Feb/Mar 2017 Lite Challenge: The Cephalopod Class Battle Cruiser

[Mouse]

Out there is a world where life never made it out of the water, but continued to evolve and flourish beneath the waves. There are no whales, seals or dolphins on this world - no birds or mammals, because land never broke the surface of its global ocean. However, this is not to say that there is no sentient life...

Several millions of years before our ancestors first appeared on Earth, the inhabitants of this older world were already making and using advanced tools. They had no way to fashion metal ores - no dry land to build furnaces and smelt alloys, and perhaps for a while no idea what a fire might even be, but that didn't stop them developing their own genetically engineered living ships - among these the battle cruisers known as Cephalopods, which remain their first line of defence to protect their most precious commodity from envious alien eyes - their abundant oceans of water.

...

This is a background I've been working on. My first ever space scene

### Latest WIP ###
Cephalopod 01.jpg

[Bogie]

That is a very cool space backdrop!

Welcome to the Challenge!!

[Mouse]

Aw thanks Bogie - very kind of you to say so

I tried really hard to follow this tutorial, but you have to pay attention and pause it to write notes, or you'll miss about 5 key points just by blinking. Its extremely fast, and there's no explanation! LOL!

Now all I need is a crash course on how to draw spaceships and octopus!

[Tonnichiwa]

This looks really interesting Mouse, I can't wait to see what you do for a ship! Maybe it's time to invest in Cosmographer 3 for CC3+ ?

[Mouse]

Thanks Tonnichiwa

I have a head full of everything else I've been learning to use in the last couple of weeks for my Errispa world map, and I'm not sure I have the capacity to learn yet another piece of software in just 10 days flat. I'm going to do the structure in CC3, then render it and marry it up with the background in GIMP... or like the Errispa map, do the entire thing in CC3 by importing the GIMP background as a bitmap sheet.

I'll see how it goes.

Although its fairly exhausting, I think I really enjoy trying new things, and using several bits of software together opens up a whole universe of possibilities.

If I get the space map bug I'll think about Cosmographer after the Challenge is done

[Mouse]

Better stars...

Also a profile of the Cephalopod - hand drawn and rather wobbly!

Does anyone know if you can draw regular shapes in GIMP? Squares, circles, polygons etc? Doesn't matter if not - Ill just move over to CC3 and get it done there

### Latest WIP ###
Cephalopod 02.jpg

Need to do a bit more hand blending on the nebula...

[djan]

From memory (I don't have access to a computer right now): you can use one of the selection tools to select a square, circle or polygon. You can then apply a fill (bucket tool) or stroke (somewhere in on of the menus; edit I believe). Also useful: you can use shift to draw straight lines: click, press shift, click on end point.

[Mouse]

Thanks djan - its a lot easier in CC3. I think I will move the map over in that direction when I'm satisfied with the background

[Mouse]

Basic profiles done in CC3. Still need to smooth some of the outlines a bit more before I get started on the artwork proper. The larger profiles are to show the internal structure. The smaller ones will be drawings of the outer appearance of the ship for identification purposes. This is a poster commissioned by the Union of Interstellar Defenders, and can commonly be found pinned to the mess room walls of our own ships along with the rest of the official collection of ID posters.

### Latest WIP ###
Cephalopod 03.JPG

[Mouse]

Just as a side note here - it appears I'm not being very original in sensing something of an alien 'otherness' about the cephalopods

http://yournewswire.com/octopuses-ma...entists-claim/

Maybe the ones we have here on Earth are in fact spies!