Besides this being a gift for my favourite person on Steemit, there is another reason why this mandala is special to me. I love space. I really, really love space. I don't understand people who don't spend a significant part of their lives thinking about it. As the Flaming Lips song goes:

Do you realise we're floating in space?

Please do go listen to that song now (The Flaming Lips - Do you Realise). In fact, I'll make that the Song of the Day.

Really... The thought of the unfathomable vastness of ... everything... It brings me peace. And as far as we know, no meaning in any of it besides what we make of it! Such freedom! No matter the physical constraints of being bound to a body, bound to a situation... My mind, I've discovered, is free... It's free to grasp at whatever it can imagine.

Well, that can be argued. My own mind just admonished me (itself), because I've recently thought and expressed feeling frustrated with only ever being able to experience existence with this one mind... Me... But... Ah well... You can't have everything...

^{Image source}

Creative process:

Righty-o... First things first, here is Mandelbulb 3D, the free fractal program I use, with the parameters set for take off:

Of course, I absolutely had to use an image of the Andromeda galaxy as a diffuse map - but it was not giving very shiny, starry type effects, which was the main effect I was going for, so I used my trusty 'stars' fractal image made ages ago for the base layers:

And here are those base layers:

Using the andromeda galaxy, I got these... Not very vibrant, but I fixed that later as you will see:

And so the work started... I chose a center, and then chose a different image for the frilly bits on the outer edge of the center:

I didn't like so much pink in between all the shapes here so I used a different layer to get rid of it, giving it more contrast by doing so:

Going outward, it was a bit too shiny gold... I wanted some spacey darkness more involved, so I used the very first, dark base layer and brought it out along the edge here:

I continued adding little colour details from the galaxy layers... I didn't want it to be too colourful and so used them sparingly...:

Until finally, it was done! ... I left it for a day, because usually, the next day, I find something I'm not happy with... And indeed, when I looked at it this morning, I found it lacked a certain lustre... So I upped it's vibrance/saturation a notch. Expect that made the yellow too bright, so I used Selective colour to remove some yellow from the yellows ;P .. Here's a before/after:

And now, all that left is to show you some close-up details =) ... As usual, at full resolution, it can be printed up to 28 x 28 inches (about 70cm x 70cm) :

My hope is that you really like it, Jolanta, and perhaps have it printed ^^ I will send you the high res. file in a DM ... Looking back, I feel like this is one of the best mandalas I've done so far. Very happy with it! =) Thank you for the inspiration.

And everyone, if you want to buy any other design of mine, you can check out my site, Mandelsage.com, for details =) ... And I am open to doing commissions too! How about a mandala based on your personality? ;)

Thank you for your upvote 💖
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A few recent posts of mine:
Chibera Writing Contest - My Character Selene | The Golden Apple Award - 2nd Winner! | No Man's Sky - Beginnings of a Base
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If you'd like to support me further, or follow me elsewhere, I'm on these social media:
Patreon | Instagram | Facebook
 
My Bitcoin wallet address:

1DPGX72eQj5TNVpSG1grRMxVAaDuqGG2RL

All Images, Copyright @Mandelsage - All rights reserved (unless otherwise specified).

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Before using bidbots, consider that they are generally bad for the long-term health of the Steemit ecosystem, and that many manual curators will not consider posts using bidbots for curation. Instead, try joining communities, engaging authentically, and earning more and more organic votes over time =) ... The best post I've found explaining this controversial topic is by Luke Stokes - click here to go to his post.