Digital Works by Mark J. Norton

When I got my first personal computer (a Macintosh SE), I started playing the the possibilities immediately. I was disappointed with the lack of quality, resolution, printing capability, etc. Well, things got better as I upgraded by computers. I now have a PC running Win/XP with a gigabyte of RAM (my, how times have changed).

The pictures below use a variety of software packages including Painter, Poser, Bryce, and especially Photoshop. Most of the 3D work I do is touched up in Photoshop before saving the final copy.

90k Mar. 2003	Flight Wire merges two renderings of a Poser figure combined in Photoshop using layers and selective delete.
130k Nov. 2002	Poser is a 3D figure program that allows you to work with the human figure. It's really great for getting forshortening on the human body just right. Seiza Dojo is a simple example of what can be done in Poser, including adding clothing to figures.
40k Nov. 2002	Beret is another example of Poser, using its brush-stroke rendering option.
51k Oct. 2002	Poser is also good as a starting point for a composition. In Guardian Angel, the figure was brought into Photoshop and made more abstract using various filters and painting effects. In particular, the maxium filter gives the picture a cubist feel to it.
34k Oct. 2002	Female Wraith uses a nude Poser figure, combined with the layering capabilities of Photoshop. The skeleton which lurks beneath the surface was drawn freehand using a graphics tablet and blended into the original view, somewhat filtered.
265k Dec. 2002	Human figures is not the only thing that can be modeled in Poser. In Fish Study a single fish was rendered and brought into Photoshop. The fish is then hue-shifted, scaled, rotated, and liquified to created several realted fish. Drop shadows add a bit of dimensionality.
133k Feb. 2002	Skull Candle uses the skeleton model in Poser, and several geometric primitives. I had trouble figuring out how to separate the skull from the rest of the skeleton, so just hid the rest of the body with a table surface. Poser doesn't have 3D lights, so the candle glow is added in Photoshop.
233k Feb. 2002	Tres Hombres shows several versions of the skeleton model with different surface textures and color. The short guy on the left uses a morph magnet to create the horn shape on his head. That background wall comes from a picture of a real wall, scanned and mapped to solids.
53k Dec. 2002	I got a nice present for christmas in 2002: a copy of Bryce. Bryce is a 3D graphics program for creating landscapes. It is very nice. Sea Cave Interior is an example of what you can do. This uses a terrain model featuring very high mountains near the edge of altitude map, leaving tunnels under it. Some texture and an interior light makes for an interesting view.
56k Dec. 2002	Tower at Sunset is a more typical Bryce landscape. The program provides complete control over postion of the sun, cloud cover, terrain, etc. The tower is a cylinder primitive shrunk down and put into place.
79k Dec. 2002	Naturally more complex scenes are possible with Bryce, also. Ziggerats shows two pyramids on a plane partially hidden by foreground trees. Bryce 5 added the ability to model trees and foliage.
136k April 2003	More Bryce work. This landscape is largely made from rocks scaled and rotated appropriately. The waterfall is also a rock with water texture.
234k July 2001	Star Dance started as an experiment in scanning images out of a book and altering them in Photoshop. The star field background is completely created in Photoshop using various filters, and effects such as lens flare.
236k Jan. 2002	I have a lot of sketches, drawings and designs that I did when I was younger. Alien Plant is based on one of those drawings, scanned and painted in Photoshop. Several kinds of textures, patterns and filters were used to deliberately provide wild contrast.
57k c.1998	Another experiment with digital painting, Walking and Falling used an under painting covered completely with white. A spray paint eraser was then used to sketch a figure which revealed color beneath. This was done in Photoshop.
190k c. 1995	Max Sherman and Son brings three of my great interests together into a single work of art. This started as a photograph of two Aikidoists practicing together. It was scanned into Fractal Painter and used as a template for a digital painting. The process adds a sense of action which is lacking in the original photo.
unknown	The DAZ-3D Mellenium Dragon and a Byce background.
unknown	Dinosaur bones created in Flying colors used to emboss a stone created in Bryce. All post in Photoshop.
unknown	A Bryce landscape
unknown	The jagged mountains created in Bryce made me wonder who lived in these mountains. Some Photoshop work and the mountains become a kind of city.
unknown	Experiments with sunsets and distant objects in Bryce. It has a kind of mysterious mood to it. What are the arches for? Who built them?
unknown	Texture studies. The rich texture of the hair and background come from photos of rope on a fishing boat. The figure is Victoria 2.0 in Poser.
unknown	A poser figure with prop.
unknown	This picture is a recurring theme with me - the power of magic arcing from hand to hand. Background from a castle in Ireland.
unknown	A nasty texture map for Victoria.
unknown	This illustration is an attempt to paint digitally. It's completely done in Photoshop using a Wacom pen tablet.