Archival scenes III: "Here I am, on the shores of Lake L'Ambique..."

Unfortunately, real life, as it is called, at times requires considerable energy. Energy is a limited commodity and seems to consume creativity before it starts devouring other resources. In fact, I have toyed with the idea of closing this blog for a few months, with a note saying 'Away until I'm back' or something of equal intelligence.

But not yet. There is life here, and some unheard-of beasties may be encountered in the niches of the archival biotopes. I do not think I have ever shown much about humans on Furaha, which has its roots in my hesitation to even allow them on the planet. I thought they would wreck the place within several generations. After all, it's what they do. However, I decided that the project needed human interest, so I did introduce this alien species on my pristine planet. Once I got over my initial distrust of them, I did enjoy having humans around for various reasons: they could act as scale indicators, or they could be the actors in side stories about scientists arguing about animals' names and other typically human silliness.

But I never did a painting of humans on Furaha, and I do not think I ever will. There is a very rough sketch in the first ever post of this blog, and today I will present you with another sketch, only slightly less rough.

Click to enlarge; copyright Gert van Dijk

This is a pencil sketch on tracing paper, which explains why the contrast isn't that good. It also wasn't developed beyond this first approach (please do not look at the human's legs!).

As you can see, a Furahan citizen/scientist is squatting down near to a Furahan predator, a 'prober', to have a closer look at it. There is some kind of vehicle behind him; I tried to get away from the type of vehicle people might expect, and so designed a boring rectangle you could just dump anywhere as a temporary blot on the landscape. But this is about humans: apparently our hero is not afraid of the prober, which is not in line with some of the things I wrote over time. One statement held that, while humans may not be palatable to Furahan predators, the predators have not eaten enough humans yet to have learned this basic fact, so nothing keeps them from trying.

Let's assume that this person knows what he is doing. I certainly assumed so, as I modelled him on David Attenborough. The sketch probably never did resemble Mr Attenborough very much, but it did a bit more when I made it than it does now. I must hasten to say that I am a great admirer of Mr Attenborough, so this sketch was not at all meant to ridicule him. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think I was trying to imagine the very best of all possible documentaries on Furahan life. It would be one of those excellent BBC nature documentaries hosted by Attenborough. Imagine Attenborough on Furaha, with him talking straight into the camera. You will have to imagine the proper accent: "Well, here we are, on the shores of Lake L'Ambique, where we just happened to come upon this extraordinary animal..."