Description

I proudly present the big secret I worked on since August last year: The Adventures of the Sun Sailer...

For me it's hard to believe that I finished it finally... it was a long time of work (with long breaks between the working phases) and I believe I can be proud of the result... I know, others do something more complex in a much shorter time, but for me it's great. It was very important for me to work onto the details and I have to say that some of the details were a waste of time, just because they are so small.... but I loved to create them...

Some facts:

Project folder size: 1,31 gb
File size (psd): 738 mb
picture size: 3504 x 2336 px + 300 dpi
layers: over 100...
Working time: august 2005 - March 2006

1. Started with a really rough concept (just two smal curves, showing the perspective of the picture which you can see now in the picture)
2. First forms created in C4D (ring, hill, lighthouse, beach)...
3. Texturing in Photoshop
4. Finishing creating 3d models for the details
5. Texturing, illumination, shadowing and FX created in PS
6. Finished

So let's start with the more interesting part, the story the picture should show:

Many years passed... it was his biggest dream... to leave his home, to leave this ring... the main part of his life was to follow his job as lighthouse attendant...

He was always lighthouse attendant.... as he remembered, he was born on this ring, just because his father worked on this ring too... and he remembered that his grandfather worked already on this ring...

He couldn't ever imagine why he was here, why he worked in this lighthouse... the last person he saw , who wasn't a local on this planet, was 30 years ago... it was a battleship returning from some war in another galaxy...
the natives were just curious, just because they couldn't not understand why this battleship arrived...
poor people... they just forgot that their ancestors settled here just because this ring was an outpost for soldiers to rest and recover... but they never left again, because on the one hand, they didn't wanted to loose their life in war, on the other hand, this outpost is so far away from anything, that the government classified them as "Missing in Action"... the fact, that this ring had a working ecosystem, but nothing else as the old barracks and the lighthouse, was the reason, that the descendants changed into some kind of indigenous people, losing their education and their knowledge about the truth...

the complement of that battleship left this wreck... it was prey from a battle on a far planet... but they got to leave it here... the captain said, that they would get problems on their home planet...

since that day, he worked on this wreck with one thing in mind: leaving this planet and to have the chance to see.... more! He never wanted to die without being able to see something new... he wanted to surf on the sun, using it's sun waves to travel through space... that why he called this ship "Sun Sailer" he used the resources of this planet to fix this ship... the indigenous people didn't helped him... they said that they would sell their souls to the devil if they would help someone leaving the holy ring....

Today is the day... he finished working, packed provisions for the voyage...
equipped with an old star map, he hoped to find a planet... just one planet, to fulfill his wishes and rest in peace... his destiny was in the hand of this ship... the adventure begins...

I hope you will enjoy this picture and I also hope that you will write some comments on it...

P.S.:
If you wish, I will create a poster with closer looks on details of my picture!