Kathryn Huxtable's Images

I'm a computer programmer, not an artist, but I like to play around a bit with graphics programs. It truly amazes me how little talent one needs to make cool images with computers.

I actually haven't done much in the past couple of years. Work has gotten busy and the last thing I want to do at home is play on a computer.

Here are some images I've done with various graphics programs. Some were created with Metatools' Bryce 2, 3D, or 4, some with Caligari trueSpace 2 or 3, and most have some Adobe Photoshop effects applied afterwards. I use the built-in Photoshop effects, plus Kai's Power Tools. The figures are mostly the work of Metacreation's Poser 2, 3, or 4. Some images were created piecemeal and assembled in Photoshop.

I have 3D Studio Max with Character Studio, and Sven SurfaceSuite, so you will occasionally see some more complex modeling and texturing. Maybe you'll even see some animation, but don't hold your breath.

By the way, I think Macintoshes are fine computers, and I'll even recommend them, but my experience is on IBM compatibles, and that's what I used to create these images. My current system is a bit old, but is still functional. I built it myself around a Tyan Thunder 100 S1836DLUAN mainboard with dual 450MHz Pentium IIs and 512MB of PC-100 SDRAM. My video card is a Geforce2 MX200 with 32MB of RAM. My monitor is a 21-inch ViewSonic G810. It's very, very nice.

I run both Windows 98 and Windows 2000 Professional. I use various version of UNIX at work, and I love UNIX for web programming and for software development in general, but the graphics tools available on Linux are not yet as easy to use or as powerful out of the box as those I already have Windows licenses for. So no, do not expect any POV-Ray here.

69K bytes	A Space City My one and only science fiction image. I created this with Bryce. It was inspired by a number of things: partly by some images I've seen over the years (including some done in Bryce) and partly by James Blish's Cities in Flight, a science fiction series of four novels about migratory cities wandering the galaxy in search of work; "Okie" cities, as they say.
68K bytes	Soap Bubbles in the Moonlight A friend of mine had a croning ritual and several of us blew soap bubbles in the night. They looked quite eldritch. I decided to see if I could get that effect. This will do . . .
55K bytes	Thunder Moon I was thinking about doing thirteen images of different full moons for a calendar. Inspiration and perspication did not extend that far, but this one fell out. I could rant for some time about the differences in light models in Bryce 2 between the Macs and Windows versions which would have made this a cinch on a Mac, but a real pain on Windows. But I'll spare you. I think it turned out okay, nevertheless. (And I should have used a larger mesh for the terrain close to the camera. I'm still learning that lesson.)
67K bytes	Harvest Moon My other full moon image. I originally did this as an Oz Notes cover for the Mabon 1996 issue. I used trueSpace2, and did major touchups in Photoshop. It's 124K bytes. This version is done in Bryce, with better antlers on the Herne figure. I'm considering redoing it again to make the fruit look more tomato sized, and to make the cans look more like cans of tomato sauce and less like cola cans. And I could position her hands better and give her a better face texture. We'll see if I actually do it. There has to be a limit to how many times I can revisit the same picture.
90K bytes	Pwyll and Rhiannon A scene from my favorite mythos. This is from the first branch of the Mabinogi, called Pwyll. Rhiannon just ambles along, but no matter how fast Pwyll forces his horse, he cannot overtake her, until he calls to her to stop. I used Bryce for almost all of this. The clothing on Pwyll is from the casual male figure in Poser 2. The clothing on Rhiannon is mostly cylinders and cones. The horses came from a collection of 3D models by Acuris. I made an earlier image, sans horses, as an Oz Notes cover for the Mabon 1997 issue. It's 70K bytes.
37K bytes	Portal to the Summerlands A friend of mine who was a Druid passed over in January of 1998. Druids believe that when you die, your soul goes to the summerlands where you rest and party with friends from past lives. Then, when you are ready, you are reborn into our world. His death brought to mind a line drawing in Caitlín Matthews' Mabon and the Mysteries of Britain, which I fleshed out and rendered. This was done in Bryce 2 and Photoshop 4. The summerland scene is a view of the trees in the Gaia image looking from near Gaia's head. I composited the images in Photoshop.
5 images	A Study In Henges Here are several images I've done around a central henge image. Or possibly around a central priestess image.
10 images	Oz Notes Covers The Oz Notes is the newsletter for the Web of Oz, a Pagan/Wiccan group in the Lawrence, Kansas area. I did a number of covers for its newsletter. Here are the ones I'm willing to show.
5 images	The Four Elements I've been working on images for each of the four traditional elements. I did two of Fire since I wanted one to put on a calendar and I wasn't comfortable with the thought of hanging the first one in my office at work.
4 images	Freely Available Images Here are some images I've done that are freely available for use on other people's web pages. (This page actually links to the Web of Oz site.)

The current URL is http://www.kathrynhuxtable.org/images/index.shtml
This file was modified Wednesday, 15-Dec-2004 12:57:19 PST