Nov/Dec '17 Lite Challenge: Vincius Family Dyson Tree Farm

[Southern Crane TWO]

Redrobes Admin Edit: Southern Crane has got his old user account back now. I am slightly concerned that if I delete this legacy post then it might delete the thread since this post is the thread starter. If we get to the end of voting then obviously we need to award southern crane and not "TWO" version. The WIP scraper may show the TWO version in the listing as well but we all know to just ignore the TWO part of it.

EDIT Nov.26
Hopefully this works for what the scraper is doing
Edit Dec.14th
Trying to Update the Scraper image and Remove the old image

### Latest WIP ###

[Southern Crane]

Vincius Family Dyson Tree Farm, Goshin II ClusterWheel, 51 Pegasi

This challenge dovetails nicely with a world building project I am doing so this looks fun. My main themes here:

Aesthetic: Retro-Futurism + Solar Punk
Technological Focus: Dyson Trees
Biological Inspiration: John Naka, grandfather of American Bonsai

The basic concept of Dyson Trees are bio-engineered artificial trees capable of thriving in vacuum of space while producing a micro-atmosphere for human inhabitants.

The concept here is in the future where colonies of many Dyson tree seeded asteroids are tethered together to form giant wheels which rotate to produce gravity inside. Meanwhile the advanced Dyson trees produce a breathable atmosphere inside the asteroid colonies for people to live. Specialized Dyson trees can also slowly mine metal heavy asteroids to produce materials. These advanced societies are advanced that efficiency is close to optimal with everything being designed to be recyclable.

Each giant cluster of dyson tree asteroids forms a ClusterWheel which are akin in size and functionality to city-states. As 51 Pegasi is a relatively old system to be colonized Goshin II is only one of over a dozen ClusterWheels. Most extended families only farm one small asteroid or share a larger asteroid Dyson forest with several families. The Vincius family began as a moderately prosperous family with a large ancestral asteroid Dyson forest. The current patriach was extremely ambitious and sought to substantially increase his family holdings. Many rumours circulate on how the metal heavy mining farm was acquired 40 years ago and even more questions persist in how the family discovered one of the most rare asteroids in 51 Pegasi, a potent Platinum-Titanium heavy asteroid.

Original WIP



Older WIP


I'm not totally happy with the color palette and background so a lot of experimenting for me to do this holiday week.

TO DO:
Color Palette Trees-Experiment and Change
Background Color Experiments and Change
Add More Details of Family Farm
Cross Section(s)
Border and Insert


Hopefully we can restore my original account but I wanted to start this thread anyway.

[ChickPea]

Hey SC, I'm glad you've been able to get things worked out.

Try copying the text of your original comment and pasting it into a new comment (or perhaps edit your second comment and paste the text in there?), then delete your original post (the SC 2 post). If it won't let you for some reason, just shout and a CL should be able to do it for you. I presume you'll have to upload your image again but I'm sure that's not a problem.

I think this should work, unless there's some weirdness with the comment being a first post in a thread. Give it a try anyway, and if it doesn't work, we'll move to Plan B.

[Bogie]

Welcome to the challenge SC!

Very original concept you have there. Good work!

[Redrobes]

Great to see you again and I am glad that we could sort your user account reactivation once more.

[Southern Crane]

Thanks for the welcome back! I appreciate it.

I have a new update as I continuing to work on this project. Improved the colors a bit for me but still not where I want it precisely.

Adding more details in and thinking about sketching the cross section.

### Latest WIP ###

[Bogie]

I like the new background.

[Southern Crane]

Trying to work out the structure better and add more of the information in the insets in some way.
Still experimenting with trying to get what I coming to call Retro-future comic book style for the aesthetics.
Haven't worked in the family tree but developing that more for the overall world build.

### Latest WIP ###


Here is the family tree I haven't worked in yet

[Mouse]

Love the colours on this one, Southern Crane

Great concept and a beautiful composition as well!

I have a couple of observations for you...

The two tree root things at the bottom of each asteroid... (I'm VERY famous around here for seeing animals and things in maps that no one else can see!)... instantly reminded me of bird feet. Maybe add a few more to each asteroid?

Underlined text... Personal opinion is that its ugly and reminds me far too much of school essays! Try it without the underlining? Size difference between the title and the body text should be enough...

Other than that, I really like it

[Bogie]

Coming along great SC
For some reason your WIP tag isn't picking up your map in the Thumbnail Gallery. It looks like you have done it correctly. I will try a few tricks to see if I can get it to work.


@ Redrobes, I can't get the WIP tag to work, any ideas?