CGNetworks Feature :: Reader Project The Making of Last Travel
11 April 2005, Laurent Antoine "Lemog"
Concept/Introduction
I love to watch all the great science-fiction films like ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Babylon V’, but I must acknowledge that it is actually quite distant from my universe. I like to look at these futuristic ships, don’t get me wrong; but I don't think I’d ever want to build one, because I'm afraid that I wouldn’t want to make that sort of thing. I’d much rather take inspiration in something more cultural, with some historical references.
That's the reason I decided for my particular GSO challenge, to imagine the future, from the past. I wanted to regenerate a vision by these people, visionaries of their day, from the middle of the 1850s. I wanted to recreate how they would imagine their future, and the conquest of space, and in this case particularly, traveling to the moon.
In this spirit, I generated some images of ships based on materials, engines and technologies of this time, and also, the same errors made by these visionaries. For instance, in space, there's no oxygen, so wings and propellers don't work.
There would be a lot of references, many caricatured drawing of these times showing such ships, which would be unable to fly in space.
This is the first part of the story, named "Our First Travels".
During the first three months of the contest, my mind was totally immersed in this story, and I did about 200 intermediate, preparatory pictures just for the sake of it. I really made an effort to generate as many wallpaper images for friends as I could.
There were some quite intricate images of space ships, space stations, and that kind of stuff. Then, I tried to out-do myself, to find an idea, to finish this story, the last picture, the last bonus, the last wallpaper. I set out to create "The Last Travel".
I had inspirational images of the first takeoffs of balloons, since that is, in their minds, how all vehicles work. I wanted to do something in the same spirit, but for the balloon Space Station.
I had to locate a spot for the launch. I remembered some old photographs of the "Universal Exhibition of Paris 1900", with its magnificent houses. It remains a fact that they were all built for this event, and afterwards, they were all torn down.
