Creative Sunday | Digital Collage No. 2 : Birds of Alien Paradise

For my Digital Collage No. 2 project, the theme is birds in paradise. Although I wanted to create a world where birds dwell, the setting is in an alien universe. I wanted to create an alternate world where creatures roam freely and exist in harmony with each other The paradise would be filled with a plethora of colors to fill the imagination.

Software/Application

I love creating fractals. For this task, I utilized Apophysis. This software is a fractal rendering software. First, a fractal is a visual interpretation of a repeating pattern or geometrical shaped mathematical formula that is indefinitely complex. It repeats forever across different scales. This is accomplished by iterations.

The application of a fractal in real life is unique. Many of us have witnessed the beauty and mystery of a snowflake. Likewise, mountains, rivers, clouds, coastlines, and flowers are all fractals found in nature.

In the medical field, fractals help understand how bacteria grow and and brain waves are detected. Their formulas have created numerous scientific discoveries. ¹

The most famous fractal is the Mandelbrot Fractal.

Internal Steps

For this project, I decided to utilize the following free sourced images to blend with my fractals.

I'd like to introduce the Hive Learners Community to the free image source database, the LMAC Image Library (the "LIL").

LMAC is the acronym for the Let's Make A Collage Community headed by @shaka. I've been a member of LMAC for a few years. The Community is a friendly space for Hive members to be creative, designing collages per the Community rules for the weekly contests. It's a fun environment to showcase your talents.

LMAC member @guantumg built a free database for the LMAC Community members to house the images. Community members can contribute their own images to the database. Other Community members can use the images to create their own collages, provided they follow the rules.

The LIL currently contains over 8,000 images. Why not stop by and take a look at the Gallery? Here is the link to the LIL.

I love creating collages in the LMAC Community utilizing other members' images.

Two of the most important rules is that (i) you are required to add the @lmac account as 20% beneficiary in your posts to help providing attractive prizes in the LMAC contest; and (ii) if you use an image from the database, you must set the contributing member as a 2% beneficiary of your post.

The concept is: members helping members. That way, you have an awesome resource for your own collages while earning a passive income from your contributions each time another member use your image.

Visit the LMAC Community and and on DISCORD to find additional information about the weekly contest and how to contribute your own personal images to the database.

I've included several members' images in my Creative Sunday - Digital Collage No. 2 project.

• Octopus shaped fantasy landscape by KELLEPICS at Pixabay

• Alien girl at PxFuel

• Black birds Contributed to the #LIL by @onyechi

• Seagull coming in for landing Contributed to the #LIL by @redheadpei

• Bird 2 Contributed to the #LIL by @hernleon74

• Half moon Contributed to the #LIL by @redheadpei

• Red octopus Contributed to the #LIL by @yetsimar

• Blue Alien angel Contributed to the #LIL by @eve66

• Giraffe Contributed to the #LIL by @eve66.

STEP 1:

The first step to my project was to create the fractals. When using the software, you must down it. Below is the Apophysis program where I designed and rendered the pure fractals. You have to save the fractals to disk for later use.

STEP 2:

With my fractals and other free images, all I needed to complete my digital collage was to blend them. For this task, I chose Canva. The design site is a free photo editor in a graphic design application. Creating visually-appealing social media content, photo collages, videos and other projects is easy.

Utilizing Canva, I was able to blend the fractals to create the scene. You can join Canva for free. For my purposees, I opted to upgrade to an Annual Pro Membership Subscription. Some of the features and tools are only available to upgraded members. Since I use the site daily for all my collage creations, I decided it was worth my time and effort to upgrade to Pro.

In order to design any collage, you must be able to reposition the images on your canvas. That means, you must remove the background. Locating a good free background removal program may be difficult.

Canva provides a background removal tool. But the feature is only available to upgraded members.

My fractal images I rendered on transparent background anticipating their use in blending with other type art.

First, I opened Canva and uploaded all images. I then added the free-sourced image of the octopus fantasy landscape to one the free blank canvas templates.

I utilized the octopus free sourced image as the background setting. Sizing it to fit my standard collage dimensions, I knew I would need to duplicate the image so that other images could fit on the canvas. I flipped the image to create a vertical duplicate, forcing a full background.

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With the background in place, I can began adding the remaining images. A few of the images required the backgrounds to be removed.

First, I added the alien head.

Next came the other alien birds, alien angel, the moon, red octopus, other birds, and the giraffe.

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This completed blending my collage.

Final Look

As you can see, Canva was perfect for my needs to blend all the elements. With a bit of adjustments to the sizes an position, I feel my final product looks nice.

Here is the final version:

RULES AND GUIDELINES FOR COLLAGE:

Must write at least 300 words while making the content.

You must include separate sections like Software/Application, Internal Steps & Final Look.

Minimum 6 Steps (Photos) of the whole process (including internal steps & final look)

Must use necessary images/artworks from copyright free websites to make collage. And you will have to source each of the used photos properly.

Make sure you read the complete rules and guidelines in the Hive Learners Community.

Thanks for taking the time to view my post. I hope you like my Digital Collage No. 2 project.