My background as me:
Though born in Cornwall in the UK, we emigrated to Melbourne, Australia way back in 1981 and have lived here ever since. Outside of creating stuff on my computer, I love to travel (Africa, South America and South East Asia), ride my motorbike (currently a Honda CBR900RR Fireblade), keep fit, go mountain-biking, rockclimbing (mostly indoor, but occasionally outdoors too), a bit of snowskiing and just generally spend time with friends. Oh, yes and work and sleep too ;-)
...and as an 'artist':
From an early age I always loved drawing. When I was about 12, I was right into boats (particularly those huge expensives ones you see docked in places like Monaco!) and would draw these ships in painstaking detail and plan out how they would look inside as well. My father served for many years in the Royal Navy and we lived close to the sea, so I was always very influenced by the water. I think this nautical heritage explains why so many of my works feature water, not to mention structures with stainless steel railings around them! :-)
After boats, I became very interested in science fiction: not just the stories, but even more so the fantastic illustrations. I always remember buying my first book of sci-fi illustrations: "21st Century Foss" by Chris Foss. That book provided an endless source of wonder and inspiration and I still have it today. I bought many other books of a similar nature and set about drawing my own amazing spacecraft. I made many drawings, but sadly I threw them all away (I thought people might think they were a bit weird! They weren't of course, but in the mind of an artistic 14 year old who was more concerned with trying to fit in, then they were weird!) I was always frustrated, however, by the fact that I couldn't bring my drawings more to life - I had the imaginaton, but not the skills to paint or airbrush like Chris Foss, Peter Elson, Angus McKie or countless other British sci-fi artists of the late seventies, early eighties.
So my next step along the artistic road was photography. I hassled my poor Dad endlessly until he bought a very cool Olympus OM-10 SLR as the family camera. Of course, it didn't belong to our family - it was mine! :-) So began a lifelong love of photography which allowed me to really express my creativity. I learned everything I possibly could about not only the creative aspects of photography, but the technical ones too - I like to really get into stuff!
Some time later, I discovered music, not the enjoyment of listening to it (something I've always loved too), but playing it myself. Though at first fascinated by electronic music, I learned to play guitar initially and then, later on when I could afford it, I indulged my passion for electronic keyboards. Here was another medium which I found to be really expressive too, but, like my drawing, I didn't have the skills to play guitar or keyboards particularly well (I could, however, make lots of very cool sounds...at least I thought so anyway :-) More frustration....
Around the turn of the Millennium (I've always wanted to say that) as I became more heavily involved with computers through work and study, I discovered 3D computer art. Though I don't recall any images in particular, I was fascinated by how these pictures were created. After a bit of searching around I discovered Terragen - I couldn't believe that such a sophistcated program could be free!! I downloaded the free version and played with it and very quickly fell in love with it - so easy to use, yet so creative and the results looked so professional! So I spent quite a few months creating worlds of my own using Terragen before discovering computer based music. Another creative outlet to fall in love with! :-) Here was a music making system that allowed me to finally create whatever I could imagine!! Yet I still needed to find the same outlet in the visual arts field...
Sometime in early 2006 I started looking at 3D computer art once more. Again, I was so impressed by what I saw. This time however, I distinctly remember those first images I saw - they were Joe Vinton's (better known as Orbital, of course, around these parts) series of images that featured a balloon in them. I couldn't believe what I was seeing - there was something so touching and wonderful about this series - Orbital had created such places of wonder that were so realistic and believable that I just had to find out which program he had used to create such works of wonder. The program of course is Bryce! Finally I had found my creative Nirvana! Not only that, but Orbital's stunning images were, of course, posted here at Renderosity where I have laid my creative hat ever since! Then, in November 2007, I finally took the plunge and bought Vue 6 Infinite and have never looked back!
The Origin of my Name:
The name SunsetHunter was bestowed on my while travelling on a riverboat along the Rio Madeira in Brazil in October 1999. I was travelling with a Japanese backpacker, called Moto, at the time. We chugged along the river for about 4 days altogether and I always remember it being one of the most peaceful times in my (already peaceful) life. I would quite happily spend the entire day perched at the edge of the boat just watching the river and the vast jungle go by. We made about 1000kms in those 4 days on the boat and the scenery was virtually unchanged all that time. A magnificent place. At the end of each day, I always made a point of standing at the bow of the vessel to watch the sunset across the jungle off our port side. My Japanese friend, Moto, called me The Hunter of Sunsets and even wrote the Japanese script for this in my travel journal which I still have. I always thought it was a great nom de plume, but had never used it until I became a member here in May 2006.
Anything Else?:
Other than I don't look anything like my avatar....ummm...no, not really - thats about it! You can go and check out my gallery if you like! I will certainly check your's out too!! :-)
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Comments (51)
skiwillgee
This is quite beautiful even without trying to read deeper meaning into it. I always wondered where all those Bryce SOWs came from or migrated to.
Jordanholmes
Nice job!
geoegress
Cool :)
Questor4
nice work with this
egehlin
This is a wonderful picture!! The best Bryce image I've seen in quite a while. Bravo!!
miwi
I counted 1501,lol; excellent work,cool image!!!!!!!!
thecytron
Xcellent surrealism!
kanzler
Superb large render!
Mondwin
Great and fantastic compo...bravissimo!V:DDD.Hugsxx
duo
Great image! Same theme of one of my lastest. BRAVO!
amota99517
Excellent composition and lighting.
Burpee
You are a MAD MAN!!!! 1500 spheres??? Wowzers! How long did that take you? Awesome pic sir, awesome!
MagikUnicorn
COOL DEPTH! Lovely Orb Play!
soffy
this is a wonderful creation,1500 spheres filled with love and beautiful dreams :)wow this is excellent**** :)
melevos
excellent work!!!!
alexclark
Brilliant and original work! Excellent!
2121
Awesome work my friend, great idea. Looks good at full scale.
lior
So stunning bryce artwork!
Star4mation
Fantastic depth this image has!! Love it :)
GRA
1500 spheres that's a lot of balls
stick
I like the feeling of depth in this, a real work of art. Super jobb!!!
Lown
Wow, great stuff!!
sudafed
very kool :)
mjj
cool and nice...:)
Xantipa
Perfect creation..+++5
erlandpil
Nice picture again erland
mikeywilliam
I love the overall sense of movement and retro look about it! It makes me think of an synth/electro music video of some sort. Love it!
hipps13
A place I would go music playing eyes do follow smiles within learns the soul Sweet weekend to you I really like this one
ascript
This is fabulous!! ;)
myquad
WoW!! Beautiful and creative. Bravo!