I wanted to try drawing Dusky's green-gold eyes, and this stylized cat's face grew from that. And a red fractal background from Apophysis completed the picture. This is still one of my favorites.
“It glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Even-star had come down to rest upon her hand.”
- The Lord of the Rings, Book II, Chapter 7
This is my stylized version of Nenya, the ring of water, one of the three Elvin-rings. The background is an Apophysis fractal, the rest was drawn in Paint Shop Pro.
It's easy to see the repeating fractal pattern in this design. However close you look you'll still see the same swirls getting smaller and branching off each other, like a whole tribe of Oriental dragons, or a huge super-storm containing countless smaller storms. That makes this a pretty versatile design for lots of different screen sizes or print contexts.
A fractals is “a complex geometric pattern exhibiting self-similarity in that small details of its structure viewed at any scale repeat elements of the overall pattern.” The circular repeating patterns are easy to see in this Apophysis fractal. It reminded me of the kind of ornate design you would expect to see in an emperor's court.
I was playing around with a tutorial for creating interesting backgrounds, intending to overlay it with some kind of filigree design. But it turned out so dramatic on its own that I didn't think I should add anything to it. Doesn't it make you think of a brilliant sunset just as storm clouds are clearing?