“The Workers,” Daniel D. Brown, 2016, Digital

“The Workers” is my latest piece in a series of digital artworks I’ve been creating with the intent of implying fantastical stories with individual beings or groups of beings. It is up to the viewer to create or decipher the story (and so far, I’ve found viewer’s interpretations even more interesting than my own). Also in this series: “The Refugee” and “The Guardian.”

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I actually created two versions of this piece, and I waver in which I like best. But I believe this one is more conducive to story-telling:

“The Workers”
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And here’s the original version (without the HUD or CRT screen effects).

“The Workers” Original
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“The Refugee,” Daniel D. Brown, 2013

The story is in the details. I have heard a couple interpretations from viewers, and I must say that I’ve been more entertained by the stories that they saw within this piece than with the one in my head. My goal with this work was to simply make the viewer question the circumstances surrounding the refugee and companion. What do you think is going on?

This is my latest serious attempt at creating a detailed artwork primarily using Blender (with post-processing in Photoshop). I wanted to add even more details but I reached the limits of my laptop processor (and patience). This took about two weeks of pretty constant work in the evenings and weekends. Each object was individually modeled and textured/painted myself (Though my wife came up with the alien writing and the kid’s drawing. NASA provided the earth maps.). Many thanks to Andrew Price at blenderguru.com for his blender tutorials (particularly the one on creating the Earth).

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“The Refugee”
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Dippy & Friends, Daniel D. Brown, 2012

I made this earlier this year but didn’t get around to posting it. This is the famous “Dippy” diplodocus sculpture that stands outside the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which is easily my favorite place to visit in Pittsburgh, PA. Some new friends just strolled in from Schenley Plaza.

I modeled the diplodocus dinosaurs in Blender, photographed the museum and statue with my iPhone, and did texturing and compositing in GIMP. This was an exercise in integrating a 3D computer model into a real world photo with at least somewhat realistic lighting and shadows.

Dippy & Friends, Daniel D. Brown, 2012
“Dippy and Friends”