Luke Bash

The Vatican is small, that much is obvious, I needed a good view of the country and I had tried inside St Peter's Cathedral. I was unhappy with the result. I dismissed the Sistine Chapel as it is too complicated and well beyond my skill level. I like the view from the Cupola extending out into the square, but it looks into the rest of Rome. I decided to go with that and just keep the rest of Rome grey. I wrote the name of the country across the top. This is my final result: Looking at it now, I realize that all the statue on the front of the cathedral are missing... oops. It seems like I'll need to revisit this one again.

Here is another tile for a place I have never been, but somewhere a friend traveled to and I am insanely jealous. Like the shading of the Arc de Triomphe, this scene has a lot of detail based on shadows. The base colors are quite simple, but the shadow transform the picture. I didn't originally want to do all the detail, but I decided to do everything I saw. It was slow and a pain, but the result is fantastic and I am ecstatic about. Enjoy!

I think of Canada as a great natural wonder. I used the beautiful mountains with a little bit of snow and reflection from Lake Banff. I also copied the white frame style of Japan, this time with a maple leaf. I tried it with a red tint to the leaf, but it didn't work. Here is the end result:

I decided to stay away from Phuket and Koh Samui for showing Thailand. Although beautiful, they don't showcase Thai culture. There are many sites in Bangkok to use, but I like the temple in Chiang Mai. I decided to also show the floating lanterns at night. I am not sure if this is the final version, but I have very few evening/night scenes.

I searched around Germany for a good location. I know there are beautiful castles and natural parks, but I saw Brandenburg Gate and decided to use it. I didn't think of using the 3 colors of the flag until much later. It's a simple and strong image with this color scheme.

Belgium; a land of airy waffles, decadent chocolate and a wide variety of beer. But when it comes to famous sites, I struggled with finding a site that other people could identify. I know that the Expo '58 Atomium isn't that famous, but it is iconic and a fun challenge. I'm pleased to get convincing chrome spheres with just 3 colors. Both the building and the tile are a simple construction, just needed to be done carefully. Enjoy!

Matterhorn is an obvious choice, an iconic monument of Switzerland. I wanted a perspective with some snow, but not too much. I found one with a nice reflection. Like natural reflections, the reverse image isn't perfect, which would have been much easier. It was a fun tile to make and I'm happy with the result.

It's easy to find pictures of Taipei 101. But I decided to use skyline techniques from the Lesotho mountains. I used the sunset colors style like Zaragosa. I only needed a highlight color for the sunny side of the building to make it complete. Enjoy!

Not much to say on this one. Italy has many sites, but the Colosseum is an obvious choice. It was just a matter of finding the right perspective.

In a continuation of doing tiles for others, Myanmar came up in conversation. A land full of numerous temples across the land, I found a source image that had some, but not too many. 2-3 shades of each color are enough to depict the scene. As I have never been here either, I can't comment on how well it represents the country. But at least it works for me and the one who traveled here.

I have been making tiles for places I had visited before this. Spain is on my list but I have never been. Family have traveled there so I decided to make a tile for someone other than me. It was much harder to choose an iconic scene to do. I'm happy with doing a less famous location. Enjoy.

When it came time to think about a tile for the US, I could think of many different scenes to use, from National Parks to famous monuments, but in the end, I decided to try a famous site in San Diego, Hotel del Coronado. It probably isn't recognizable by Americans around the country and I might have to do another, more generic, tile. However, I am please with the result. 

My only travels in Zimbabwe or Zambia, many years ago, was just to see Victoria Falls. It was a spectacular sight and something I wanted to recreate. The falls are based on a photo, but the foreground was not. I also used the same style as my South African tile. this time with a a few more gradients. The end result is as follows:

I traveled to Denmark a few years ago and loved Copenhagen. I stay near a beautiful area called Nyhavn.  I visited wonderful places around  the country and thought of depicting its famous viking history, but  I knew that the colorful buildings of Nyhavn would translate well into a tile. I decided to keep the crowds as a silhouette and a single ship. 

I had an idea for Ireland, showing the beautiful Cliffs of Moher, done with celtic knotting. This project took me a lot of time and consideration, searching through different knots and images. In the end, it took many iterations on each of the levels to come up with successful knots. I ended up with changing from the natural color scheme to the Irish flag, but I am sure few can figure out the scene the knots present. Here is the final tile:

France is full of iconic of places and it was easy to choose the Arc de Triomphe. But there is a lot of beautiful, but difficult detail on it and I wanted to capture all of it. I used my experience with layers, shadows and differing transparency levels to get this final result: The most rewarding part of the tile was slowly adding the shadowed reliefs. I kept adding details while zoomed in, only focusing on the outline of each shadow without seeing the full picture. The completed result was beyond my expectation.

Since the South African flag is so colorful, I decided to use it's layout and palette. Though full of beautiful places, like the Drakensburg Escarpment from the Lesotho tile, and animals, I decided to depict Table Mountain. Here it is: