Saturday 28 May 2011

Enviro-mental: Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly


I'm currently reading Surface Detail by Iain M. Banks. It's the latest in a series of his that is based around a super advanced, space-faring civilisation called The Culture, a decadent people who many millennia ago developed giant sentient spacecraft called Minds. The Minds' are unfathomably intelligent and exist and think in more dimensions than the usual three. They are also in some cases huge, often housing billions upon billions of people in a space that could easily be mistaken for a natural environment as opposed to the interior of a man made ship (technically the ships are made by other ships rather than men, but I digress). It is a tiny segment of one of these craft that I have chosen as my environment.

At this point in the story, one of the main characters - Lededje - has just arrived on one of these ships for the first time, and the ship's mind, embodied in a human avatar, has taken her to this fifteen kilometre canyon just to give her a sense of scale. The ship is called 'Sense Amid Madness, Wit Amidst Folly' by the way (the ships name themselves).

Jeeso, it's hard trying to some up so much back story just to explain one picture... Anyway, I'm not totally sure I'm 100% happy with this. It's pretty much the first proper environment I've ever done though so I was never going to be happy. There's a lot more I'd have liked to have done with it and it's not quite accurate to the book, but hey ho.

Oh, look out for a traditional style flying saucer, a surf board attached to a kite, a diving bell, Da Vinci's helicopter, a beat up old car and a giant flying bottle of Irn Bru.

Feedback appreciated.


2 comments:

  1. Lens flaaaaare :D I like it! For your first proper environment it's pretty awesome, especially all the details in the ships! Only thing I can suggest is for the lines for the hills and the canyon walls, you could maybe make them become thinner as they stretch into the distance to give it more depth :)

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  2. Wow this is amazing!! I'am gonna follow you for sure! nice job dude! :D

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