Friday, January 2, 2009

Fractals, Straight Lines, and Curves

Yes, something clicked in the brain of the fearful geek. It's funny how that happens. I had recently discovered an on-line game that drew fractals. I had never heard of fractals, but the site had an explanation of the phenomenon of structured growth patterns in nature, and a fun little program that let you play with fractals. Now, just after I'd seen fractals in action, here was a guy saying he used the straight-line tool to draw curves. My brainwaves did an electrical arc. It was a quantum leap for me. I suddenly envisioned how I could use a straight line to draw curves, like the sculptor who takes a block of marble and chips away everything that doesn't look like a horse. I would use the straight line to cut away the part of the curve that isn't needed. I would pull each line out at a tangent from the curve, as the line of a fractal coming out from a central point. I now saw that I could use LView Pro to create the highlights and shadows that I needed on Bugbones, then use Windows Paintbrush to trim and smooth the contours of the main shapes. It was a strange workaround, no doubt, but one that I still use today.

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