Way back in college, I had an idea for a short animated film that involved a kind of "planetary prison;" a penal colony set up on a desolate world where life was rough and alien criminals from all over would have to band together in order to survive. Kind of like the country of Australia... with aliens! I had sculpted two of the main characters as an assignment for one of my classes, but unfortunately since then they had accidentally been nudged off their display table and are now in several pieces...
Anyway, fast-forward a few years. This past summer I saw the fantastic film "District 9," directed by Neill Blomkampf and suddenly my idea of aliens marooned on a desolate planet jumped back into my head
One of the more compelling ideas was for an open-air marketplace, where beings could gather and exchange goods. Learning from my previous experience with my train station, I decided to double-down on a single shack; a micro-level environment, packed with detail and character, and see what I could do. *Poof!* The alien sushi hut was born.
The big points I wanted to hit were Character, Detail, and Color. An opportunity to make a ramshackle food stall made up of scavenged materials makes for a lot of interesting scenarios. For the centerpiece of the stall I wanted something anachronistic. Something that under normal circumstances would have no business being used to make food for hungry patrons. I settled on an old busted robot being used as a stove.
As for the hut itself, I have a basic layout set (the semi-transparent shell in the image below), and I hope to cover it in corrugated metal, wood, etc. All in all I'm very excited about this project, and can't wait to show you more! Until next time!
