How Gallifrey Looks

[magnusgreel]

I've got this great big drawing laid out on the living room floor next to me, that I've been failing to finish for a couple years, probably. It's a Leela figure in outer Gallifrey, and it has an orange sky, and I know I have that right. What I want to ask people here is what else we know about what the landscape of Gallifrey looks like.

The views in "Gridlock" seem too fanciful for me. They go by fast, but it's hard to see those scenes from Invasion of Time in that landscape. Besides, if you can see out of the Citadel through a clear dome, wouldn't the rebels have been seen approaching?

I remember something about silver leaves, not sure if that was Susan or "Gridlock". Silver grass? Actually I have a lot of ground to cover, literally-- that's the main component missing in the drawing. I'll have to decide whether it's bare ground or green grass or some other color vegetation. Thus far the clouds are white, not shadowed yet.

My own invention in this thing is a number of giant "shards" of another broken-up planet which have all sliced into the flat plain in the drawing, all pointing in a sort of 45 degree angle, since they all came from the same direction. They are stuck into the ground like knives.

In all the episodes, books, CDs, there must be more bits of information. Anyone know?

[clocketpatch]

Um, from what I can gather, from Susan and Gridlock and various other sources...

red grass, thin-trunked silver leafed trees, lots of snow capped mountains, cold as anything (frost?), and, um... it's a quarry?

It depends where you're setting it thought. If you're doing the whole Death Zone thing then that's a bit different from a simple rolling plain near the citadel.

and agreed on the lulzy impracticalities of a glass citadel. Maybe the Time Lords remodelled???

[magnusgreel]

Thanks... I'm out of luck with the red grass, since the costume is reddish, and the sky orange. I'll have to rely on the idea that different parts of a planet look different. Still, I want as much "accuracy" as I can get. Another problem; how to draw grass and have it not be boring.

Anyone else have anything? Oh, my one fanfic had as a plot point that Gallifrey has no moon, then it turned out that in a novel, there was one, name slips mind, but it was "copper-colored".

[clocketpatch]

Pretend that you can't see the moon through the clouds?

I don't know if it helps or not (cue shameless self-promotion) but I go on about Gallifrey quite a bit in my Somnambulists fic on the 'spoon. Granted, I'm playing pretty fast and loose with canon in that so it might not be the best reference.

As for realistic grass. Is the drawing done in coloured pencil or are you sketching it and colouring later? Is the grass more of a background or foreground element, or does it do that sweepy full-perspective thingy?

Good luck on it though Magnus!

[magnusgreel]

I had a period of trying to go through one author's work in order on Teaspoon, crazy of me with the eye business, and I burned myself out on that. I'll think about going to your things here, but for now I want to know if something's canon or not. Actually, this hurts so much (the drawing plus posting) that I need just the information. Fanfic reading, posting and drawing, at the same time, is for well people.

In the fanfic, it's important that Gallifrey has no moon, because Leela has been seeing one in the sky all day, then realizes it's not supposed to be there.

I'm outlining to get proportions right, then filling in. It's all pencil, though. The grass, or whatever, would extend from the horizon to the figure's feet in the foreground. I don't like to fill areas in with solid, uninteresting blocks of color just to get them handled and over with, though there's always the temptation. So if I'm drawing grass on a plain I feel obligated to figure out how to really "draw" it. I don't like wasting any square inches of space.

The whole thing is halfway between being "sketchy" and comics-y I guess, in that it's pencil, with the lines and shading being important, but a lot of outline filled with colors too, if that makes sense.

I'll stop; it turns out I like talking about this a little too much.

[clocketpatch]

Hmmm... I'd love to see a picture of the finished (or at least half-finished) product. It sounds like a labour of love.

Go rest your eyes Magnus. I'm not going to force you to read my badfic. Though, if I ever get a functioning mic I might just start making podcasts of them... or would that be too nerdy?

*shifty eyes*

[jjpor]

Dec 14, 2008 2:26:36 GMT clocketpatch said:

Though, if I ever get a functioning mic I might just start making podcasts of them... or would that be too nerdy?

*shifty eyes*

Would you do, like, funny voices and stuff, and really act them out? Or just read them, audiobook style? Either way, I think the idea has merit. ;D

Magnus, I too would be very interested in seeing this drawing if it ever became possible. I think that any habitable planet would probably have a range of different climates and terrains, just like Earth. I mean, I too have picked up the orange skies/silver leaves meme from somewhere (wasn't it from Susan back in One's day, and referenced by the new series?), but we also know that the Death Zone, for instance, looks just like a particularly rainy, rocky part of Wales (with grey skies!), and there are also mountains where, evidently, they have monasteries and/or hermits who tell ghost stories.

Myself, when I picture Gallifrey, I for some reason always think of desolate, rocky plains, with the Citadel looming ominously in the background; maybe with some of the Outsiders/Shobogans/whatever they are, wandering about living their dropout existence. I have no evidence for this other than my own imagination, however.

[magnusgreel]

I know that you do goodfic, cp, from your Teaspoon material. I remember in particular a moment with Three when he popped in somewhere and advised your protagonist.

jjpor-- The orange sky is also from Invasion of Time. I always liked that they remembered Susan's remark from all those years earlier, and tinted the screen that way. there was vegetation on the outside though, so that's how I think of Outer Gallifrey. They had to live on something out there.... There was the quarry of course but life too.

I actually did a bit more on the drawing tonight. I make these things so big that I can't take it in in one glance, so it's hard working out the proportions. I'm actually going to Google grass I think, then come up with some sort of alien grass. Might anyone here have a scanner I could borrow, please? I mean, I mail it and you help by scanning it and e-mailing the image back to me, and/or posting it here maybe.

[clocketpatch]

Dec 14, 2008 2:53:16 GMT jjpor said:

Would you do, like, funny voices and stuff, and really act them out? Or just read them, audiobook style? Either way, I think the idea has merit. ;D

Probably with funny voices, because that's the way I am. Though... my own voice is rather crap and nasal (honestly, I have no idea why I was hired to do phone work... but then, having a crappy voice or a thick accent is like, a telemarketing prerequiste or something right?)

yeah...

though, there's a bunch of these audiofics on the Lois and Clark fanfic site which is what gave the idea.

[magnusgreel]

PS-- I didn't mean I was asking someone else to scan in my huge drawing and put all the pieces together, which is a huge job. I would have already copied it in pieces and then pasted (with real paste) all the sections into one small master. All I wondered was if I could send that master copy to someone who would then scan it in, just one simple scan.

This may not be the only way of getting this done...

[clocketpatch]

I'd try to weedle a digital camera off someone if it's as big as you say. But then, this might also not be the best way to capture a drawing... (I'm really quite clueless with digital cameras and... um, stuff) but sometimes those camera shots end up blurry and gross... though they can be nice occasionally.

I've got a scanner, but it's the most unreliablee thing in the world and more often then not packs up half way through a scan or scan stuff with weird dots or decides to make random photocopies instead of actually uploading to th computer... URGH! TECHNOLOGY!!

Maybe try a copy shop? those places print and bind and put stuff on CDs and everything. And as a plus they probably wouldn't be bothered by something big. Or failing that, sometimes libraries have public use scanners, though I know that none of the ones in this current city I live in hve that sort of anemity (makes disgruntled noises about the awful p.town library system and their inability to properly use the dewie system).

[magnusgreel]

Thanksd cp. Transportation is one big problem. I would be going to Kinko's copy shop first to do the involved job of color-photocopying it in sections, then gluing it all together into one high-quality shrunken master to scan and make further photocopies from. Then it's a matter of access to a scanner. Computer access at Kinko's is frighteningly expensive. A mall has a computer... place, where people hang out and play video games for some reason. (Nice to get together for a group activity where you don't have to face each other.) They have less expensive scanner.

All these places are half a county away. I'll stop elaborating on the problems there... I don't mean to complain, just answering what you said.

[merrythemad]

Magnus, Let me check at my school library, I'll bet we have something of the like for student use. If we do I've no problem doing the...thingamajigs (insert technobabble and reverse polarity lol) for you, I've got loads of computer use left from last term still, so if we have a scanner (?) I'll let you know. *g* that sounded wholly unpromising, sorry, it wasn't meant to. Not quite awake yet.

[magnusgreel]

Thanks merry... there's certainly no rush for this drawing, but others... well I don't know if they're ready yet but they might be. If you find you can help, that would be nice, and I'd be grateful. Is it an 8 1/2 x 11 glass or 11 x 17?

This drawing's about 25" x 36" so far, and I'm about to add another 12" x 25" section of paper onto it. Sometimes it seems crazy shrinking it all down to 8 1/2 x 11....