[SPC] Cat B - Imperial Camouflaged Hideout

[Artanis I]

More and bigger pics can be found here on Flickr.

Allow me to present to you the Imperial Camouflaged Hideout. In a never-ending story of plunder, trade, conflict, exploitation and yohohos, there be pirates, civilians & soldiers. The pirates are always wanting to steal something, the soldiers aren't always squeaky clean, and the emperor wants peace (& personal riches) within the empire, but will expand it at ANY cost. No one really cares about the civilians, they're boring. Kids want action, and battle-in-a-box is better when it's just the guys with weapons. But we'll throw in a few creatures for fun.

So the emperor has sent his soldiers to a remote land where there is talk of potentially high-value commodity hidden in the terrain. There's not really anything much in the way of a local population since the previous colonisation failed, besides native creatures, so it's first-in-best-dressed. The imperial navy is dispatched to keep the place protected from any other interested parties, but these bands of smugglers with their latest technologies are virtually impossible to keep away.

One particular small outpost is a base for a line of communication. Using materials already located in the area, the soldiers have attempted to camouflage their hideout to avoid detection. It's a strategic position for anyone wishing to take advantage of the hidden wealth nearby. This small outpost currently has 3 soldiers on location. 1 is stationed above in a lookout position, the other 2 are within, awaiting orders while alert to potential action.

But their efforts to hide aren't enough, as a band of piratical smugglers quickly closes in. 2 smugglers come from one side, a 3rd from the other with his sights on the lookout guard, while a 4th mans the hi-tech cannon from a small craft nearby. A small cache of golden treasure is currently hidden, but for how long? Could this be the end for these imperial soldiers?

Comparing the 2 styles:

Other details:

I have tried to use only colours available from the period for the classic pirates scene, apart from the foliage. All browns & greys are the old type. Conversely all colours for the space pirates scene are the new type. The classic scene was built first, then the space scene was built to resemble it, with an attempt to keep it as similar as possible without making it look unnatural.

Thanks for looking, hope you enjoy it. It was fun to put this together.

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very good hideout...and funnily just yesterday I was working on one new bigger MOC also containing palms and many green leafs although it is in space on a distant desert planet (telepathy? )...nice display + also like your camera focal blur (intended or unintended)

[Razi]

I really like the space counterpart!

[Artanis I]

Great.

I never did a photography course so I don't understand many of the million different options on my camera, so I just use the auto setting, that means I have to keep giving it verbal abuse until it focuses where I want it to instead of where I want blurred! The focus usually goes straight to the front object, which is often the wrong one.