Here are three more architectural mandalas based off a photo of buildings in downtown Chicago. This series ended up being more radial and refractive in appearance.
The first mandala is based off this photo of a column on the London House building on the Magnificent Mile. These Roman looking columns are huge and frame the main entry to the building. I took this photo while waiting for the light to change on my lunch break heading back to the office.
Here is what the photo turned into. I cut out the column as a separate layer then repeated it radially then added the rest of the building in between the spaces. After that I repeated some layers of everything to merge it into an interesting star shape. The tans of the buildings bring a sort of gold texture into things and some of the column patterns start looking like seashells of some sort.
I like to animate these mandalas in a subtle way. Here I did the complementary color of blue for it to fade in an out to. Perhaps this could be the underside of some sort of space ship and its the last thing you see before getting beamed up to be experimented on lol.
The next photo is of a sunset on one of the bridges as I was heading to the train station after work. In fall the sunsets between these buildings can be quite brilliant against the dark contrasting structures of the building and bridges. Beware the random mothman hanging out in the rafters of the bridges lol.
This one ended up quite complex looking with lots of angles that kind of resemble shiny highlights on a diamond. The sunset colors make an interesting sun shape right in the middle. This one is quite the kaleidoscope.
Now that it is animated it kind of resembles a snowflake blending into a sunset. If I remember correctly the year I took this had a really cold and brutal winter. On that bridge in particular the wind really whips through the skyscrapers and adds tons of wind chill to the already cold winter. You have to walk at an angle leaning into the cold wind.
This next shot is from when I had to work late one night and catch a later train home. You can see the el train track highlighted in yellow and a large 70s era shiny glass cube building in back. During the day this building has a sort of goldish hue and people who work inside complain about the tints of the window turning everything sort of sepia inside lol. It would be way too expensive to change all that tinting so the employees are stuck in a sepia world.
The orange from the el train track created quite a molten structure in the center of this edit. Then the blueish tint of the building created a nice complex linear skeletal structure surrounding it.
Now that its animated it kind of reminds me of a stove top burner with blue propane flames turning into a cooler orange flame. Or it could possibly be the view into a space shuttle rocket as it takes off. As it turns blue it sort of reminds me of a stained glass window rosette that you see in gothic looking Catholic churches.
That's all for now, I never quite know what these edits might turn into. Thanks for looking :-)