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. Cullen McKeown talks about the creation of his 'sinister yet beautiful' Blinding Dawn, 4am, which was awarded an Honourable Mention
by the jury and the digital arts community on CGTalk.
Since I usually create material for animation, my Alienware Challenge entry was one of the first 3D pieces I've ever created for a still image. This was also one of the first opportunities I've had to do a 3D landscape project. For these reasons I was excited about the Challenge and couldn't wait to try and tackle this; it promised to be very different from the sorts of projects I have worked on before.
Sketching I wanted my piece to be slightly sinister, yet somehow beautiful. Apart from this I had no idea what I actually wanted to create. For inspiration, I flipped through some artists' books and a stack of Dr. Seuss stories. I picked up a ballpoint pen and started by scribbling on a page until I began to see something form in my scribbles. From there I drew several more images before I was satisfied with a general visual concept. With all my elements I envisioned for the scene in place, I needed to figure out what the actual surface would look like. I drew a detailed close-up of a portion of the image and was really pleased with the way all the structures held together. I brought these images into Photoshop and played with scale, angles and a base color to complete the concept. I tried creating more sketches to pinpoint the details but it started to become too cluttered by trying to represent too many ideas, so I proceeded with the simple concept, planning to leave the detail until later.
