I like stand alone flames a lot. Especially if they are well defined shapes and the gradient is applied well. I like the glow of the colors in a flame. I just don't post any that I make because its not my style, not to mention that I have yet to make one that even closely compares to my favorite ones here! lol There's a good bit of Polygon Pushin' and gradient work that has to go on to refine a randomly generated flame and get it rendered well. You do see a lot of similar flames types, however. The possibilities are hypothetically limitless, but there are a finite number of shapes that people who like fractals find pleasing. Couple that with the fact that you see a lot of the flame variation types repeatedly generated and "spiralled" with the same scripted algorithms and the number of possibilities is even smaller. I suppose its due to the "quasi"-random operation of any of the psuedorandom sequences that man is able to come up with. As far as I know, only God is capable of true randomness. That said, I usually use flames in my images as texturing or in concert with other flames or UF fractal layers. My style is to make "compositions", I guess, (and the bushes in my yard ARE pruned into shapes - lol) and I use fractal shapes as part of a greater whole - though my initial love for fractals stemmed from the psychedelic, "black-lite poster" look many had in the 90's and still do now and I still love them. One thing I've found is that Apo can be a bit detrimental to getting any work done in UF due to its addictiveness - it can be almost like a compulsion and is great stress relief therapy, too! lol Mark could make a mint (the $$ kind, not the artist! lol) off of Apo if he chose too! I've had to stop running spiral scripts because I was running out of "landscaping" materials - flames with an organic look to use in compositions - which have to be made manually. Fractal geometry was first described to me in the '80's as the math that describes the shapes of nature and crystals, so I reckon that's why I'm inclined to use so many "plant-like" flames. As far as whether an image has to be a mega-complex layer fest to be considered "good", I suppose I don't subscribe to that opinion. I think, in the end, the question should be "is it beautiful or pleasing to look at"? After all, we are creating ART, no? Some of the most pleasing - at least to my eye - images and graceful shapes I've seen here are only one or a few layers. There is quite a bit of work involved in perfecting an image of one layer and a lot of attention must be paid to fashioning the right gradient and shading for those works. But in the end, I think the question should be about how the image looks and not - "was it hard to make"? Rick