Friday 19 June 2009

More B&W fun

Here's another view from Pilgrim Trails - this time from the 2nd tee. I like colour as much as the next guy but there is something so cool about a B&W photo.











Wednesday 17 June 2009

Pilgrim in black and white

Lindsay Addie sent me a pic of my course that he had snapped and done some ps work on. I added a little more shadow depth, a new sky and lightsource and here is the result.


Pretty cool!


Friday 5 June 2009

It's a wrap

Pilgrim Trails is done, it's completed, it's no longer a 'work in progress', it is finished, realised, 'put to bed' and concluded!

I could post a bunch more pics but I'll save that for tomorrow.

I've had a lot of fun designing and creating this course and while it's fun to build re-creations of courses or work on vizualization projects, there is really nothing like designing your own course from start to finish. Did I mention it was finished?

The course gave me a chance, to revamp my graphics and technique set and also to experiment with my own ideas on golf course architecture. The course is wide open in many places with the ideal lines from the tee varying, depending on conditions and from which tees and pins you are playing on any given day.
One of the key features of the course is the ability to recover from a bad shot with an amazing recovery shot (skills and talent permitting!). I think golf is much more exciting when you are given the opportunity to do this although you may find yourself in a few areas where you just have to take your medicine and get the ball back in play if you screw up. Thats golf, but until you know the course, you'll never be quite sure where the 'no go' areas are, as they're less obvious than on many courses.

As you can see from the previous pics of the course, it has a rustic, natural look and feel to it so you won't be inundated with signs, bins ball washers etc as you play your way through the natural landscape. Courses, in real life, do have to make themselves pay and so you will see a few holiday cottages nestling amongst the trees here and there as you play your way around.
Oh what I wouldn't give to live in a cottage such as the ones near to the 7th green so I could wander down to the green on a long summers evening, wedge in hand, and chip and putt until the sun went down.

Pilgrim Trails is due to be played as part of the Online World Golf Tour http://www.apcd-courses.com/
next week. The tournament will give me a chance to test the course under competitive conditions as a hundred people battle their way around it. May the best golfer win!

The course will receive a general public release on the Monday following the tournament.