The Phoenix Odyssey

The potential golden era of Atlantis was never realised following a spectacular supernova blast that penetrated space. The aftershocks and effects of the incident rendered Atlantis uninhabitable, and secured the planets collapse. In spite of this, not all of those who dwelled there died, as some who saw the incoming tragedy escaped the planet in time.

The fleeing Atlanteans knew of only one place to seek solace, Earth, the place of their ancestors. However they were doubtful as to whether they would be received, due to their haughty reputation, and the fact that they and their ancestors were so willing and quick to escape from the planet in the Icarus Project. Contrary to this train of thought, they were taken back by the Earth dwellers desire to forgive and forget, as they still felt a tie of kinship, and took pity on the wandering race. And so they waited, in hope that Earth would not suffer the same fate as Atlantis.

Their faith prevailed, and despite relatively minor incidents with crashing meteors, Earth remained unscathed.

Many centuries later in 2944, a fresh lust for exploration arose amongst the earthlings. Reviewing the past and most notably the venture of "Icarus's Wish", those in power who had little grasp of the tragedy of Atlantis set about creating a new programme of adventure, entitled "The Phoenix Odyssey", to explore further to find the perfect place (named the "Phoenix" as this attempt rises out of the ashes of the first). Despite warnings from descendants of those involved with Atlantis, those at the head of the project hadn't the foresight to see the perils that lay in wait.

Testament that unfortunately, most humans just don't learn.

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This is the final piece in the puzzle of the Icarus trilogy, and damn it's good to be finished! I've tried to bring something new to each piece whilst maintaining the same amount of detail and effort in each one, and it's not been easy. This time, a black hole. Not having seen one in a space piece before, I did my research and attempted to portray one here, at least in its fairly early stages of life where it's not as violent as it would get (currently minimal gamma ray expulsion etc). The terrain was 4 renders, stitched and manipulated, and then post processed of course, and I'm sure many of you will be delighted to see that there are no default terragen clouds here I painted my own.

But that's all ramble and most people don't read descriptions anyway.

Stats

Too many hours, more than the first two in the trilogy since a lot of this is completely new technique.
Too many layers, again because it's new and relatively unrefined technique, but a few hundred layers spans that nicely.
A huge PSD that takes too long to open and save.
Four terragen renders, 10 stock photos of my own.
Lots of photoshop, some alcohol, and a pink furry hippo.

Credits

*JVANDER and her friend Carl for helping with the title.
*Kagaya for winning my contest on the theme for this.
*absolutehalo for being of unestimable help with the actual creation, always offering helpful tips and input where he could. You've been great, man.

Prequels

Icarus's Wish
The Fate of Atlantis


I really do hope you enjoy this as much as the first two, the input on both has been nothing less than outstanding. I'll be releasing a 3 piece print soon as well as making this a print.

Enjoy!