ReverieScapes present a new world of fantasy adventure from the mind of award-winning photographer and designer Alan Welch. It is a dazzling land of magic and enchantment which contains little or no illustration or painting, but creates never existing images from combinations of photographs. Live models are used wherever possible although, truth be told, dragons, unicorns, orcs and the like are proving to be slightly more than difficult to procure these days.

ReverieScapes represent a new art form combining multiple digital photographs into a fantasy image via Adobe Photoshop. Each ReverieScape consist of a minimum of four and as many as a dozen different images skillfully and seamlessly combined into a completely new creation.

Inspired by the art of such famous fantasy illustrators as Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell I have set about creating my own vision of fantasy worlds. But unlike traditional artist in the field, I use individual photographs of models and settings to create these new visions. I shoot the live models and most of the associated set photography myself but utilize a network of photographers world wide, from the U.S. to as far away as Sarawak, Indonesia, India and Iraq, to provide images to lend an exotic feel. Unlike painters or computer illustrators this art form relies on actual locales and scene elements, almost nothing is drawn or painted, so this presents special difficulties in producing new backgrounds, settings and props.

Once the shooting is completed the combining begins. Each part of the image is meticulously cut out of its own file and imported into the master work file with special attention to light levels and direction, color and intensity to convincingly match the new import to the rest of the picture. But importing is just the beginning. Melding, touching up, layering, and countless styles of manipulation and finessing to get the multiple images to interact convincingly with each other is where the art matures. Many new techniques were devised and adapted to give the final image life. This combining process can take anywhere from 30 - 120 hours to complete and sometimes spans weeks of careful manipulations.

ReverieScapes are offered in three distinct lines any of which would make a handsome addition to anyone's fantasy collection.