Issue 07
description
Transcript of Issue 07
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3D Art
BE INSPIRED BY 3D DIGITAL ART
Direct
-Inspiration for 3D digital artists
-Interviews with top artists
-The stories behind the pictures
-Insightful galleries
-Quick tips
Issue 7
March 2011
Premium Edition
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Moon Dust
In one sense, the ultimate artist for this genre is Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the moon and the only
Apollo astronaut to document his experience by artwork. He started painting after working in other NASA pro-
jects; his last venture was training astronauts for the soon to end Shuttle programme. He could easily have tak-
en other jobs at organisations such as Rockwell or McDonnell -Douglas, but it was painting he cared about
most. It was a hobby he did at weekends, but he decided to take it to a new level and turn it into a profes-
sion.
He paints with acrylics, tending to be impressionistic as well as technically detailed. His images show an eye-
witness account of the first human exploration of another world. There is an irony that his paintings somewhat
fill in a missing gap, because the TV camera taken to the moon for Apollo 12 was broken by Alan himself by
inadvertently pointing it at the sun, so no moving footage was taken of this mission, although still pictures
were.
What is remarkable about each painting is that it includes small amounts of materials from his space suit mis-
sion patches, the gold foil that insulated the Apollo 12 command module and finally a small amount of moon
dust (gained from his dirtied mission patches). It is a high level of personalisation and real history that Alan in-
cludes with his paintings.
you can use on the Moon and make it look real; you can use reds and oranges which are becoming my
favourite
publishing 2005, Pg 185).
Including some kind of personalisation in our artwork is a continual goal for all of us. It might not be moon dust,
that we include in our art, but using symbolism, self created models or an image presenting a personal story
may be our own way of showing our uniqueness.
The content of this magazine is 2010 3D Art Direct
Paul Bussey Editor
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digital space art.
terrain creation software.
extraordinary art
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CONTENTS
Page 2
Page 4
Page 15
Page 22
Page 34
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MARK EDWARDS
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3DAD: Was Terragen your first introduction to 3D digital art? Were you impressed with what it could achieve when you
first came across it? Tell me a little about your background. Did a previous interest in computer graphics lead into 3D
digital art?
ME: I actually started with Bryce but found a free test version of Terragen and was amazed at how real the land-
scapes looked. Also Terragen can use digital elevation models (DEM) and render real places, like Mars, the moon or
actual places on earth.
3DAD: You clearly have a love for
Space Art. Where did this passion for
this type of art come from was it
particular books or media in the past
that inspired you to create in this
way?
ME: I was 12 years old when the first
man set foot on the moon so, with all
the news and excitement around this
achievement learning to love space
and anything to do with it came
easy.
Neptune, The Mystic
Mark Edwards lives in Mississippi and
has used Terragen to create a magnif-
ic ent portfolio of space art. Like many
of us, he was greatly influenced by the
NASA Apollo moon missions. As a 12
year old boy at the time of Apollo 11,
with all the news and excitement
around this achievement learning to
love space and anything to do with it
came easy.
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?username=Markal -
MARK EDWARDS
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3DAD: What digital artists inspired you when you first started with 3D digital art?
ME: Don Dixon , Joe Tucciarone , Michael Carrol, Kim Poor, Chesley Bonestell and all the other artists whose art
graced the numerous sci -fi books I read as a kid. I have collected some of the artists listed above in numbered
prints. My office walls are full of space art!
3DAD: Were there any initial barriers as you started out with the learning curve in digital art? How did you overcome
these difficulties?
ME:
with practice and experience you end up playing Beethoven. Hopefully!
3DAD:
would you suggest it be improved?
ME:
tings and one slight adjustment usually effects two or three other settings. For improvement perhaps a simplified ver-
sion without the settings for very advanced users.
Chesley Bonestell
Don Dixon
Joe Tucciarone
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD:
ME: Jungle Falls surprised me. I thought it was an O.K. image but, people seemed to really like it. I used a lot of postwork. The real breakthrough was
- it helped other TG users to
branch out and experiment even more.
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Jungle Falls
Ashkelon Valley of Shadows
My 2049 Ashkelon terrain made using the
expander filter in World Machine. The verti-
cle slopes or pillars is a 100 x 100 BMP of a
metal grid tiled at 110 x 130. The stone roofs
is a 200 x 200 BMP of a sidewalk, 100 x 120
tile settings. I guess BMP texture files don't
have to be huge to be effective.
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD: Holst's "The Planets" series. I think my favourite is Mercury out of this series with the solar flare affects you achieved. Di d
did it provide inspiration as you went to work on
these?
ME:
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Jungle Falls
Mercury The Winged Messenger
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD: the ir placements be-
hind and in front of the ring. Do you try to provide some elements of realism, according to science, in your planetary artwor k?
ME: ret ch the limits of reality
3DAD: - stark, well composed, with the angles of the ground terrain mirroring
details in the sky or star field. How did you construct this scene and were you pleased with its out-
come?
ME:
-work them
until worthy. I do have favourites and
am more proud of some over others.
Early Morning Frost started with a spiky
terrain that I tweaked with a twist and
sheer shader. A wide camera angle
made them flare out and I just had to
place the planet in the centre. The col-
our blue seems to be made for space
images would look repetitive.
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Jungle Falls
Many Moons
Early Morning Frost
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD: -fi style artwork. Do you have som e good resources
(particular artists or books) that you reference for this style of art?
ME: I read a lot of Sci -fi growing up, even into my teens and High School years. The
cover art always drew my attention. Most of these artists were from the 50s and 60s
and I remember some of those book covers and they inspire me to this day.
3DAD:
from Hubble. Do you do this quite often in your post work, adding in real world as-
tronomical images?
ME: In the older version of Terragen you had to add backgrounds in postwork. With
TG2 you can add these background images into the main render. It makes it a lot
easier. A real image, especially the Hubble images, adds a wow factor as well as
realism.
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Deep Freeze Blue Forever
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD: riod of time. Is this one of
your favourite series?
ME:
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After Before
Way After
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD:
laborated with WeeLaddie
(John Robertson) on this
one, whom we interviewed
last year. Have you teamed
up with other artists to cre-
ate some of your other port-
folio.
ME:
collaborations over the
years. From the Renderosity
community: Choronr,
Buzzzzz, Corleonis, we did a
3 image series posted under
his name. A few others that
to start over is the Zodiac
series. My idea was to team
up with an artist from each
month of the zodiac. That is:
the artist had to be born in
that month and we would
render an image which fit
that astrological sign/ with
the stars aligned to the sym-
bol in the background.
an artist born in each
month and willing to team
up and share
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Rare Rain
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD:
use to consider myself an intermediate to high end
user until I used this program....its like program-
ming....numbers without any box labels describing
quite a high learning curve to Terragen 2 for begin-
ners?
ME: There is a slight learning curve. Its just that I was
use to using Terragen .9.43. TG2 is completely differ-
ent. It takes a little time to get it under control and
use it the way you want.
3DAD:
Do your prefer to keep to other world landscapes,
rather than filling up an image with models or cre-
ating more sci -fi urban environments?
ME: Sci-
have the modelling experience to make buildings or space ships. I would love to do more sci -
fi type images.
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Tilt
Starbase Crash Investigation
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MARK EDWARDS 3DAD:
How important has Renderosity been in helping you develop your skills since
you started with digital art?
ME: Artists at Rero are very helpful and most share files or techniques. Feed-
back on the other hand is wrong. It consists of friends being nice and not
wanting to step on any toes. Comments are not always honest but, they are
nice. I think people should state both good and bad points of the image or
what looks good and what area(s) need more work. Being too harsh on any
image is just wrong.
3DAD:
that this was created using the expander filter in World Ma-
chine. Not being familiar with Terragen, what does the ex-
pander filter do and have you experimented with it much
more in your images?
ME: The terrain was created with World Machine
generator and a great program.
The expander filter can make blocks or circles and yes I have
used it often. I then import the terrain files into Terragen for
rendering.
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Mars Rebirth
http://www.world-machine.com/index.php -
MARK EDWARDS 3DAD: Looks like the expander filter was used in
for this image as well. Do you do this sometimes
with your images? Is there a writer in you?!
ME: I tried writing a sci -fi novel once, never got
I have a great idea for a fantasy/science type
thriller and may begin working on it with the
help of my sister who has a knack for the English
language and for putting sentences together in
an exceptional way. Its like I have a movie run-
down on paper. It really would be a page
turner or as a movie I think it would do well.
3DAD: Finally What three tips would you have
for those who are just starting out with 3D digital
artwork?
Tip one : Go with what you love. If its portraits,
people, landscapes, photography, abstracts,
architecture, whatever, then do it. Specialize in
masters of all types of art. You have to love it
and have so much passion for it that you want
to show others so they can love it as much as
you do.
Tip two ne looks at your work
they should know who did it before looking at the signature.
Tip three er.
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3DAD: What is your background and how
did you become interested in 3D terrain
generation?
SS: Hello folks. My name is Stephen, and I am the sole creator of World Machine. I'm a software developer living in Seattle, WSS: I've been interested in
computer graphics for almost as long as I've been into computing -- and since I was one of those kids who geeked out on computer s in grade -school, that's
a fairly long time!
I first became interested in 3D Terrain because I love nature, and geology has always fascinated me. Recreating what we see w hen we step out our door is
a tricky and interesting problem.
3DAD: When and where was World Machine born?
SS: World Machine was born circa 2002. It's hard to believe it was that long ago! At the time I was finishing my degree in applie d m athematics at the Univer-
sity of Washington. The inspiration for World Machine came from two different sources:
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Stephen Schmitt is an independent software
developer, the creator of World Machine , a
powerful terrain generator. Stephen began
research and development on terrain gener-
a tion solutions as a hobby while studying ap-
plied mathematics at the University of Wash-
ington. Stephen resides in the northwest cor-
ner of the USA in Seattle and also enjoys hik-
ing, skiing, beer brewing and photography.
http://www.world-machine.com/index.php -
WORLD MACHINE 1) As an amateur artist, I was playing with the terrain rendering software "Terragen" and was amazed with the visual results, bu t unhappy with how difficult it
was to create terrain I wanted to render.
2) As a budding programmer, I was interested in computer game development. At the time, the internet gaming phenomenon was just beg inning, and if
you recall back then we were all using slow dial -up modems. It seemed that if we were to keep users from having to wait forever while downloading many -
megabyte map files, we would have to have a way for the terrain artist to synthesize the terrain they wanted on the user's co mpu ter without having to send
millions of pixels across the wire.
These two challenges were to run right into each other, and World Machine directly grew out of my experiments to solve these problems.
3DAD: You mention that there were some other terrain generation
tools at around the same time that World Machine came into being.
What were these tools and what were their limitations?
SS: As mentioned above, I've long been a fan of the original
"Terragen" software. Its in -built terrain generation was quite good actu-
ally, but frustratingly inflexible and unable to produce the kind of ter-
rains that I wanted to create. And every terrain generation tool out at
the time provided what I call the "masterpiece" approach to terrain
creation. You would craft the terrain much like an artist would create
a digital painting (indeed, quite frequently even using Photoshop!),
laboriously detailing the terrain as you desired. Which has two prob-
lems: Our brain is surprisingly bad at producing realistic looking terrain
details in height fields, so the results would often be quite fake looking.
You would also have to spend a long time painting this terrain. And if
you decide you want to make major changes --- you lose everything
3DAD: Was the main premise behind World Machine the fact that fractal terrains are difficult to control and edit, and that you were trying to bring greater
control to the user?
SS: Definitely. Fractal terrains are quite useful tools, but getting the result you want can be sometimes difficult. And if you w ant pleasing results you can al-
most never directly use the output -- you have to shape, combine, stretch, and process the raw terrain to get the look you want.
It occurred to me that if you were given careful control of how and when all of these steps are used, those very plain -seeming f ractal terrains could be rap-
idly transformed into something very sophisticated. Thus from the very beginning the focus has been to allow you to reach ins ide the terrain generation
'black box' and design the terrain generator the way you want.
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WORLD MACHINE SS: As an aside, this is how I came up with the "World Machine" name in the first place. I envisioned WM as a "meta tool", where you design the machine
that then goes and creates the world for you.
3DAD: You have a graph based interface for creating terrains - was this an early part of the software? Was it a top feature for user s once this was in place?
SS: This was one of the key original parts to World Machine. I had been introduced to graph based interfaces in other software do mai ns such as audio pro-
cessing, and to me it "Just Made Sense" to use it to visualize the terrain creation process. It's always been one of the thin gs that's made World Machine
unique.
3DAD: You include some erosion mod-
eling functions in your software, includ-
ing a river erosion model - was this a
later feature to appear and was this
prompted by users wanting this fea-
ture or your own drive to improve
world Machine further?
SS: Just like the graph interface, ero-
sion was actually one of several "killer
features" in World Machine that popu-
larized it. At the time, there were nu-
merous other packages that featured
erosion, but none that neatly fit into
and also allowed the sort of control
that World Machine offered.
Erosion has always been one of the
most popular features of World Ma-
chine, and it would be a rare terrain
indeed that has no erosion applied to
it!
3DAD: You include some pre -built
macros that makes it easier to apply
textures to the landscapes. Tell me a
little about this feature?
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Graph Based Interface
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WORLD MACHINE SS: One of the things that I am very proud of in World Machine is its "Macro" capability. A Macro is simply a collection of World Ma chine actions (called
'devices') hooked together and customized to allow people to control them. A Macro is a black box -- it has knobs and switches, and you put inputs into it
and get results out of it, but you don't have to know what it's doing internally. These macros are stored in a library and ca n b e shared with others easily.
Some of the simple macros I've included with World Machine, in particular the "Basic Coverage" macro, were intended to be sim ple demonstrations. In-
stead, I've found that virtually everyone (including myself) uses this macro in real life projects!
I encourage people to share macros they created with other users, and in fact have created on the website an online library w here you can upload and
browse other peoples' macros.
3DAD: One function that excites me is the "explorer view" allowing you
to fly, drive or walk through the terrain. Being a Mojoworld fan, this is
quite an appealing feature! Was this idea borrowed from Mojo?
SS: I was a big fan of Mojoworld too! When you have a world that is de-
fined everywhere, its a very natural next step to want to explore it intui-
tively. Before this was available, users would run into situations where
they might have a great terrain defined, but the mountain you want is
sliced in half right on the edge of the world. Being able to simply look
around and say "OK, lets just move the render output box... THAT way. "
is a very powerful ability.
3DAD: From the last release of World Machine, what new feature or
function are you most proud of?
SS: One feature that I'm extremely proud of was introduced in World
Machine 2, and is called Layout Mode. This is essentially a vector -based
graphics tool that is seamlessly meshed into World Machine. With it, you
can directly control what areas receive which effects, create paths,
roads, or rivers, and much more. It finally provides the bridge between
the world of fully synthetic terrain and artist -painted ones. Unlike work-
ing in a paint program your layouts remain a part of the flexible frame-
work of World Machine and allow you to change the underlying terrain
model at any time.
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WORLD MACHINE 3DAD: Do you have some projects where World Machine has been used where you have felt especially proud of?
SS: I hear all the time from users who find that World Machine makes their life better, and I can't emphasize enough how much th is feedback matters! The
World Machine website features a lot of these testimonials. Another example comes to mind from the earliest days of WM: I wa s contacted by the team
behind visual effects for the fantastic television series "Firefly", who wanted to use its terrain generation abilities for a pa rticular shot. Having WM be used at a
high level before it was even for sale as a commercial product was a great encouragement to continue development.
I'm also very proud every time someone does something with World Machine that makes me say "wow, I never thought of doing THA T!"
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WORLD MACHINE 3DAD: The export functions seem very flexible and popular with the users. Are you enhancing this part of World Machine 2 even more in the near future?
SS: Definitely! World Machine now has a fair number of export formats, but there are a few weak spots that I plan to improve upon . In particular, exporting
nice high -resolution normal maps to go along with lower -resolution meshes is more cumbersome than it should be right now, and is one of the areas slated
for imminent improvement.
3DAD: World Machine is targeted to three different types of users: - game developers, skilled artists and enthusiasts. Which group of users tended to take up
the product first? Were you surprised with its initial take up as the software became available on the market?
SS: World Machine developed its original following among enthusiasts first. This is not surprising, because it's what I was too! As WM rapidly grew into a ma-
ture product I started getting feedback from people using it in completely different markets than I had imagined, ranging fro m g ame developers to archi-
tects to visual effect studios.
Indeed, one of the coolest things about developing World Machine has simply been to watch its uptake across so many different segments of the visual art
industry.
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3DAD: Which direction will World Machine take next?
SS: Good question! There are many improvements that I really
want to add that will keep World Machine on the cutting edge
of terrain creation.
However, smartly developing software as a small business owner
is a constant set of careful compromise between pushing the
technology and not biting off more than you can chew.
I can tell you and your readers, however, about two broad di-
rections I want to encourage. One direction is to increase the
licensing of the core World Machine technology to others, let-
ting the on -the -fly creation abilities of World Machine help pow-
er the next generation of video games.
The other direction is to provide artists more tools based upon
natural, geological processes.
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WORLD MACHINE SS: Expanding briefly on the second point, the existing building blocks in WM consist mostly of digital -art -type, mathematical opera tions performed upon the
terrain. We're all familiar with how confusing these can be at first. Just try explaining succinctly to someone the meaning b ehind the various Photoshop
blending modes! My desire is to move to a higher level of abstraction and operate mostly on geological principles, without gi ving up any of the control cur-
rently offered. This is no small task! I'm still deep in research and development along these lines, and don't know when the results will be available.
However, hopefully this does give some insight into the direction I ultimately want to travel with World Machine. I try to p ost frequently to my development
diary on the website to keep everyone up to date with what's happening with the future of World Machine.
3DAD: Finally what would you recommend to users who are just starting out with 3D art and who want to trial the use World Machine 2 ?
SS: Whether terrain is your focus or simply the background for the other things you're doing, I truly believe that having a convi nci ng environment is incredibly
important in 3D art. The Basic Edition of World Machine 2 is free for non commercial use. So experiment! Join the forums, as k questions.
You might be amazed at how easy it is to create some pretty unique worlds.
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WOLFGANG SIGL 3DAD: From your renderosity bio you mentioned you started drawing and oil painting traditional art mediums. Have you
managed to take advantage of certain traditional art skills in your digital art work and if so, what are they?
WS:
3DAD: You obviously have a huge passion for digital art and you frequently post your work in Renderosity as well as on your
own website. How did you get started with digital art. Was Bryce your first 3D application?
WS: Early in 2001, a friend of mine who knew that I liked to draw with my computer, gave me information about software to
als, so I tried to learn the software by doing trial and error. With Bryce in opposite to Poser -
me to understand the functions and the handling of the software easily. So I worked with Bryce and learned to love it , and
3DAD: What were some of your initial challenges in creating
digital art and how did you overcome these challenges?
WS: Beside the handling of all the
functions of the software, the main
challenge has been to think tri -
dimensional. For instance: In 3 -d -
software like Bryce you work with 3d -
objects on an endless ground area. If
you create a 3d -scene with anything
in the foreground you should not for-
get the background for instance a
mountain - to give your picture the
necessary depth. And to let the sce-
place the mountain object deep
better to do this than to place the
mountain near the foreground and
make it smaller to give a pretence of
depth.
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Wolfgang lives in the north
of Germany and started
working with Bryce begin-
ning in 2002. Since he can
remember, he has liked to
draw and paint. His daugh-
ter writes sci -fi models and
Wolfgang creates the cover
art for her books. He regular-
ly adds new images to his
large Renderosity gallery.
The Four Kingdoms
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/browse.php?user_id=76998 -
WOLFGANG SIGL 3DAD: Were there some digital artists that you first looked up to, when you started out? Who were they and what did you like about the ir work?
WS:
1. Andy Simmons alias Hobbit from my point of view the Master par excellence.
2. Primaltruck / Primal - a Poser master.
3. David Robinson alias BamBam131 creates space ships in a masterful way.
3DAD: In your view what are the top two
strengths of Bryce? Is there an area that Bryce
could improve in?
WS: Strengths:
1. Easy handling of the functions (in compari-
son to other software) to get quick and good
results for the newcomer.
2. It is easy to create simple 3d -objects to
work with inside Bryce.
Improvements :
1. The export functions of self created 3d -
objects into other 3d -formats
2. The stability of Bryce when you create a
very complex scene sometimes it crashes and
your scene is damaged.
3. A better function to create stars in the night
skies the actual function is much too crude for
-fi pictures have stars created as postwork with
other software (Universe).
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Rocky Desert
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WOLFGANG SIGL 3DAD: -fi novels? Has some of her work inspired your images?
WS: I have created nearly all of her book covers, though she has her own ideas how a cover should look!
I think my daughter has been inspired mainly by my interest (and the interest of my wife as well) in Science Fiction to write he r first sci-fi novel.
3DAD: You gain support for your artwork from your family as well as the Renderosity community. Has this support and feedback carr ied your artwork further
than you first imagined?
Yes. Mainly my family supported me to de-
cide sometimes which version of a picture
would be the best. Also they supported me to
make pictures of other genres not just sci -fi.
3DAD:
new piece of artwork can often start with a
new object and grow from this including a
story around the object, which can sometimes
and tell me why it is
your favourite.
WS:
Basically I love all my artwork in the same
an amateur astronomer and have tried to
show some areas of the universe in such a
of a hobby astronomer.
-pictures too.
I show them in similar situations like humans.
shows spectacular points to live, not always a
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Somewhere on Mars