Frederick Wessler art studio.

The digital images created by professional artist Frederick Wessler are often mistaken for photographs. That's because the subject matter of his 3D artwork tends to be "traditionally" realistic, with a meticulous attention to detail and lighting. "My images are created directly from life rather than from my imagination or from photographs," he says.

Wessler has spent most of his life working with visual imagery. A longtime resident of New York City, he has worked as a photographer, stage and lighting designer, screenwriter, and film director. In fact, the artist compares his digital image creation process to building a theatrical set. "First, I decide what the scene will be, and I build the major set structure. Then, I construct the furniture and props, paint the surfaces, create the backdrop, and light the entire set," he says. "I want the end result to leave the viewer with the sense that something is about to happen in the completed space."

For his digital images, Wessler uses Caligari's TrueSpace for modeling and rendering, as well as CorelDraw for object preparation and Corel Photo-Paint for texturing and bump map creation. These programs run on a Pentium 4 PC with an Nvidia GeForce 4 graphics card. "3D modeling is wonderful because it allows you to generate actual virtual objects that can be moved about like chess pieces, enabling you to shift your point of view and produce different images at every turn," he notes, "Yet, what a computer cannot do is just as important. There is nothing in a virtual 3D world unless you specifically place it there. You have to decide with exactitude what has to be included in your virtual space. For instance, you cannot suggest a tree with a few skilled Impressionistic brush strokes; you must model the trunk, branches, and leaves."

Last year, Wessler's works were featured at the Savannah Fine Arts Gallery in New York City. Recently, he presented one person shows in Passau and Stuttgart, Germany. ...