pombe Posted June 18, 2015 (edited) Location: G03 - New California Tags: Challenge 1, AG, Octan ++Pombe, personal log, start recording++ Eshey and I meet with legendary explorer extraordinaire Lu Caslaug-Hing to discuss exploration targets and resources that Octan needs. She explains that water is critical to our overall mission here in Andromeda, and that my previous missions had focused solely on finding awesomnium and biomass. I checked my mission history, and to my surprise, she was right! No wonder she is famous and I am not! I thanked her furiously and told her that I would focus on finding water for the next mission that Eshey and I would undertake. Fortunately for us, our probes had detected water on the nearby planet of G03, also known as New California. Initial surveys found that the climate was mostly desert, with all the water hidden underground which would spring up as seasonal oceans. Eshey and I tuned into the live stream that was being broadcast by our probes on New California. We found one probe whose visual feed showed that it had landed near flora, indicating a source of water! I determined the coordinates of that probe and told Eshey to prepare for our next mission. She told me to wait and observe the cactus-like plant on our viewscreen for a while longer; she swore she saw it move. Preposterous. Ever since our last mission on Arium Minor (http://www.eurobrick...howtopic=110681), Eshey has been...how should I put it...high strung. I'm not even sure why. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. We found plenty of awesomnium without incident. The worrisome part is that she claimed to have seen an giant alien snow monster throwing boulders at us during the mission, but I saw no such thing. Perhaps she needs to visit the veterinarian again? Anyways, just to humor her, I stared at the cactus for another 30 minutes. Nothing. Eshey continued to swear that she saw the cactus move. I just shook my head at her and left her in front of the viewscreen so I could schedule another meeting with Lu Caslaug-Hing to discuss mission specifics. ++Pombe, personal log, stop recording++ Meanwhile, as the sun sets,... The pseudo "double" MOC: Next: Unedited pics under the spoiler tag. Edited March 23, 2017 by pombe Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mccoyed Posted June 18, 2015 Clever setup and funny looking cactus monster. But wow, you are sooooo good at making those Lego-meets-pixel art backdrops. You should do a tutorial or something. That sunset one is breathtaking. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Commander Turtle Posted June 18, 2015 That sunset is superb, really impressive. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
narbilu Posted June 18, 2015 I really love the two angle view to replicate the scene into two different settings. Really creative. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LittleJohn Posted June 18, 2015 Fantastic work! I love the black cactus and that sunset is gorgeous! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
aeralure Posted June 18, 2015 Oh I love this! I have been wanting to do a sky background like that, perhaps with forced perspective, for a time now, but your take on it goes beyond what I had considered. Very creative use of space and POV to get two time frames into one build and, beyond that, it's done really well. That's an amazing sunset! Great job! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rodiziorobs Posted June 18, 2015 Very clever setup, and that sunset is very effective! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kai NRG Posted June 18, 2015 Love the double aspect of this MOC, and both backdrops look really really good, especially the sunset one! Once again the expression on the cactus is genius! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kodan Black Posted June 18, 2015 The forced perspective sunset is just lovely. I enjoyed the humor and the cactus, seems like you and Big Sal are two people NOT to work with! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pombe Posted June 18, 2015 Clever setup and funny looking cactus monster. But wow, you are sooooo good at making those Lego-meets-pixel art backdrops. You should do a tutorial or something. That sunset one is breathtaking. Thanks for the kind comments. I'll be honest and say that I used a mosaic program generator to help me with the backgrounds and forced perspective. I am not talented enough to do this without help. There are many free ones, but the one I like the most is PicToBrick. http://www.pictobrick.de/en/pictobrick.shtml (Are we allowed to post links to other sites on EB? If I am breaking the rules, please edit, Mods) The reason I like PicToBrick the most is that it seems to be the only one that allows for mosaics to be built from the side, instead of just the top down, which is what I really wanted. However, I couldn't get it to work in Windows 8, so I had to run it on my old Mac. The instructions aren't clear, but once you figure it out, it becomes easy to use. I just searched for an image of a sunset I liked, cropped it to just what I wanted to show, and had PicToBrick convert it to a 24 wide x 36 high mosaic for me (the blue sky is only 23 wide, due to the limits of the Challenge 1 rules). PicToBrick is also convenient in that it can be asked to optimize the space using the largest brick possible (I don't have enough 1x1 plates!). Finally, I didn't have all the colors in the right sized bricks, so I deviated a lot from the mosaic that PicToBrick generated. I mostly just used it as a general guideline. Unless one orders the parts exactly, I think most builders will have to improvise. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mike S Posted June 18, 2015 Great build! The backdrops are awesome! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mediumsnowman Posted June 18, 2015 Awesome! I love the cactus! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Enceladus Posted June 18, 2015 The cactus is nice, but those mosaic backgrounds are the icing on the cake. Great work! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mrcp6d Posted June 19, 2015 The two backdrops are not only extremely well executed, but also a fantastic idea to create 2 MOCs out of 1! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Space Terrapin Posted June 19, 2015 This is great - I've never seen that double-angle MOC idea before, it's ingenious! And both halves are beautifully built. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Big Sal Posted June 19, 2015 Haha, that cactus is hilarious And great work on the sunset Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Zepher Posted June 19, 2015 Awesome idea with those two backdrops, and with an execution that doesn't disappoint! Spot on. :thumbup: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LucasLaughing Posted June 20, 2015 This is awesome - love the double background and, as other have said, the pixel art is beautiful. Thanks for including me in the story! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shmails Posted June 20, 2015 So good, so unexpected, and so funny! Three things I happen to have an affinity for. Great work Buddy! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andromedas Gates Posted June 23, 2015 The judges awarded you 6 points. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
