At its Dawn (Detail Crops)
Photoshop CS2
(Click any to expand)

I haven't worked on anything this detailed for a very long time and coming to think of it, it's almost been two years since I worked on my "A" level coursework Decadent Progression. I'm still trying to top that in terms of scale, concept and message, but this piece just doesn't come close in that respect. Regardless that wasn't my intention anyway, plus it turned out to be good endurance practice given how it took me close to four months of on and off painting to complete it - I tend to have a short span of attention and inspiration when it comes to most works. No doubt excitement from anticipating the release of Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars did much to fuel my motivation, for C&C is finally returning to its roots.

Certainly like many other people, I wasn't in full support of all of the developer's decisions and designs from the onset, and although much of my opinion still stands even after I have now finally purchased and started playing the game, I've been pleasantly surprised by how the final product looks and feels, especially with the live action videos. You can tell almost immediately that EALA put in a considerable amount of effort in trying to bring back the feel of the original C&C (even if just to cash in on the huge fanbase, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt), which is known to us in the community as Tiberian Dawn.

I had similar goals in mind when starting work on this painting. On the superficial level, I wanted to make the best tribute to a game I could possibly conjure up at this point in my life, but at the same time I also wanted to discuss certain deeper themes associated with the game. The Tiberian Dawn introduction movie was one really interesting (corny?) compilation of imagery, but it represented so much within that short half a minute - terror and fear, politics, affluence and hysteria, war, media control, economics, corruption, and frivolity. You look at it now and you can draw so many parallels to the world we currently live in, and I really wanted to illustrate this sense of a larger world which was evident in the video.

Building on that, I also wanted to bring up questions pertaining to the game and to art, and encourage people to ask them, such that the painting will tell its own story; from the mundane to the difficult and seemingly pointless: What's going on here? Where is this? What do the words mean? Who are the GDI soldiers gesturing towards? What are the rules of engagement? Who is truly justified in this war? You come to realise that everything in the frame was deliberately placed by the artist, from the Orcas to the post-it on the soldier's computer to the derelict bicycle and the graffiti, yet his intention is also to show that these objects exist only because of actions and consequences of created fictional characters within the game's (or painting's) world.

Doesn't matter if that didn't make much sense, I wasn't there when they made C&C1, so in essence what I meant is that I'm re-imagining and expanding upon a fiction in a more serious tone, pondering real-world issues we may face in an artificial setting. Having said all that I leave here the progress shots of the work in question:

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

As well as wallpaper versions:
1024x768
1280x800
1280x960
1280x1024
1600x1200
1680x1050

So there, have a blessed Easter weekend everyone.