Artword: Challenge 005.
Challenge 005 at artword. (read details here.)
Partner trinityofone.
Prompt Wooden Horse by Suzanne Vega. (MegaUpload.)
Thanks to my betas elli and le_mot_mo for telling me what didn't work and what did. You guys are awesome.
Part One
trinityofone and I had agreed John and Rodney to be our main characters (shocker). After listening to the song, I could imagine both Rodney or John as the narrator, but John somehow seemed the best fit: the lyrics had this idea of time line, from childhood (I want to be a rider like my father) to death (And when I'm dead), and changes for the better (What was wood became alive. Alive. And I fell under. A moving piece of sun. Freedom.). There was also the idea of a special gift (I know I have this power), which could have interpreted as his brilliance for Rodney, but could have been John's super gene just as well. The fact that the narrator was afraid he'd be killed, and probably because of that gift (I'm afraid I may be killed) made me think of John again. All this to say that I finally chose to focus the collage on John.
What I tried to convey wasn't necessarily an unhappy life before Atlantis, but a life which was missing something nonetheless. The life before Atlantis is represented by silhouettes who make one with the ground. John has dreams and discovers things he enjoys (ferris wheels, Johnny Cash, etc.) but the two-color scheme is supposed to give the impression that something's just not right. Then, it's 2004 and he goes through the Gate. He's not a silhouette anymore, everything becomes colorful. I wasn't very subtle here in getting my point across. John shines. And then Rodney comes in and they have a happy ending. (because I'm a sap.) Atlantis and Rodney were the missing pieces.
At this point the collage is not finished. I don't like the part post-Gate so much, but trinityofone and I exchange prompts. She sends me the following draft, and I send her this:
The whole collage looks like this:
----------------------
Before reading part two, I'd recommend, if you haven't done so already, that you read trinityofone's Tannhauser Gate first because it will otherwise spoil you for it - which would be a shame.
----------------------
Part Two
I read Trin's prompt and I squeed profusely, because a) fic by trinityofone! b) we had so many things in common: John, the whole life before Atlantis (the guitar, ferris wheels, the war and Sheppard's ghosts, etc...). Of course the whole "John Sheppard is a cylon" thing was missing from my collage. The idea of Beckett as a puppet master flashed into my mind almost instantly and I was on a roll. From there I got the idea of the red dots for the memories, Rodney came in and the collage passed from big to humongous. I changed the colors as well. John's life starts in black and white and evolves into colors once he's "activated". I included Beckett and Weir as observers in the second part. Post activation, I decided to have Rodney appear only by John's side and not in the black and white strip. It's supposed to show how his relationship with John is different from Beckett's or Elizabeth's. And I added Chaya. Once John knows the truth, things get black and white again. Then I changed a few details here and there: one of my betas asked me who was the strange dude next to the high school and that was my cue to make Johnny Cash a bit more Cash and less strange dude, stuff like that.
The draft I read had no ending so I took Rodney's sentence I can help you get away from here and made my own ending. I always thought Rodney with a gun was pretty hot. How hot would it be to see Rodney rescue John not only with his brain, but with a gun too. Man, I'd love to see that on the show.
trinityofone's fic Tannhauser Gate can be read here. The final version of the collage is below. We're talking huge graphic here: 3000x678px, 2Mb. (For the curious, the psd file was around 200 layers.) F11 is your friend if your screen is 1024x768 or under.
----------------------
The following collage is not part of the challenge. It is the final version of the collage without taking Trin's fic into account:
Resources
• Episodic photography from New Atlantis. Other caps by me.
• Stock pictures from stock.xchng.
• Dashed brush by elli. Others by me.
• Paper background and textures by me.
Partner trinityofone.
Prompt Wooden Horse by Suzanne Vega. (MegaUpload.)
Thanks to my betas elli and le_mot_mo for telling me what didn't work and what did. You guys are awesome.
Part One
trinityofone and I had agreed John and Rodney to be our main characters (shocker). After listening to the song, I could imagine both Rodney or John as the narrator, but John somehow seemed the best fit: the lyrics had this idea of time line, from childhood (I want to be a rider like my father) to death (And when I'm dead), and changes for the better (What was wood became alive. Alive. And I fell under. A moving piece of sun. Freedom.). There was also the idea of a special gift (I know I have this power), which could have interpreted as his brilliance for Rodney, but could have been John's super gene just as well. The fact that the narrator was afraid he'd be killed, and probably because of that gift (I'm afraid I may be killed) made me think of John again. All this to say that I finally chose to focus the collage on John.
What I tried to convey wasn't necessarily an unhappy life before Atlantis, but a life which was missing something nonetheless. The life before Atlantis is represented by silhouettes who make one with the ground. John has dreams and discovers things he enjoys (ferris wheels, Johnny Cash, etc.) but the two-color scheme is supposed to give the impression that something's just not right. Then, it's 2004 and he goes through the Gate. He's not a silhouette anymore, everything becomes colorful. I wasn't very subtle here in getting my point across. John shines. And then Rodney comes in and they have a happy ending. (because I'm a sap.) Atlantis and Rodney were the missing pieces.
At this point the collage is not finished. I don't like the part post-Gate so much, but trinityofone and I exchange prompts. She sends me the following draft, and I send her this:
The whole collage looks like this:
----------------------
Before reading part two, I'd recommend, if you haven't done so already, that you read trinityofone's Tannhauser Gate first because it will otherwise spoil you for it - which would be a shame.
----------------------
Part Two
I read Trin's prompt and I squeed profusely, because a) fic by trinityofone! b) we had so many things in common: John, the whole life before Atlantis (the guitar, ferris wheels, the war and Sheppard's ghosts, etc...). Of course the whole "John Sheppard is a cylon" thing was missing from my collage. The idea of Beckett as a puppet master flashed into my mind almost instantly and I was on a roll. From there I got the idea of the red dots for the memories, Rodney came in and the collage passed from big to humongous. I changed the colors as well. John's life starts in black and white and evolves into colors once he's "activated". I included Beckett and Weir as observers in the second part. Post activation, I decided to have Rodney appear only by John's side and not in the black and white strip. It's supposed to show how his relationship with John is different from Beckett's or Elizabeth's. And I added Chaya. Once John knows the truth, things get black and white again. Then I changed a few details here and there: one of my betas asked me who was the strange dude next to the high school and that was my cue to make Johnny Cash a bit more Cash and less strange dude, stuff like that.
The draft I read had no ending so I took Rodney's sentence I can help you get away from here and made my own ending. I always thought Rodney with a gun was pretty hot. How hot would it be to see Rodney rescue John not only with his brain, but with a gun too. Man, I'd love to see that on the show.
trinityofone's fic Tannhauser Gate can be read here. The final version of the collage is below. We're talking huge graphic here: 3000x678px, 2Mb. (For the curious, the psd file was around 200 layers.) F11 is your friend if your screen is 1024x768 or under.
----------------------
The following collage is not part of the challenge. It is the final version of the collage without taking Trin's fic into account:
Resources
• Episodic photography from New Atlantis. Other caps by me.
• Stock pictures from stock.xchng.
• Dashed brush by elli. Others by me.
• Paper background and textures by me.