<sub>"The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel
And the sewers are all muddied with a thousand lonely suicides
And a dark wind blows

The government is corrupt
And we're on so many drugs
With the radio on and the curtains drawn

We're trapped in the belly of this horrible machine
And the machine is bleeding to death

The sun has fallen down
And the billboards are all leering
And the flags are all dead at the top of their poles

It went like this

The buildings tumbled in on themselves
Mothers clutching babies picked through the rubble and pulled out their hair

The skyline was beautiful on fire
All twisted metal stretching upwards
Everything washed in a thin orange haze

I said, "Kiss me, you're beautiful..
These are truly the last days"

You grabbed my hand and we fell into it
Like a daydream or a fever"</sub>

- Godspeed You! Black Emperor - The Dead Flag Blues



A submission for =markopolio-stock's monthly contest under the don't panic category.

Inspired by the GY!BE song, "The Dead Flag Blues". I wanted to recreate the imagery the voice sample at the beginning of the track created, but more so the feeling it had to it.

Roughly 20 hours in Photoshop, a fair few more considering the hunt for stock. And although it's not perfect, I'm quite proud of this. It's been such a pleasure making it and I'm happy with the result. By the end I was upwards of something like 60+ layers, I stopped counting after a certain point

On revision; General tweaking, blending ect and I added a shadow to the car. I decided to enter `Davenit's conceptual contest with this as well, just for the hell of it. I don't expect to contend, but it never hurts. Info can be found at [link] for those interested

<sub>~Rolling Credits~

A special thanks to =bluem00n for just being awesome, putting up with my nonsense and helping me out along the way.

Stock and references

Foreground
Manitoba Colors [link] - by *midnightstouchSTOCK

Sky Compilation
Sky 30 [link] - by *Peace-of-Art
Sky 9 [link] - by =Tracie76Stock

Shadows
Pulse [link] - by ~fuckface

Car Fire
Old Car 2 [link] - by ~pointless-stock
Fire [link] - by ~Mihaell
Fire [link] - by ~muisie
Fire 6 [link] - by =Stelthman

City Skyline Reference
And the sun will rise [link] - by *Ninde

"Twisted metal stretching upwards" stock and references
.surreal. [link] - by =NonBeliever
Twisted roots [link] - by ~mikscene
Twisted tree [link] - by ~slobo777-stock

and a bunch of miscellaneous stuff from yotophoto.com and sxc.hu</sub>