A close-up photo of some Perspex / plexiglass squares – offcuts from a laser cutting job. I was playing with the black&white settings on my camera.

Micha Swift, my character from Neverwinter Nights 2, takes a break from dangerous adventuring for an afternoon. Poser render.

These amazing fungi are pretty common, but extremely hard to notice, as they are so tiny. I’d gone through that valley 5 or 6 times before I even saw one of these. And then it took a few tries to get a photo that looks okay.

Once upon a time the world was mine. With a snap of my fingers it would appear. With a blink of my eye the sun would rise, with another, night would draw near.

My world was amazing; it could change in a wink from a spaceship to a schoolroom and then to a farm where sad-eyed ponies and cows and dogs would come at my call, great people all, to play the day away.

Then something went wrong. Other people came along and took over my world, and it refused to change when I tried. It became solid and boring and frighteningly real. And the days all go faster and never slow down; my world is on a downhill slope without brakes and there is only one ending.

So I comfort myself for the loss of this world with steadfast hope in that happily ever after.

This image is the one thing that’s caused the 25 000 plus hits on this site … for some reason, looking at my visitor activity, this image is the only thing they look at. I’m not sure why, but I guess it’s a good thing to have on the site, then.

It’s a screencap of a character I used in Oblivion, called Skye. He’s using AlienSlof’s clouded leopard texture, Robert’s male body and AlienSlof’s Silver Armor. All to be found on TESNexus as far as I know. I haven’t played Oblivion for quite a while.

A Poser render … the idea being that these two are both too young to know that they’re supposed to be enemies. And I wanted to try and capture a bit of that “wide eyed wonder” that you see so often in young animals and in some young-at-heart people.

A DAZ|Studio render with a Vue render as backdrop. Apart from the Vue backdrop, everything else used in this picture were freebies. What an awesome community the content creators are!

A modge-podge of images from many different programs! We have an Apophysis fractal in the form of the spire in the background as well as the foreground. Photoshop brushes for the galaxies and planets by Sunira. Poser for the girl and the unicorn and the bubbles. Photoshop to combine all that. And finally Project Dogwaffle for the glitter and leafy stuff.

My dream was thus:
A wooded glade, and moonlight streaming down
like scarves of silk, so delicate, through trees and leaves
and to the ground.
I saw a figure sleeping there,
stretched in the fragrant grass:
She wore my face
and in repose looked pale and cold and fair.
Then from the east a movement came
and from the wood it stepped:
Its mane a blowing, tail a flowing,
hooves struck sparks of forest green
as to my other self it strode
and with its golden horn aglow
gently touched her sleeping brow.
She woke at that, my other self,
with nimble poise she rose,
touched the slender graceful neck
and stroked the velvet nose.
Then she bowed with deep respect,
looked in the liquid eyes.
Like the center of a storm they were:
eternal movement caged and tamed
yet burning still with fearless will
and courage never shamed.
It then bent down, that shining soul:
allowed my other self to mount.
Its mane she gripped, it read her thought
and through the forest night they rode.
Like faerie steed and Sídhe they flew
and where they went, they only knew.

I woke this morn, the dream but wisps
the woodland glade but haze.
But through me pounds the rhythm still:
the hooves, the wind, the daze.
And on my forehead, soft but glowing
shines a mark but rarely seen:
A hoof, a horn, what is it showing,
and is it real, or just a dream?

(C) Leoni Venter 17/12/2007

We came across a whole pack of wild dogs just inside the Kruger Park, close to the Kruger Gate. Of course I could only get this one snap through the window of the car. They’d be cute if they weren’t so … bloody, lol!