i have played around a lot with the stuff from this thread: good results but totally useless - made patterns, a spaceship interior and several collages. there was one collage that i liked more than the others and really believed could be something, but it took a lot of time to put it together, with lots of experimenting, adding and removing of objects, moving stuff about, resizing, etc. i completed it today and i am just as happy with it as i thought i'd be! the subject of the collage is built on an ancient indian legend, that of the king cobra - the king of all snakes, who turns human when he is needed somewhere and in some tales built on the legend meets and marries a woman. i read one of those tales when i was a kid and both the tale itself and the illustrations of it made a huge impression on me. in that particular tale, the king cobra met a princess and turned human forever when she dared to place the royal crown on his head, thereby accepting him as her husband and regent of the country - that's the scene i've built this collage on. i'm especially happy with the slightly pre-raphaelite look of the princess, since that was the style of the original illustrations that so caught my imagination when i was little.

edit: i've worked a bit on the definition of the king cobra and i experimented a little with the princess. this is what i liked best so far:

Awesome work. That looks incredible.

what can you say....AnMal on top form !
always a pleasure to see what you come up with

i would have liked the face of the model a bit filtered, to give it a more surreal look and i think the snake could be sharper
but i dont like snakes anyway, and will only look at that beast for seconds

using Erisian's "useless" disks as auras is a very good idea

Wonderfully well done render AnMal. Blended the subjects (girl and cobra) back in pretty good too.

I like it.
Looks like "Jugendstil/Art Nouveau" to me.
Matter of fact the lady could have been painted by Gustav Klimt.
Gerard.

the warrior: thank you very much !
wallace: thank you! the pattern is so easy to make it's ridiculous - it's just the g'mic filter "periodic dots" with some moving about of sliders and as little after treatment of colours.
esper: thank you, brother ! i like the meeting between photos and graphic elements, but since this already has a sort of book illustration feel to it i think i agree with you about the lady's face - i'll see what i come up with after experimenting some more. i can agree about the snake needing some more definition too - and i have no problem looking at it, it's not a spider .
lylejk: thank you ! it took a bit of time rendering both the lady and the snake - and the snake was actually hardest, since it was from a photo of a lot of cobras wrapped up around eachother.
gerard82: wow, thank you! art nouveau/jugendstil is one of my main influences and i love that type of art - gustav klimt is one of my favourites - so i think it's an honour when people see art nouveau in my stuff .

That is so appealing. Very well done, AnMal. Love the patterning and the coloring.

Nicely done, I love your style AnMal!

This is amazing. I love your style.

Interesting... it looks like a mix of indian and arabic influence. Nice work. Although personally, I think the cobra could use a bit more contrast to separate it more from the background... you could also create a nice effect of depth by making the leaves in the foreground slightly out of focus.

oregonian: thank you! it was a bit tricky keeping the colouring together when the elements came from such different types of pictures, but i'm pleased with how it turned out.
odinbc: thank you ! i don't exactly hate it myself...
ek22: hehe, i love hearing things like "amazing" in relation to my gimp stuff, thank you!
dd: thank you! indian and arabic art are among my many influences . i hear you on the cobra, esper pointed out the same thing and i will experiment on it a bit. not going to add depth, though - this is essentially "flat" art and i don't really need the depth.

Awesome work AnMal!

fluffybunny: i think the majority actually had problems with this style when i first joined, but they seem to accept it now . you're right, no script warriors - where do they all go to when you need them? they would have added such glamour to the scene...
amazing that you didn't see me! i was the one in the white dress and veil with the little tiara (not much of a tiara, by the way, there are plenty prettier in the family).
erisian: thank you i'm so glad you liked it, it took me so much time to complete and i really wanted to use your circles this way, it was the first thing i thought of when i saw them.

i've completely missed the latest posts of this thread!

wallace: sorry, i was clumsy writing my first replies and your name fell out of the post, but your answer to the pattern question is right there. i'll go edit the post at once so you can find it.