Christoffer Petersen

Authentic Arctic Crime books and Thrillers

3D art

Apocalyptic Art series: Neighbours

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I’d love to take credit for this, but, even though it is an original piece, I have been inspired by the amazing Swedish artist and storyteller Simon Stålenhag. I fell in love with his books several years ago. Recently, Amazon made a series based on Tales from the Loop. I almost watched it, but didn’t want to spoil the books. At least not yet. Maybe in the future.

Stålenhag is known for blending the mysterious and downright alien with everyday life. It just works. So, here’s my very Stålenhag-inspired art called “Neighbours”.

Neighbours is the third in my apocalyptic art series featuring the same character every time. There are more on the way.

Chris

 

Curse of the Leprechaun!

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Yep, more art! I entered this one into a friendly competition. The brief was to work a rainbow into an image, and this is what my brain came up with.

Description: Tired of bandits stealing your pot of gold? You need Rainbow Tracker TM, the latest and greatest solution on the market from Leprechaun Industries!

This is not AI art! While I am using 3D assets, the “art” comes in positioning, lighting, and choosing the right items for each part of the scene. Then comes the rendering on top, which I think of as “baking”. The image is so “heavy” that my computer starts to sigh, so I once the background is in place, then “bicycle man”, for example, is rendered individually and then placed into the image in Photoshop. So, it really is more like graphic design than art, but I call it art. 😉

Also, contra AI art where the AI has been trained on literally hundreds of millions of images created by artists living and dead with no consideration to copyright infringement at all, I buy the assets from 3D artists. Copyright of the assets belongs to the artists. Copyright of the rendered image belongs to me.

Yeah, if it wasn’t already clear, I think readers of this blog know which side of the AI debate I’m on. 🙂

Chris

Apocalyptic Art series: Daydream Matinee

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I may have mentioned that 3D art is becoming more and more central in my storytelling. I might have mentioned that a few times. 🙂 Recently, I’ve been playing around with telling stories without words. It’s kind of crazy for an author to not write, but I’m having so much fun composing images (using 3D assets) that I’ve started on a series, following the same character as she introduces us to her apocalyptic world.

Confession, dystopian apocalyptic (with or without zombies) is one of my favourite genres to watch and read.

This piece is called “Daydream Matinee”.

Chris

Rogue Art!

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On the recommendations on my dad (the real one, not the dead one!) I just binge watched Rogue Heroes. I loved it, and, apparently, it was just what I needed after several months writing about cold places. 😉 It also took me back to my childhood, and my obsession with all things SAS. The one good thing my dead dad did was arrange for me to have a guided tour of Bradbury Lines, the SAS base in Hereford. It was 1984. I was eleven, and the base got it’s new name Stirling Lines in the same year. I walked around the base with my eyes on stalks, saw one of the desert Pink Panther vehicles, visited the captured weapons armoury and the amazing swimming pool with sides shaped like a submarine and a serious wave machine. It’s funny, we take photos all the time these days, but obviously I didn’t on the base, I don’t think I even owned a camera, but I can remember everything.

I was born in Hereford – spoiler alert: if you didn’t already know, I am not Danish. My parents knew a few SAS soldiers, and there are plenty of stories about bachelor parties, evenings out snatched between anti-terrorism ops, and even a bit of speech therapy. I remember playing with a few of their kids, and being terrified. It didn’t surprise me that those kids would later join the SAS.

I’m not nearly tough enough for that. I mean … just no.

But I had fun with putting together some 3D art. I’m still learning, but the inspiration is coming thick and fast! As for the jeep – yeah, I’m still fiddling with the jeep – but just had to include an image of the base model for reference. Wait? Should I be writing? 😉

Too much fun!

Chris