World-building notes for Jewel of the Boreal, panel 11: “City of Art and Science”

Members of Central Shield Civic Corps conduct the operation of construction A.N.T.s (Autonomous Networked Things) as they repair a carbon capture coil near Superior City. The line between work and play is at best a fuzzy affair in Central Shield. Every citizen is expected to participate as a member of the Central Shield’s Civic Corps. Duties run the range from simple park maintenance to more complicated activities like construction and engineering of the megastructures. In … >> read more

Adspace Oasis

Lovely geometric designs from new Crystal Kings art glitches

This set of images was generated from an accidental arrangement of shapes in the process of making new Crystal Kings digital images. The goal was to line up a few pixels, but instead all the shapes in the whole image collapsed onto each other. A tweak of the opacity and a few quick deletes to tweak the composition was all that was necessary. After that – zooming and panning and looking for treasures in the … >> read more

Pen and ink illustration with digital color, Jewel of the Boreal by Marc Ngui

“Jewel of the Boreal”, an illustration of a sunset view over one of the bays of the futuristic city of Central Shield

When we invent the future, the most important thing is to capture is the feeling so that we can make a connection to that time space and then climb up and forward just like a mountain climber who uses safety ropes on a sheer cliff wall. So what is it like to live in the future, in Central Shield? The animated gif cartoon above was created by taking vignettes from one of Marc’s latest panoramic … >> read more

Central Market in Tepoztlan, Mexico

Tepoztlan is a small town of about 24,000 people nestled in a small green valley 1.5 hours south of Mexico City. The town is one of the federally designated “Pueblos Magicos“, a status it earned for its natural beauty, it is held as the birthplace of Quetzalcoatl. On the weekends the town fills up with day tourists from Mexico and surrounding areas, as well as those who own one of the many weekend retreat homes … >> read more

FLower mandala in a bowl of water

Floating flower mandala

October and November in Tepoztlan is the season for flowers. As the summer rainy season ends and the dry season approaches, plants use their stores of food to burst into bloom and attract pollinating insects that are also getting a reprieve from the torrential downpour and thriving in the warmer weather.

Lodar and his Bubble Car

Lodar and His Bubblecar

A sequence from a story that follows Lodar, a regular guy in a eutopian future, as he goes about a typical day. I am currently writing the script and designing the world.

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Glass Gem Corn

The story of glass gem corn: Seedsman Greg Schoen got the seed from Carl Barnes, a part-Cherokee man, now in his 80’s, in Oklahoma. He was Greg’s “corn-teacher”. Greg was in the process of moving last year and wanted someone else to store and protect some of his seeds. He left samples of several corn varieties, including glass gem. I grew out a small handful this past summer just to see. The rest, as they … >> read more