In the beginning it was planned to fill the belly of the crashed Illochim space ship with eggs. But during production the hibernation tanks became more and more important and forced us to integrate them into the organic form of the space ship. Therefore Sven Sauer had to develop a much better way of visually connecting the complex organic hull environment of the ship construction and the mummies of the creatures in the tanks.



In the following step of production the eggs were replaced with muscle tissue and veins. The photo material for this was delivered by one of our friends, a student of animal biology. The source for most of the images are rat cadavers. The Hero walks directly over the tissue structures and a main artery in to the hearth of the space cruiser!



In order to achieve the huge size of the interior Sven Sauer has narrowed the perspective and moved the focal point lower. In the background the first drafts of the vein structure has been implemented - at that moment there was still no focus on details, but just additions of rough accents. But the room was still looking very small since the Tanks seemed like a 2d billboard in the center of the room.



As a solution the number or tanks was reduced to 3 in order to open up more of the background area. Afterwards the 3d tanks were integrated into the two-dimensional background image that contained the organic environment. A good way to amplify the 3d effect was to add strong highlights and environmental reflections to the glass tanks. From this point on Sven Sauer did the detailed paint work of the scene. The main goal was to achieve a simple readability and coherence of the image, the viewer should not be confronted with a puzzled patchwork.



The light setup for the Matte painting was based on a gradient from dark flat color tones to the light highlights. Just like with an oil painting Sven added layer after layer of light to combine the foreground, middle and background planes. Most of the time was invested into the analysis, removal and addition of light accents - how much light is just enough for the user to see and recognize something? From which moment on does the light composition start to become flat and boring? And what role do dust, smoke and depth play in this painting?




In the final step Sven draws the last fine and ornamental muscle weaves and small highlights in dark areas. Last finishing touches were made to avoid any symmetry and obvious pattern repetition. These last corrections opened 'holes' in the image, allowing the viewer to look deeper into the forbidden corners of the ship in some areas. Ultimately Sven Sauer darkened the foreground cliff to create a visual focus and draw the observer into a tunnel vision, just as a traveler who's following our hero behind his back would see it.

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