First Contact

Since as long as we can remember, we have always imagined what our first experience with extraterrestrial life as well as our first face to face encounters would be like. Some of use hope that there would be purely good will toward the respective races. We would be able to share our technology with them....our philosophies and various other states of knowledge perhaps even some levels of entertainment, forever bonding each race together like rivets in a spaceship's hull. Alternatively, others would believe that interaction with other races would bring forth a conflict like no other. Countless souls would be lost in the ensuing wars and untold damages would be done to our societies. Flames would engulf and lick at the environment like devilish tongues tasting the destruction around them. Our soldier would fight in a constantly losing war against an opponent with far superior technologically advanced machinery and weapons as well as untold knowledge of our civilization's defenses and would perform countless surgical strikes before we are either dead or deadlocked. First Contact created by conceptual artist Moonchild, aka *moonxels, gives us one such look at a battle with an extraterrestrial opponent. With such visceral imagery as well as a great amount of action, it really immortalizes the dark struggle of us versus them.

The more I look at this piece, the further I'm enticed into its world. Each and every explosion is highlighted excellently in the light of the tanks firing. The various scratches and damages on the tank further display how much destruction and the taxing nature of combat is, especially with an enemy we've never encountered. A good use of particle effects on the explosions and flames as well as a great use of lighting over the entire area, with the clouds simulated darkness and shadow effects to cover portions of the objects in the background and foreground. All these elements have genuinely capture the tense atmosphere of the field of combat before this image and the destruction it can invoke.

Watching this piece further immerses the viewer into the ensuing battle. Tanks firing into the air as the unseeing opponent hovers ominously from above. Lighting scarring the sky like bright knives slicing jagged cuts into the atmosphere as a powerful laser cannon from the enemy spaceship slices into the Earth and through the tanks and other Earth defenses that litter its surface. It’s only a matter of time before the world becomes one large piece of intergalactic scar tissue.

At the moment, one thing could still be altered with the piece. Some parts of the piece could use a little alteration in its sharpness. However, since its only in very minuscule areas of the images, there really isn’t much to go into in regards of this issue.

With a rather small nitpick, it barely detracts from the stellar presentation of the image. Bringing a large scale war with the classic clash against an unknown enemy really looks great in both presentation and execution. Good work as always, Moonchild! <img src="e.deviantart.net/emoticons/c/c…" width="20" height="20" alt="" title="Clap"/>