Hello fractal forums!

[billtavis]

Hello there!
My full name is Bill Tavis, but I go by Tavis.  It's pronounced TAY-viss (everybody wants to say "taaa-viss" as if they were trying to say Travis without the 'r', but unfortunately this is wrong). I have always had an interest in fractals since I was a kid but have just in recent years actually begun trying to understand and create them.  My college education was in art, but since graduation I supplemented this knowledge with some basic programming skills.  These new-found skills seemed to open up some amazing new artistic potentials for the computer, fractals certainly included.  I bought "The Science of Fractal Images" and it has been my faithful guide on this journey.
In my spare time I make trippy animated gifs for Tumblr and I use the knowledge I have gained about fractals for many of them.  See them here: billtavis.tumblr.com/tagged/fractal/
When I get stuck and can't find what I am looking for in that wonderful book I turn to the internet for help, and almost every answer I found was on this forum!  Seriously it didn't matter how obscure a topic I was searching for, I almost always found it here. Often times I also found something unexpected yet inspiring as well! That's why I joined.  Also I am excited about the newly announced contest and will hopefully have some sweet images to upload!

[Chillheimer]

Hi Tavis,
welcome to the forum!
I'm looking forward to many fruitful discussions on fractals!
cheers,
Chilli

[youhn]

Welcome Tavis!

You're right that this forum houses tons of great info on many fractal-related subjects. The focus is mostly on the current topics, but I should definitely dig into that more! By the way, your "fractaleyes" animated gif is really cool. Like the way the movement is not straight, but kinda elastic-bouncy. Some other are just activators for my imagination. I keep wondering what they would or could be. Nice mix of recognition and obscuration.

[cKleinhuis]

Haha, hello and welcome to the forums, sou come the right time to join our compo

[Caleidoscope]

Welcome Tavis,  looking forward to see some of your fractal art. 
Have fun! 

Greetings
Caleidoscope

[billtavis]

thanks for the warm welcome, everyone!  

youhn, thanks! On the fractaleyes gif, I zoomed straight in on a perfect Sierpinski triangle-based fractal, then as post-processing I used an evolving fractal noise map to deform it.