"End of an Era" by Shelz Keast

[edit] fixed a couple of things I hadn't noticed first time round (mainly missing/ incorrect reflections)

Depiction of the destruction of Terra from the video game Final Fantasy IX from the view point of the village Bran Bal.

I've noticed that there is very little or no fan art for Terra, Bran Bal or the genomes (the people in the picture). All three seem to get left out in favour of Kuja or Zidane (and others). It seems a shame, as Terra is such a beautiful, surreal location. This picture was done, in part, to rectify this.

I'll admit it's not completely true to the game, but finding any decent reference pictures is a nightmare (I went of memory that, though I'd played that section a week or two prior to doing the sketch, was poor as any 'non-essential' facts were forgotten in favour of exam revision. Also used two rather pixelated screenshots I found in an old gaming magazine I still had lying around) I think the purple roofs come from another section of the game, Cleyra.

Bran Bal was chosen because I was vaguely wondering what their reaction would have been to Kuja's destruction of their home. It was probably a blank stare towards the fireworks and some knowledge, deep down, that things weren't going to be the same in the morning (a metaphorical morning as Terra apparently has no day-night cycle. This suggests the planet is really ancient. Objects in orbit can slow down so one side always faces the thing it's orbiting. This is called tidal forces and is what's happening to our moon. Or Terra could have been hit with meteroite(s) which stuffed up the orbit. I think that latter is more plausable).

This was done in photshop elements taking anywhere between 40-50 hours. Worked on from mid October 07 to early Jan 08. The possibly the largest and certainly the most complex picture I have done on computer. It was a nice way of breaking in the new laptop. I can firmly say I learnt a lot doing this picture.