Xeno Earth

This was the fourth of my planned posts for the Ark Tangent project. I was able to finished up the terrain pieces this weekend, so that's one more project checked off.    

Part of the reason for the Ark Tangent project is because I wanted to make some terrain pieces that aren't as brain intensive as the things I've been making recently. I have a bunch of unused plastic plants hanging out in the basement and I want to put them to use. Also I enjoy making rock outcroppings so the two combined pointed me in the xenoformed Earth concept. Some of these pieces might see some dual use in the Steamworks setting too, maybe as Northwest frontier terrain or Venusian plant life or something.



Standoff in the Wastelands

The plants were basically just glued to some washers, textured the bases, and painted with a black gesso undercoat. I've read that the gesso has enough flex to not peel off the plastic plants so we'll see how that goes. They were painted up in alien colors and some static grass was added.

I added little chunks of slate to the plants and blended it all in with wood putty.

The rock outcroppings are pink insulation foam cut to shape, covered with some thinned wood putty, textured, and painted.

I cut the foam with a lot of horizontal lines and then picked out the shape of the rocks.

I didn't get around to doing a board for all of this to go on so I just used a chunk of slate from by backyard. A little to heavy and oddly shaped to be a long term solution however.



Both of these guys looked a little dark in the previous posts So I thought the deserved a couple more pics.



The Coming of the Ark

Desperate to resecure its position after the rebellion of the Jovian Collective, the United Earth Government saw the alien Ark as a godsend. However, the mission did not go as planned. The UEG team made contact with the Ark but this only seemed to activate its primary function, to xenoform a planet to be habitable to its long dead creators.

Once in orbit the Ark reformed itself into a massive orbiting installation and simultaneously splitting off several relatively smaller craft that dispersed both across the planet and throughout the solar system. Almost immediately the biosphere began to change as parts of the Ark rained down on the planet below.

In less than a year the planet has been massively reshaped. Almost all flora on the planet has died, the air is now rich with alien compounds hazardous to Terran life, and the temperature of the planet has risen as the atmosphere is now full of greenhouse gases and a higher oxygen content. While parts of the planet are barren others flourish with new alien life. These new plants, animals, and things harder to classify seem to be living parts of the process. Organic factories and workers hastening the xenoforming and continuing to transform the planet.