Closer To Completion....

I'll make this short. I'm exhausted.

I have a week to get this side design done. This is the closest it's been to the initial concept art. I'm generally happy with the composition and feel of it, but there's still alot to be done.

-The background columns are photoshop cutouts. I have yet to model them in 3d, and add the cityscapes on top.

-The color correction, or just plain lighting all around, was thrown in for color scheme purposes. It's still very basic, very flat, and very off kilter with the background.

-The geometry in the clouds (together as a whole) still doesn't look stylistically systematic. Some have more shading than other underneath, and others are way too bubbly for my tastes... the one in the middle bothers me the most!

-The stars aren't morphed into shape. I'd like to hand-morph each one individually to give them their own uniqueness.

-The piece isn't entirely quads, so that I can't bring it into the texturing software, yet. And, yes, I still need to map out the UVs. (Sigh) But, I am looking forward to experimenting with how I want to texture the image. I've had enough time to think about it while model my sorry life away.

So, to cut it short and sweet, there's still a lot to do. Some tasks I may breeze through faster than other tasks. ***I need to worry most about the most important... I need to take a step back and stop looking so up close.***

It's crunch time, now.

Because if I don't get it done this week, I may not be able to get to it for another couple weeks. And in another couple weeks, I want to be able to move onto the next step... Incorporating more design elements (in the text/header and so on) and, hopefully sooner rather than later, mixing those elements together into flash.

I'll save the animation for last, because I figure once I can see the site as a whole, I'll get more of a feel for how I want to approach the animation-- what will draw the most attention and what I'd like to keep sutle.

So, as promised, here it is so far. I hope that you like it.

"NEXUS" by Lisa Marie Erickson

The smell of roses in spring after the settling of a misty morning helped give her a calming breath. She was washing away a long morning just like those roses washed away the dew, and she was taking a brisk walk in the park to pull in some sunlight before heading back to school.

Hooky. She couldn't help herself. Sometimes it was hard to sit still under the soft humming of flourescent lights and the voice of her teacher tossing numbers at the chalkboard. Her stomach was growling, so she slipped out the back doors of the gymnasium and was now on a tangent journey towards the bookstore.

The park was empty and beautiful. So, she laid on the grass and stared up at the heavy patches breaking up a clearing sky. She watched one cloud in particular, because it reminded her of a stuffed bear and smiled back at it softly to herself as it warped and smiled down at her.

A gust of wind rode over her and made its way into the forest, and soon the warmth of the rays took chill, and the cloud she had been looking at crept over the sun blocking the sharpness of the light.

The dark was more peacful on her eyes. Her body, craddled in the grass, felt weightless with the wind as it began to take her off into her own visions of what surrounded her. But underneath her lids, and beneath her eyes, and deeper still into the depths of her subconscious things grew even darker...

The sun began to burn away her body. The slaps of a storm twisted her hair into knots. The grass, shards of glass, puncturing through her clothes as she tried to twist and pull herself awake, off of the ground, anywhere but where she lay.

She knew that she was trapped, pinned down by toes of the trees in the enclosing forest, as there roots grew underneath the surface of the ground, breaking up the mud and lifting the rocks, spreading away from their towering bodies and encapsuling her like a cocoon.

She gasped for breath, her ribs crushing against her chest so she could only take a stifled puff, swallowing fumes that scorched down her dry throat, blistering down into her lungs, and swelling it to the point where she breathed only through a small open thread. What little air she had left, she tried to scream out. Nothing sounded and everything became silent around her. A butterfly fluttered by, pushing and zigzagging its way through and disappearing freely into the denseness.

The coating of fog above her hovered over as the cover to her casket with enough light surfacing to almost see the charcoal sky beyond and nothing more.

She dropped her head back against the prickling ground, and let the blood drip from the back of her skull to wash the sweat from her body. And with a chill, she closed her eyes to allow herself to die.

And, again, it all grew even darker...