjourney doesn't understand this image either, but it certainly has better compositional taste. Prompt:
deep inside an underground reactor, in the style of dark amber and red, futuristic spacecraft design, metallic rotation, gigantic scale, voluminous mass --niji 5 --q .75
A childhood friend had a copy of the Star Trek Technical Manual which I perused mostly for the pictures. I did manage to read enough to discover that personal phasers only went up to Class 3. Below is my idea for a Class 4 phaser
depressed
wine
I made this potatoe shaped island, and then added some lighthouse things, slapped down a stock house model in the foreground, and called it a day.
Some sort of death star shooting some sort of wave-motion gun straight through some sort of planet and some sort of moon... or something.
The tree of life with the New Jerusalem on one side, and the post-fall wasteland on the other, rendered in stained glass. This image is also featured in my old D&D Mansion library.
Midjourney is pretty good at this too! Prompt:
a stained glass door with a tree in an inscription, in the style of cartoonish realism, realistic yet stylized, fantasy-based, whimsical animation --v 5 --q .34
Gave Midjourney another crack at it. Prompt:
a stained glass window. Tree of life in the center. On the left of the tree the garden of Eden. On the right of the tree the perfect heavenly golden city. art noveau style --chaos 10 --ar 4:5 --stylize 500
It's a strange jeweled sundial
Midjourney took a crack at it. Prompt:
jeweled sundial gold and silver and white marble. The sun is shining on it and there's a big gold star with silver roman numerals around the circle. the background has green plants and a red brick wall. Bright daylight sunlight. Fantasy art, detailed illustration, DND item, epic artwork --ar 64:51 --stylize 220
A tiny planet made mostly of water with some fish swimming around inside. I think my mother convinced me to try off-center composition with this one, but I didn't add anything to balance it out. I did a Tiny Planet AI Style Study on this image as well.
Three Borg Cubes "surrounding" a Star Trek style spacecraft.
Inspired by Yuffy from Final Fantasy 7, who throws ninja stars. I think the plaque on the wall says "Materia Hunter"
