Pillars Of Decay

When I returned from my long weekend in the countryside, I could hardly wait to work with the photos and textures I had captured there.

To be honest, I didn't know where to start, and my indecision led me to spend many hours going back and forth, exploring the same folder of photos over and over again, hoping that something would spark an idea.

And finally, it did. When I saw the photo I took of some cacti (which I believe are of the genus Cereus) for the umpteenth time, it reminded me of a historical photo from the 90s taken by the Hubble telescope: Pillars of Creation.

That was one of the best moments of serendipity I've experienced because I immediately imagined creating a very "grunge" reinterpretation of that iconic photo. And what's even better, the textures I captured those days were perfect for achieving what I had in mind. After trying out several textures of lichens and moss, I settled on these three:

By applying different blending modes and playing with the opacity levels of the layers in GIMP, I arrived at a preliminary result that was quite in line with what I wanted.

But it still looked very flat, without depth. I needed to bring those thorny "pillars" to the foreground. Using a mask, I applied a rusted metal texture to the cacti. Then, by inverting the mask, I used a stained metal texture, which I had utilized in many works, for the background.

For the final touches, I used an aluminum texture and a dirty blue metal texture to achieve a patina. Additionally, I did something I rarely do: I added some dark brush strokes for more contrast in certain parts of the composition.

And here I present to you, "Pillars Of Decay."

Click on the image to enlarge.