Light Of Lucy, Lucy Of Light

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iaRzXEi8CNyWTzVMNv8rBreBEVIlrqkF/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gx5FN9ca9hjylQsKOo84VUp2i4uXnEsw?usp=sharing

Light of Lucy,

Lucy of Light,

Lux tua nos ducat!

(Your Light Guides Us!)

Introduction

When I read the resources provided for this challenge, in my head I started developing a story about a girl named Lucy who sets out on a journey to find out the mystery of Trojan asteroids. I thought this is an interesting idea for a fantasy story/adventure book. There are mysterious beings trapped in Jupiter's orbit with secrets of the Solar system. There is a team who wants to go on a quest. There's a girl who takes the journey.

I was drawn to stories like "Little Prince" or "Alice in Wonderland" and the possibility to combine adventure, fantasy, and metaphorical journey the characters (and readers) go through. And so "Lucy and The Trojans" was created.

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Lucy is a spacecraft but it's also an image of human knowledge, curiosity, creativity, ability to ask questions.

We are Lucy, Lucy is us.

Lucy extends our understanding of the universe and in a way enables us to extend our senses - to see, to touch the asteroids so far away.

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Lucy and The Trojans combines adventure, mission details and terminology, and gives you time to think of our place in the world.

It contains selected adventures Lucy will face during her mission provided with humor and sense of otherworldliness.

Overview

• The book is roughly A5 in size, approx. 1 cm in thickness. I used black pages as a background (which gives the book space vibes).
• It's a selection of adventures from a bigger story.
• Illustrations were made using white markers, oil pastels, crayons.
• I used double-sided tape to "glue in" the elements.
• Lucy was drawn by hand every time and glued in on pages which gives them more depth.
• Early design of Lucy is included in the Final Project link (close-ups).
• Additional elements were glued in - using post-its (the envelopes, tool's backgrounds), decorative paper (the cover), drawings (Lucy, the spaceship).
• Text was written by hand and glued in to the pages.
• Asteroids are depicted as white ghost-like beings which gives them an otherworldly feel.
• The inside of the backcover contains a prototype of a moving element (Trojans on Jupiter's orbit).
• Pages were stitched to the cover using black thread.
• The cover was made from white paper and was covered with black pages.
• There are several shout-outs to the resources throughout the book.

Covers and pages

• Front cover - inspired by this video of Lucy's solar panels. (Decorative paper, crayons, white markers.)
• Inside of the front cover - drawing of this diagram showcasing Lucy's path. (Oil pastels, white markers.)
• Prologue - one of the first ideas I had for the story, a short, captivating piece to capture reader's attention and indicate a little bit of fantasy. (Handwritten text, white markers.)
• History of Lucy - two pages showcasing the style of storytelling I chose for this book. (Handwritten text.)
• Tools - two pages about instruments Lucy will carry. Pictures were printed from Lucy Mission page. The names from the text (Dennis, Hal, Victoria) are a shout out to Lucy Mission team members. (Handwritten text, printed photos, post-its.)
• Time capsule - two pages with little envelopes containg some of the quotes from Lucy's Plaque. Quotes can be taken out of the envelope. One envelope has a blank piece of paper so the readers can add their own message. (Post-its, printed quotes.)
• Donaldjohanson - Lucy meets the first asteroid. The text contains a shout out to Donald Johanson's discovery of Lucy. I tried to give my illustration Donald's looks but the only thing I got right is the hair. :) Hope you'll forgive me, Donald. This page also mentions Eurybates and the origins of his name as well as testing of the instruments. (Oil pastels, crayons.)
• Queta - Lucy meets Queta, depicted here with a flame and colours of Mexican flag as a shout out to Norma Enriqueta “Queta” Basilio Sotelo. The text also mentions other asteroids named after athletes and these appear in the illustration as stars. (Oil pastels, crayons.)
• Leucus - Lucy meets Leucus, who is shown here as a man in ancient Greek cloathing (shout out to the names given to Trojan asteroids). Other mission related stuff are the spinning, the asteorid's temperature and colour. Lucy is holding a thermometer to take some tests. (Oil pastels, crayons.)
• Lucy in a boat - another visual I had during early development of the story. In this picture, Lucy is swimming to meet Orus. I imagined that it would make a great picture - swimming in dark waters, illuminated by stars. This is a fantasy element of the book. (Oil pastels, crayons.)
• Lucy running - this picture was heavily inspired by this concept art. (Oil pastels, crayons.)
• Table of contents - the list of chapters also includes adventures which were not illustrated in this book (but they could be if developed fully). The chapters overlook the whole mission and contains a shout out to the song "Lucy in the Sky of Diamonds". (Handwritten text.)
• Inside of the back cover - small Lucy spaceship and the moving element showing Trojans in Jupiter's orbit (inspired by this gif). Readers can move the element to visualize the movement of Jupiter's orbit around the sun. It's a prototype and requires a bit more tweaking but you can see it in the demo and the final project folder (close-ups). (Crayons, oil pastels, white markers.)
• Back cover - picture of 3 people sitting on Earth with a twinkling dot (aka Lucy) in the sky with a text "Good luck, Lucy!", also one of the early visuals I had for a cover.

The future of this project

• With the help of talented storytellers and writers, illustrators and storyboard artists, this could become a real book inspired by the mission. It could be a little bit bigger in size.
• However, since this is an ongoing mission, as it progresses we will have more details regarding Lucy's adventures. That made me think of a more interactive version - a webcomic or an animation.
• Since I like thinking of Lucy as an image of human kind, it'd be amazing to give readers an opportunity to "design their own Lucy". It'd make them part of the story. That would be possible in an interactive version or a pop up version where readers create their character and insert it in the pages as they read it.

My project was inspired by a lot of resources. I started from the challenge page and moved to the resources provided there.

I tried to weave as many details as I could to create a bigger picture and an interesting setting for a story I was telling.

A lot of resources are linked in the detailed description above where I put them in context of the pages I created.

The biggest resource was Lucy MIssion website - all the information regarding the mission and Trojans were there. Huge thanks to the team behind it, it was very informative. Another resource was the Lucy Mission FAQ. I found some cool facts there i.e. how to pronounce the names, how far from Jupiter Lucy will be. For quick checks, I also read the Fact Sheet and the Press Kit. I also watched the videos and read the overview several times.

In terms of understanding the timeline and the targets, I referred to this page and this page. It helped me understand how Lucy will travel, how close to/far from the Earth it will be.

I was inspired by several articles: the one about Lucy's Plaque, the one about Queta, the one about asteroids named after athletes, the one with a concept art. Information from these were featured in my project. The Plaque inspired the 2-page spread, Queta got her attributes from her namesake, my version of the concept art also got a page.

Gifs and graphics were also crucial to my project - this picture of Lucy's path, this gif of Jupiter's orbit were featured (as drawings) in the inside covers.

Probably the most inspiring thing that started the project was the video of Lucy's solar panels. They look like a fan and they have an interesting colour and shape. This video heavily inspired the cover. I also saved a pdf file with Lucy paper model as a reference when creating my little panels on the cover.

I'm happy I had the chance to participate in Space Apps.

It was my first time and I enjoyed the process.

I remember that at first when I read about the hackaton, I was excited but also didn't know what I could create. I decided to do the Artfully Illuminated Asteroids because it gave me the chance to make some art. I hadn't had the opportunity lately to do something creative and this challenge gave me cool ideas to explore.

I combined my interest in space exploration and making art. I also tried some new things like bookbinding.

The biggest lesson I got is that developing your idea is possible even if you have just 2 days. However, you need to be prepared, you need to plan things in advance.

What helped me plan my work and create a strategy was the moment I got the idea for my solution. It didn't happen right away. I looked through the challenges, picked some that were intriguing. I started reading the resources at the beginning of September, made a lot of notes. Then I got the idea - a book. I started turing the notes into a plan. What are the pieces I'll work on, what supplies are needed to create them, which ones I have, which ones I have to get. Since I never worked on black pages to that extent, I tested paint, pastels, markers to see what will work best before the hackaton.

Planning was also helpful to figure out how much I can do in two days, how to modify ideas so the process would be more efficient, how to manage the time. All that was done before the hackaton weekend.

All that planning paid off - I had an intense weekend but the major things were planned, hackaton resources were read beforehand, and I only made some minor changes to the project as I created it. Another thing that paid off - having several options in case your camera dies. :D

I'd like to thank everyone who made this event possible and for inviting everyone regardless of their fields of study/work to participate. I enjoyed making my project and it gave me a lot of interesting topics to talk about with my friends and family.

Huge thanks to the team who prepared the pdf resources for project submission and the video about making the demo. These resources were incredibly helpful.

General information:

Lucy Mission website

Lucy Mission FAQ

Overview

Overview

Lucy Mission Fact Sheet

Lucy Mission Press Kit

Path, targets, timeline:

Lucy's path

Trojans in Jupiter's orbit (gif)

Timeline

Mission Targets

Queta:

Queta - The Story Behind the Name

Modern Heroes Find a Home in the Trojan Asteroids

Spacecraft, payload:

The Lucy Spacecraft and Payload

NASA’s Lucy Mission Extends its Solar Arrays

The Lucy Plaque

Media:

Trojan Colors Revealed (Artist's Concept)

Videos

Lucy Paper Model

Meet the Team

And the rest of the resources provided on the challenge page.

art, traditional art, bookbinding, Lucy Mission, asteroids, Trojan asteroids

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.