Hello everyone from heavenriver, and a brand new issue of fractal features!

A really special one, to boot. But what's so special about it? And what's with the vague as hell title?

Essentially, a new idea I've had recently. This feature is about where we all started as fractalists. It is meant to journey through the galleries of the oldest fractal-makers in the community, those with years of experience behind their backs, and that are often looked up on by other people as the unattainable masters of fractalsmithery.

This series of features will show how this is not true at all! Everyone has had a starting point, and believe it or not, even the cream of the crop was once at n00b level, trying to make sense of all those funny parameter names and strange buttons. While people may be born with natural talent, and learn faster than others, there's no doubt that effort is the key to success: with patience and time, everyone can become a good fractal artist. Yes, everyone.

Another thing that makes it special is that you yourself can volunteer to be featured! But this will be covered down below, in the Guidelines for Participation paragraph. If you are interested in this, please give it a read; it's at the bottom of this journal.

Now, without further ado, I will kick this off by telling you my own story - how I started, and how I improved over my five-years-and-counting in the fractal community of DeviantArt!

heavenriver's story

Ah, my very first fractal! One does not simply forget one's first fractal. The fun part is, I started with Apophysis, as you can see, despite being an UF-only user now. (I could probably stretch my Apophysis muscles if I really wanted to...)

My first few tries with it were probably less than ideal. And less than original, for that matter.

 

So I joined the Apophysis challenges hosted weekly by sragets in hopes of getting something good out of them. And I did! Occasionally.

 

Other times, of course, I would just plain fail. But that was training, too, and some of the challenges actually made me discover variations, plugins and techniques that I started using in my later works, with moderate success.



Then I learned about the mobius plugin and that's what I essentially fell in love with. My last few Apophysis works, from early 2012, are all mobius-based. That's also the basis for what is likely my best Apophysis work of all time.



For a couple of years, in 2010 and 2011, I tried carrying on using both Apophysis and UF evenly, since I liked both programs and wanted to skyll myself as equally as possible.

The perks of Apophysis for me were the ease with which it could be learned, as there are MANY very valid tutorials out there for all levels, from beginner to expert; the community was also very Apophysis-driven, as contrary to UF it was free to use, and there were many more Apophysis fractalists than UF fractalists in general. This made the program a lot more approachable for beginners. I tried learning UF with tutorials too, but that never really came to anything, and in the first few months of usage it was just plain hostile for me.

However, another thing I came to learn with time was, if you really want to be original with Apophysis, you have to come up with something that is just your own. And with Apophysis' substantial lack of flexibility - at least in my opinion, and compared to UF - that was hard. I would try out tutorials over tutorials seeking something that would fit my artistic preferences, and I always ended up failing to customise the style that other people had come up with in a way that I deemed satisfying and also "my own".

In other words, I could make pretty pictures, but it felt as though they were not really "mine". That's exactly what UF changed about my production... slowly. Over time.

Because my start with UF was, as I mentioned, very rocky.



This was my first work, and oh boy, does one really not simply make UF masterpieces...

   

Some of the works I made were sort of good, but I didn't feel they were quite as original.

 

But the upside of just banging your head against the wall repeatedly, cycling through the thousands of formulas in the database and testing out everything within your sight range until you find something vaguely and remotely appealing, is exactly this: you can make the occasional, serendipitous great work without even realising it.

And for me, that came with UF, in the form of my very first Daily Deviation.



...Of course, there was still a long way to go.

And since I had been derping around for months, wondering what the hell to do with the expertise I was accumulating and feeling as though I wasn't really going anywhere by keeping up my random exploration thing, I figured I would seek something similar to the Apophysis challenges.

Sadly, there was no such thing for Ultra Fractal, as the oldest ones had long since died down. So I decided to take up the hiddendimension.com challenges, which focused on just a few types of formulas and went in-depth about how to use them, also proposing challenges to the reader after every paragraph.

I had... mixed results. But at least, it wasn't complete crap.

       

It kept me occupied for a good couple of months! Sadly, it didn't really teach me to love those formulas, but I did learn something very useful from it: if you want to develop your own style, you have to focus on a combination that you like, and explore ALL its possibilities, until you know it better than what's in your pockets.

So I started browsing through DA, searching for pictures I liked, which also indicated the type of formula used in them. I found the word "Barnsley" in some of those that appealed me, and decided to explore that.

The results? Interesting, to say the least.

 

Of course, they were far from masterpieces, but I was getting somewhere: I had found a formula I liked, which I could reuse and make interesting designs with, WITHOUT looking repetitive! This was new to me, and it got me all excited.

At this point, I decided I would repeat the same process with other formulas. And the one I picked next was "SFBM II".

Again, the results did not disappoint.

   

My next victim? Minibrots, and then the classics, such as gnarls and Orbit Traps. And then flowers. Essentially, for the rest of 2010 and the whole of 2011, I explored a little bit of everything for a fairly long period of time, trying to make sense of what to explore more.

   

I also kept cooperating with other fractalists, getting parameters from them and tweaking. That helped me discover formulas I wanted to work with, too, and failing that, it was still educational and fun!



Another upgrade to my style came towards the end of the year, when I bought Janet Parke's Ultra Fractal ebook courses. Not only those made me work under extremely restrictive conditions, something I wasn't used to AT ALL, they also made me work with formulas I had generally overlooked or underestimated; they completely broke my habit of colouring as I go, rather making me focus on the shape first, and the shades later.

Not many of my UF course period fractals are worth noting, but those really opened my eyes about the endless possibilities offered by the program, and how I could exploit it to make it do my bidding.



Janet's courses gave me method, which is something I will always be thankful for.

And it paid off really well: I got my second Daily Deviation that very year.



In terms of sheer popularity, 2012 was likely the best of my years. I felt very creative with whatever I came across, and discovered a few new styles and new aspects of my old, which helped me develop them further and make original stuff with them, and even SERIES of artworks. The Elements and the MBTI have some of my most favourited fractals to date.

     

  

This was also the year when I made what later became my "emblem" fractal, Worlds in Collision.



In 2013, I actually had a bit of an artistic crisis due to feeling stuck in a rut; it felt as though I had explored everything of what was explorable, and did everything I wanted to do, and therefore had nothing else to offer to my watchers. The fall in the sheer popularity of my works admittedly disappointed me. Still, I was determined to keep stretching my fractal muscles, even if that meant enduring a year's worth of artistic block; and even amongst the not so great works I have in there, I am still happy I made that decision.

 

A tip for you: if you feel stuck, and like you can't do anything good at all, ask your friends for parameters. Or not your friends, just about anyone. Not everyone is open to share, but most people are, and will do so when asked, if they haven't willingly posted the parameters already. Seeing how other people work can give you very neat ideas for your own work. My collaborations with OutsideFate in particular have been very fruitful, because I have always been fascinated by his unique style.



Year 2014 is when his contribution finally paid off, as I discovered one of my now most loved and most used formulas in the whole database: KPK Wiggbarn!

     

Popularity was decreasing steadily, but I didn't care. I had finally found something that I really enjoyed doing, after years of searching. I was happy where I was and more than ever determined on keeping up the walk along that track.

And that takes us to 2015, which is where I am now!

   

There's no telling where I'll go from here, but it certainly will be interesting to see and live through.

With my hopes that you have enjoyed and got hyped up enough with this feature, I now present you with the Guidelines for participation! Get YOUR OWN story told and read by the many people of our wonderful community.

Guidelines for Participation

This will be an entirely community-driven feature, in that you yourself can volunteer to be in the very next issue! I will NOT make issues for people WITHOUT PRIOR PROMPTING, because this sort of feature involves criticism of an artist's earlier works, and nobody likes hearing bullcrap about their old stuff unless they know it's for a good reason. If you wish to participate by being featured here, please send me a Note. You have two options:

1) You can send me a Note with the fully written journal entry, which I will simply post as-is and add credit to you for doing it; this guarantees no editing and gives you the option of telling us your fractal story in detail (which is something I would definitely appreciate!), but requires more time than the next option.
2) You can send me a Note with just the fractals you wish to be featured, in the order of featuring, that is, from the oldest to the newest. This lifts the dirty work off your shoulders but also gives the readers a narrower perspective on your improvement, and how it happened.

Either way, option 2 is much better than option 3, which is not participating at all; if you think you have enough experience and improvement behind your back, no matter how long or short your stay in the fractal community has been, do NOT hesitate to apply! This feature series can ONLY run with the help of its contributors.

Applications are now open, and always will be! Stay awesome and see you in the next issue