3000 Posts!

Today marks the 3000th post of The RenderPages, which saw its first post made on October 1, 2016. Aside from one or two days when Blogspot had tech issues, I don't think a day has gone by without a post being made at the Blog.

I wanted to do something special to mark the 3000th post and, after about three seconds of thought, I knew that today had to celebrate RenderPretender because, without him, there would be no Blog.

It was in September 2016 that RP began cajoling me to create this Blog -- a place where art deleted by DeviantArt's admins due to Terms of Service violations could be posted. He promised to create art for the Blog regularly and eventually gave me permission to post here any art he created. He also asked me to archive all of his DA content, which I did, because he was going to remove anything that came close to violating the TOS there.

In time, other artists whose art was removed sent me their work to share here. Others sent me art which they knew could not pass muster at DA. All of the artists who contributed or created art for the Blog have helped get the Blog to today's 3000th post, but the real credit for creating and sustaining the Blog goes to RenderPretender.

RP became a sort of mentor to me when I finally became active on DA. This image (immediately below) was the very first image of his that I marked as a favorite. (It came with a neat little story, but that story is long gone unfortunately.)

He was a great mentor too. I'll always remember this Journal post he made over at DeviantArt:

How To Win Watchers and Influence Comments

I took that to heart and it really helped me become a good contributor at DA. He was a good mentor and remains a great friend! He also created a lot of art for me on special occasions like milestones or birthdays as well as creating images for stories I wrote way back when. He was a friend to many others on dA too, often offering advice and encouragement and creating images featuring others' OCs.

RP has his own amazing OCs too -- both heroines

and villains

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of RP's last post on DeviantArt. And I have not heard from RP or his wife since March 2023. I miss him, but he remains a great friend and I hope he'll eventually return to DA!!!

So, you see, there was never any doubt that today's 3000th post here at the Blog would celebrate my friend and mentor -- RenderPretender!!!

Thanks for reading!!!