About to relaunch

Hi everybody,
A quick message to say that I'm still alive, and that I might make some update very soon here.
Have a look at my portfolio website : http://ludoviccelle.com/

Thanks for visiting ! :)

Ludovic

Exposition Mars la Rouge à Grenoble - RdV le 3 mars !

Depuis le 18 février, et jusqu'au 14 mars, j'expose mes photo-montages de Mars à la libraire Arthaud à Grenoble (23 Grande Rue), sous le titre MARS LA  ROUGE, en référence au livre de Kim Stanley Robinson sur lequel se base mon imagerie de la planète rouge.
NOTEZ BIEN : INAUGURATION LE 3 MARS  DE 16H A 19H. Ce sera l'occasion de se rencontrer sur place !
Pour me suivre sur Facebook, c'est par ici !

Since february 18 until march 14, I exhibit my Mars photomanipulations at Grenoble's bookstore Arthaud, under RED MARS title, refering to Kim Stanley Robinson's book on which all this art is based.
The public inauguration of the exhibition will be next monday, march 3 from 4pm to 7pm.
Click here to follow me on Facebook.

The Space Elevator to Mars - Descent At Dusk

About 40 hours of work on this massive photomanipulation, made in high definition. I first built a 3D model (in Blender) of the whole area thanks to NASA topographic data (MGS MOLA), set the correct light and then photo-manipulated it carefully in Gimp, adding layers of color map (Viking) and high definition texture map (MGS MOC), plus adding the many details. The cable of the space elevator is also a 3D model.
So, we are in a travel cabin, descending along the cable of the space elevator, descending to Sheffield, the spaceport located on top of Pavonis Mons (the central volcano on the image). The time at the surface is dusk, and several large cities are appearing in the dark.
This image is entirely inspired by Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy.

ENJOY IT IN HD HERE.  &  PRINTS AVAILABLE HERE

As always, made 100% open-source on Linux-Ubuntu, with Blender and Gimp.
I'd like to publicly thank Daniel Macháček for his fundamental help in the making of this image, as he taught me how to use the NASA data sets in the best way available. Whithout his help I doubt I would have been able to bring that realism in this picture. Please check out Daniel's astronomy photo-mosaics blog : http://my-favourite-universe.blogspot.fr/
I want also to thank NASA and USGS for the wonderful and free data made available in such a cool way.
I mostly used MapAPlanet www.mapaplanet.org/

If you want to follow me on Facebook, here I am !
Finally, let me recommend you the excellent kimstanleyrobinson.info website, where you'll get to know everything about KSR's books, past, present and upcoming. A site worth following, on FB and Twitter too !

Olympus Mons awakens

Another photo-manipulation that I just made.
This is the famous Olympus Mons seen from orbit as it is erupting gloriously.
To make this picture, I started with a 3D model (on Blender) : with a grayscale height map of the volcano (NASA data) used with the Blender's "displace modifier", I had a realistic setting of the light on this massive geology. I then rendered the lightened 3D model and photo-manipulated it (with Gimp) to add several light effects, the clouds layer and many improved textures (especially the caldera).

All made on Linux-Ubuntu.

Enjoy it in HD on my DeviantArt gallery ! (click twice on the image to see it in full details, especially the caldera)

In KSR's Mars Trilogy, there is no eruption on Mars, but I thought such mystical scene deserved a graphic try ! ;)

Mission to Phobos

I've been wanting to depict Phobos from that angle for a long long time...
In case you don't know, Phobos is the main moon of Mars (the other being Deimos) and rotates close to Mars (about 9,400 km from its surface - considering Mars has a diameter of 6,779 km), which means when on Phobos, you would have a majestic sight on Mars. Also, Phobos has almost no gravity, which means you could almost approach it as an asteroid, which differs a lot from approaching our Moon.
I've worked around 6 hours on this photomanipulation, made with Gimp (+ a 3D sphere mapping of Mars with Blender).

All on Linux-Ubuntu.

ENJOY IT IN HD on my DeviantArt gallery.

Martian Oasis

After quite a long time without update, here comes a new photomanipulation for future Mars !
Actually, this is one that I made quickly months ago for my recent giant mosaic, but I thought it deserved some improvements and an individual and large presentation here.
The original photo, which is public domain, is of a small village in the mountains of southern Afghanistan.
What we see here is a pressurized tent sheltering an oasis where the future of Mars agriculture is being tested and developed. Some tiny super resilient plants are already able to grow on the surrounding hills, but the atmosphere inside the tent allows a vast variety of farming inspired by the experience of thousands of years on Earth. The tent shelters very few buildings in order to leave as much space as possible to the cultures. That said, the area hides a vast inhabited underground complex. The exterior buildings are just the visible part of this scientific base.
As always, I made this with open-source program GIMP on Linux-Ubuntu.

Interview with Ludovic Celle on Red Mars exhibition

My current "Red Mars" exhibition in Grenoble (France) is opened until September 7th, and if you are interested in a little dive into the details of this long term image work and all the process behind this science fiction art series I am producing, you might enjoy this video :

This is a 30 minutes interview by Cause Toujours, a local information channel focused on citizens initiatives. The discussion deals not only with art but also politics, ethics and ecological issues, topics very much related to the writings of Kim Stanley Robinson whose inspired all my Mars artwork.

FOR ENGLISH SUBTITLES : on YouTube, turn on the subs with the white rectangle button at the bottom of the video.

The Mars Trilogy mosaic - 588 images inspired by KSR's books

This new Mars Trilogy mosaic is my kaleidoscopic vision of the incredible wealth of the Kim Stanley Robinson's martian books. 588 pictures gathered here as a sort of eye mandala with the 3 colors of the terraforming stages.
This giant mosaic full of details is an ambitious new take on a first attempt last year.
The images come from various public domain sources (a lot are from NASA) and from my personal photographs, 3D models and photomanipulations. The majority of the images have been through a manipulation process to stick as much as possible to the Mars theme. For instance, I had to give a brown sky to almost all the photos that had a blue one. This whole work of gathering images and caring for all the details and tones is a huge process along the past 6 months.

Here the file is 2000 pixels large, but the original version is very very big, designed as a mural whose details would still look sharp if printed by 5m large! This mosaic is the biggest piece of my current Mars exhibition in Grenoble (see previous news) where it can be seen printed at 2,50 wide.
TO DISCOVER THE HUNDREDS OF DETAILS IN THE MOSAIC, SEE IT BIGGER HERE (DeviantArt)

Made on Ubuntu with Gimp (for the photomanipulations and crops) and with AndreaMosaic (to assemble the mosaic). The 3D models that appear on some images were made on Sketchup and Blender.

Photos from the opening of my "Red Mars" exhibition

Last thursday (june 27th) in Grenoble was the opening event of my exhibition of Red Mars photomanipulations, in the city center's library.
Here are a few photos of this very nice event that allowed me to publicly introduce the intention behind those pictures and the process of image making I go through each time I try to give life to Mars.
The whole exhibition content is based on the depictions of Kim Stanley Robinson in his Mars trilogy, mostly Red Mars, hence the exhibition title. 13 visions of Mars (landscapes, vehicles, habitats, life...) including a series of 5 on the space elevator, a dramatic peak of the novel and a very exciting topic to put in picture. At the exhibition entrance stands a 14th artwork, a brand new mosaic I have been designing these last months with the whole Mars trilogy in mind. It's 588 pictures relating to the exploration and colonization of Mars arranged in a mandala-like mosaic, a kaleidoscope of the wealth of KSR's novels with the 3 colors of the terraforming stages.
From the start of this long term art exploration of KSR's Mars books, I have always wish to take people in an immersive experience of what this planet really is and what it will be to live on it just like the settlers of Red Mars. Sticking to the excellent book source, I have build those visuals in a hard-SF spirit, but I wish and try to bring poetry and a sort of non-SF feel to my images.
On the opening day the public reception was very positive, even though that Mars theme was rather new to most of the attendees.
I noticed that several said they would love to see the images in much much bigger ! Well, I do to, and I am going to work on making a more immersive and a wider scale exhibition possible.

(photos by Gil Cantinelli)

"Red Mars" - my photomanipulations exhibited in Grenoble

In Grenoble (France), from June 20 to september 7th (except july), I hold an exhibition of my Red Mars photomanipulations. The title is "Mars la Rouge - photo-montages de Ludovic Celle"
It is located in the town center's library (Bibliothèque Centre-Ville, 10 rue de la République). Though the exhibition already started yesterday, the actual launch event will happen on june 27th at 6pm.
The exhibition features 13 of my photomanipulations + a brand new giant mosaic made of around 600 pictures of Red, Green and Blue Mars (which I will soon unveil in HD on the web). The prints are from pretty large size to very very big, the kind of dimensions my pictures have always been made for.
The library staff, my friend from KimStanleyRobinsonInfo and I have gathered a nice selection of KSR books that are displayed in the exhibition to connect my artwork with the novels themselves.
If you pass by Grenoble, come have a look at my Mars exhbition and don't hesitate to contact me by e-mail in case I am available to guide you!
If you are on Facebook, you can like my graphic art page where I often post new art and photos from the exhibition and other events around my work. It's in french, but mostly visual.

My Mars Society 2013 Convention poster art

This is the art I recently submitted for the Mars Society 2013 Convention poster contest.
I didn't win, but I have a special honorable mention from the Mars Society. See here for more info and a look at the smart winner poster by Cody Edwards.
I made this poster with Inkscape as it's mostly vector work (including the characters and the lights in the sky). The few textures were prepared on Gimp before use in Inkscape.
The theme of the contest was "Finding Life and Bringing Life on Mars". I chosed focused on "Bringing Life" : the descending ships like seeds falling down to the soil, the "Earthrise" habitable dome behind the horizon, and a group of pioneers standing on the Martian surface, starting life and culture on the barren planet.

Orbiting Mars

Here is a new photomanipulation I made today.
We are looking at Mars from a manned spacecraft. The 200km wide view is on Ophir Chasma, a region of Valles Marineris.
With all the Mars trips projects announced or to be annouced these days, we are just a few years away until this picture becomes real.
The photos used for this image are both from NASA :
-The ISS cupola shot during STS-130 (2010)
-Ophir Chasma shot by Viking 1 in 1976

As always, I made the photomanipulation with GIMP on Linux-Ubuntu.

Green Mars globe 01

Here is an original Christmas present !
This is my very first try to make a realistic looking terraformed Mars globe. We see the planet here in advanced Green stage.

All work done on Gimp, with a globe of Earth mixed with a globe of Mars. Click here to enjoy it in full HD on my DeviantArt page.
Comments are welcome !

Red Mars Anniversary Timeline

2012 is the year of the 20th anniversary of the legendary SF novel RED MARS which started the Mars Trilogy of Kim Stanley Robinson. And this is also the year of release for 2312, the new space epic by KSR which takes us beyond the scale of the Mars Trilogy, in the future of our solar system.

KSR.info and DaVinci-MarsDesign wish to commonly celebrate this event with this new infographic timeline I just made.

The layout is made on Inkscape and the 3 photomanipulations (2027, 2061 and 2127) were made on Gimp.

To enjoy the infographic in full scale, I recommend my DeviantArt page here.

And please visit KSR.info for further exploration on these novels.

Mars Space Elevator Triptych Poster

Something like 5 hours on Inkscape in the middle of the night, and here is my poster for the space elevator as described in Red Mars !

The background is my photomanipulation triptych turned black and white and put a little darker.

Mars and the space elevator

Finally my space elevator triptych is completed, with this last sight caught between the two ends of the cable. On this point of view we are still very close to the surface and very very far to the mid-distance of the cable, still thousands kilometers away ! Anyway, enjoy the view and take a look at the full triptych.

I made this picture with GIMP on Linux-Ubuntu.

This new photo-manipulation is based on the huge photographic mosaic of the Nasa Viking 1 Orbiter shots by Daniel Machácek. This original picture looks to the east, on Argyre Planitia. For more information on this region, see here.

A special space elevator poster is coming very soon...

Clarke and the space elevator

I go on with the Space Elevator theme, with this new photomanipulation showing the "space end" of the cable. In Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson tells the setting of an asteroid in high martian orbit, as a necessary mass keeping the space elevator cable straight. This asteroid, Clarke, is named after science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, who described the space elevator concept in one of his novels. (learn more here) KSR imagines that the cable is made directly from Clarke, with the asteroid's material, mined and turned in carbon nanotubes, made in space !
This photomanipulation works with the previous one, that showed Sheffield, the town where the cable rises from the surface of Mars. KSR describes the cable as being 35.000 km long and 10m thick.
More than just a useful mass for the cable's balance, Clarke is a base in itself, a spaceport full of docks, living and working areas for the people involved in space travel, space cargos as well as a spacious station for travellers of all kinds. What we don't see in the picture are the spaceships waiting for passengers leaving Mars or bringing new ones to Mars.

For the manipulation, I've used elements from a photo of the ISS by NASA, and a shot of Saturn's moon Phoebe for the asteroid (photo). The entrance of the cable is a small part of a photo of Kuala Lumpur's skyscrapers by Paul Mannix (original photo).

I made this picture with GIMP on Linux-Ubuntu.

Mars mosaic 01 - Red Green Blue Mars

This time, no photomanipulation, but  another kind of picture I've been thinking a lot : a mosaic of inspiring pictures, a kind of kaleidoscopic sight !
Then I've searched the web for hundreds of pictures that inspired me the world of the Mars trilogy as described in details by Kim Stanley Robinson. I then cropped them in square shape and built the mosaic.
My idea here is to express the world that is Mars in the book. It's a whole planet, with various landscapes, various cities evolving at the same time, various technologies at work, thousands of human beings living their life there, and the slow creation of a Martian culture. There is the idea of both space and time. This particular mosaic draws the shape of my Mars roundel, one I imagined for this blog years ago. It shows in 3 colors the 3 stages of Mars through its terraforming history : Red, Green, and Blue.

I may produce some more mosaics like that later.
I made this with the free software AndreaMosaic.

There are too many pictures used here to credit them all, and anyway I use them only partly and at a tiny scale, but I am ready to consider authors requests.

The scale of Phobos

This new picture is to be an exception here, as it is not located on Mars ! Since I've started being interested by Mars, I am fascinated by the scale of the planet and its features, and of course, there is Phobos, its largest moon (the other one being Deimos). What better way to give a scale than to compare with actual things on Earth ?
So, here is Phobos standing over my town Grenoble in the Alpes (eastern France). Phobos' dimensions are 26,8 x 18,4 km. If you carefully look at the center of the picture, you'll see 2 helicopters, still quite far from the "big rock".
Here too is a companion picture showing in satellite view how Grenoble and Phobos compare. We can see there that the entire town of Grenoble would easily fit inside Stickney crater, Phobos' largest crater (on the right).

I made this with TheGimp on Linux-Ubuntu. A 5 hours work.

In the Greek Mythology, the twins Phobos and Deimos ("fear" and "dread") were god sons of Ares ("Mars").

Ascending Pavonis Mons up to Sheffield

Imagine yourself in the warmth of a comfortable rover, automatically ascending the endless flank of Pavonis Mons, one of Mars' giant volcanos. Outside, the temperature is below -120°C. Up there on the horizon, slowly appearing is the shining tent of Sheffield, the famous liftport of the space elevator. The elevator's cable stands straight and disappears among the stars. This all makes you feel you already are in orbit...

Sheffield is 3 kilometres away. You will be there in half an hour. The intense town's activity, busy with hundreds of passengers for the cable, will be a huge contrast to the lonely and silent ascent you just accomplished in the dark and red night. Altitude 14 km, where starts the space elevator that will take you right in space in a few hours.

As said on MangalaWiki, "because of its high altitude, Sheffield is condemned to remain a tented city."

This photo-montage is a lot inspired by a sequence in Red Mars : Ann Clayborne alone in her rover, making the very very long ascent of Olympus Mons and going so high that it feels like in space. This photo-montage here is a kind of transcription of this scene on Pavonis Mons.

(Made with TheGimp on Linux-Ubuntu)

Milky Way photo from ALMA by (European Southern Observatory) ESO/José Francisco Salgado.