With the directive to create a unique alien scene, a setting no one has seen before, the recent Alienware Challenge spawned a superb collection of alien landscapes. Marcin Nikiforuk (Crazybread) from Canada takes us through the making of his Alienware Challenge entry Amber Forest which was awarded an Honorable Mention by the jury and the digital arts community on CGTalk.

My Alienware Challenge entry Amber Forest comes from a pretty surreal idea I developed back in 1993 while I was in high school. The idea I imagined was horizontal trees growing sideways inside a trench. I originally created it as an engraving on plexy glass, and then abandoned the concept for the next ten years (but did not forget it). It stayed quietly tucked away with old art and memorabilia from my good old high school days. I knew that someday it would come back and ask to be remade. The Alienware challenge was a perfect opportunity to revisit my old ideas and search through concepts I’d promised myself I'd revisit when I was older and (hopefully) wiser. Once the shots were called and rules in place, I automatically knew what I was going to depict. So, once again, here is the old concept, reworked for the Alienware challenge.

I thought its best to treat this contest like a real job because of all the rules in place. Before giving any thought to the actual modeling that would be required, I needed to assess the needs of the client. I knew that certain elements of my original concept would have to change and that the general layout of the old engraving would have to be tailored to fit the guidelines of the Alienware contest. The fact that this scene was to be on some unknown planet and appear grand and alive stirred up my imagination. Everything pointed me towards including vines growing out of and around the tree structures.