November/December Lite Challenge Entry: Dead Worlds

[jtougas]

My name is Armma. Just like my da and his da before him. It's a family thing he tells me. He says he can trace his family all the way back to the dirt days, when people like us walked under a real sun and had real living dirt under our feet. He doesn't know how long ago that was, it seems like no one does. A thousand years? a million? It don't matter anyway, we all just keep going on in this giant smelly can we call home. more than twenty thousand if you believe the "whiters" not that I do. They'll tell you all kinds of lies to keep you peaceful and not make waves. Us "reds" are always causing trouble by asking questions and being a pain in the backside or at least that's what the "whiters" say. I got no use for the lot of them. The only problem is they keep this giant barge going. They keep the oxy flowing and the water recycling and the sun burning. Me and my da are farmers, we grow the leaves the "whiters" turn into nutrapaste. Stuff isn't bad if you have someone that knows how to make something out of it. My ma was real good at that, that is untill she got lungrot and died. Yeah anyway I gotta go my da will be looking for me.....

Well this challenge got me thinking and well got me coming up with a story idea before I had a map idea. Now I think I have both. The premise is this: In a time long past, a civilization saw the end of it's planet's life coming. With time to prepare they built enormous ships to carry them into the void of space. They didn't realize it would be an endless journey......

Here is the very basic outline of one of these "colony ships" I of course will detail all the various areas and I have some (hopefully) neat ideas about certain things on this ship.

###LATEST WIP###
Dead Worlds.jpeg

[Neyjour]

Love this concept! It reminds me of Line and Orbit by Sunny Moraine & Lisa Soem.

[jtougas]

Somebody told me that this used to be where they stored all the stuff for when this ship got to where it was going. 'course that was a million years ago and now it's just where we live. See this stuff? looks like dirt but the "whiters" say it's ground up plas and some other stuff. I guess it works just the same. Most of us live in these metal boxes. "cons" we call them they all look pretty much the same but they ain't bad. Course everything smells and there's always a haze from people burning leaves for heat and to cook. Nutrapaste will keep you alive but it's nice to have meat once in a while if you can get it and don't worry too much where it comes from...

Love this concept! It reminds me of Line and Orbit by Sunny Moraine & Lisa Soem.

Thanks

Well another challenge and another mental road block. I spent some time thinking about this story and decided to make some "elements" that I will use as call outs around the main map. As I wrote above the inhabitants of this ship mostly live in re-purposed cargo containers. These are not huge but large enough for a family (although they are cramped). Made by the tens of thousands they are constructed of steel and due to the haze and rain (yes it rains sometimes in this massive ship) they have rusted. Stay tuned.

###LATEST WIP###

sample container dwelling.png

Interior View
container dwelling interior.png

[RedKettle]

I was originally going to take this challenge into out space as well (a crashed colony ship) but I have decided to go another route. I am interested in seeing how your ship evolves! The module idea could be fun, especially if your colonists start creatively combining them for multi-generational dwellings, specialized work areas, etc.

[jtougas]

Yeah that's a lake, and a pretty space one too. Course it's dirty and smells kind of funny but if you boil the water you can drink it and there's even fins in there. Some of the older kids say that there's fins in there that eat people but that's just recycle if you ask me. The olders say that the first gens built that lake by dumping all this plas dirt around and funneling the waste from the engines. I don't know anything about any of that you'd have to ask a "whiter" I just know it's nice to have a swim when the haze gets real bad and the temp dial goes way up....

I was originally going to take this challenge into out space as well (a crashed colony ship) but I have decided to go another route. I am interested in seeing how your ship evolves! The module idea could be fun, especially if your colonists start creatively combining them for multi-generational dwellings, specialized work areas, etc.

Thanks. As with most of my work the idea came to me before any sort of map did and now I have to make it all fit.

Here is the first draft of "Ennore City" the home of the "Reds". As Armma mentioned in the story blurb, this lake was created long ago by diverting the massive ships engine byproduct. (hydrogen fusion engines?) I am going for a "uniformity" in the "dirt" as it's supposed to be artificial. Also the "grid" design makes sense to me as the containers would have been laid out that way when they were originally loaded. As always feedback is requested and appreciated

###LATEST WIP###
Ennore City.png

[jtougas]

It's real haze today. The "whiters" must be on a break from keeping the oxy clean or something. Here it is "Home Sweet Home", that's something my ma used to say. Nothin' sweet about livin' in a con, cramped and smelly but better than sleepin' on the plas or even worse the street. Plenty of folks doing that only so many cons and no one is givin' one up unless they die and then people swoop in before they're even cold. I try to picture what this all looked like back when this was a storage area but I can't. Cons pointed every which way and stacked on top of each other, rusty and banged up is all I can imagine. I'm glad me and my da live on the floor and not 3 or so up. Gettin' up there is a trick I tell ya. You see all kinds of things people use, ladders and bad rickety ones at that, plas rope hung from the sky walk up there, all kinds of things. A lot of people get recycled that way.....

I've started to add the "cons" to the map. I decided that there would be some color variation to denote different contents. Of course none of that matters now to the inhabitants of this ship. I also started stacking the containers on top of each other and I added a catwalk although I think It is going to need some more work. As always feedback is requested and appreciated.

### LATEST WIP ###
Ennore City.png

[jtougas]

Yeah it ain't always warm and dry livin' here. We ain't got what you would call leaders, everyone looks after themselves and their families if they got one. People get recycled all the time gettin' caught stealin'. I mean everybody steals you just aim to not get caught is all. The "whiters" trade with us some, they come out of that big door way down there and give us elecs sometimes for leaf liquor and clothes. They come for other stuff too but da says I'm not supposed to talk about that. C'mon we gotta get out of the haze, too long in it and you'll catch the lungrot....

Well as often happens with me and maps, I got a little bored placing all the containers and decided to work on the "atmosphere" I made some ventilation ducts and started on the "haze". As always feedback is requested and appreciated.

### Latest WIP ###
Ennore City.png

[Psylence]

Alright, I know I should've dropped by sooner, sorry I haven't.

I love your story. It gives the setting to explain what we're seeing. I like your choice of colors and your foggy overlay. The only real problems I see are that your "con"s are a bit repetitive, and your water. I think you might want to try a different approach than noise over it. Maybe try a black brush on multiply to low opacity? Something that will give a more smear, brown, dirty look rather than just noise/specks.

[jtougas]

Alright, I know I should've dropped by sooner, sorry I haven't.

I love your story. It gives the setting to explain what we're seeing. I like your choice of colors and your foggy overlay. The only real problems I see are that your "con"s are a bit repetitive, and your water. I think you might want to try a different approach than noise over it. Maybe try a black brush on multiply to low opacity? Something that will give a more smear, brown, dirty look rather than just noise/specks.

Thanks for your feedback. I agree with you about the containers but (IMO) they would have to be "standardized" so that the huge number of them would fit in the space. One reason I added some color was to break up the mass of rusty orange they would have been otherwise. Your right on about the water and it's been bothering me for a while. I think I was going for almost a "crust" over the water but it didn't turn out the way I had hoped.

[Psylence]

I get ya, as far as the containers, but I mean the dirt/rust/grime on them. I just think you could use something to break up the repetitiveness of the pattern on top of the cons.

As far as the water, hm... yeah, I dunno. Actually, looking around the edges you seem to have a good start to something, so how about instead just lowering the opacity of the noise over the water? That way it allows some of those details you put on there to become more prominent(like the brown at the edges).