🃝 Ellen Ripley "Queen of Clubs" - Digital Illustration, Lore and Animation

"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

Ellen Ripley (as played by Sigourney Weaver) was the only survivor of the starship Nostromo after its deadly encounter with the titular Alien. A classic horror movie at its core, the Alien universe has branched out considerably since its humble beginnings in the seventies. H.R. Gigers iconic Alien design imbued these creatures with an aura of unknown danger and Ripley would go on to encounter these terrifying beings on several occasions. Fighting them, understanding them and becoming weirdly connected to the Xenomorphs and their queen, her adventure had no shortage of strange twists. The whole series has abundant imagery of egg, fertility and queen imagery making it rather Freudian on the whole. Ripley is one of the most recognizable science fiction characters and a testament to the badassery of female willpower and strength. Her appearance in Aliens is particularly hailed as influential in future action films starring women.

• This is a digital collage of about 30 bitmap layers. Using my mouse and standard Photoshop brushes and layer blend modes. The cards and textures I got from FusRoDa and edited them to suit our needs along with the photos and alien stencils. I also tried to preserve as many of the steps as possible for the process animation. I then made the animation in Premiere Pro CC, simplified it, sped it up, added inserts, rendered it as an mp4 video file and then converted it to an animated gif online (nifty!) with 25 fps :)

This is the source photo I used for this, isn't she awesome?

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Category	#FanArt
Medium	Photoshop
Suit	Clubs
Character	Ellen Ripley
Universe	Alien
Style	Digital Illustration
Original Artists	H.R. Giger, Ridley Scott
First Apperance	1979

• Gif Source

  • "Final report, the commercial star-ship Nostromo. Third officer reporting. The other members of the crew—Kane, Lambert, Parker, Brett, Ash, and Captain Dallas—are dead. Cargo and ship destroyed. I should reach the frontier within six weeks. With a little luck the network will pick me up. This is Ripley, last survivor of the Nostromo, signing off."

Lore

Ripley is a strong-willed woman who rarely gets emotional, but when she does so, deals with it without it interfering with her purpose at hand. She has a professionalism, a person who would follow the rules when required in her early career, such as when Lambert and Dallas demanded they and an infected Kane be allowed into the ship despite there being a 24hr quarantine (The rule was broken by Ash, the android science officer of the Nostromo)

The events on board the Nostromo, heavily traumatized Ripley and affected her greatly after being brought out of a unusually long hypersleep, she suffered from nightmares related to the creature and while trying to get her concerns over to others, her anger got the better of her and she thus lost her flight license. Possessing little tolerance from now on for the company and their cover up, she wanted nothing to do with the aliens ever again, however her trauma was impacting her life so much she found the courage to face them again to maybe get a closure on the events she witnessed on board the Nostromo.

OPEN FILE 9376-FGDB

NAME: Ellen Louise RIPLEY
Warrant Officer, NOC-1
COMPANY ASSIGNMENTS:
U.S.C.S. NOSTROMO, class M towing vehicle, Reg. No. 180924609
Crew of 7 (cryosleep mode)
Cargo: refinery, processing 20,000,000 tons of mineral ore.
Departure: LNB-14(transit via the Solomons CT) 2/17/34 ERT
Arrival: SECURITY CLASSIFIED/cf. Document 81 under File BG97-G

• alienanthology.wikia

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Process

Here's the animated process for the Ripley that I made out of the individual layers. This is a digital Illustration with some collage elements so I borrowed freely from established imagery for this one. I'm also trying to make a unique transition at the end of each card. Hope you dig it.

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Quest almost complete! Most cards are done, this really took on a life of its own didn't it? Hope you enjoyed Ellen Ripley as the "Queen of Clubs"!

• I also encourage you to come by our Steem Artists Discord Channel. There is a pretty sweet community emerging around @steemartists with talent worth supporting methinks.

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  • 🃛 Vegeta "Jack of Clubs"
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