It was difficult to find the proper placement of the 3 objects (lander, flag, planet), even moreso the lighting. The flag was on the right, with Earth and lander to the left, respectively. Earth also went through several size and distance modifications, as the intent was to provide a sense of scale and 'spaciness', and very well could have ended up being incredibly large and extremely close. My final placement of the scene came about through several steps and was seemingly the most logical.
Because of the proximity of Earth, I wanted it to have a very visible shadow effect as to give off the 'spaciness'. The various lighting angles unfortunately always made my lander look poor. I was forced to place Earth way into the background and have light shining from the front to properly light my lander, the main focus of the project.
Originally, the dodecahedron was meant to be the entire body and base of the lander, with thrusters on the bottom.
This was changed very early into production after I saw it would not give enough space for elements such as the door and legs.
I did not want a simple square plane to set my lander on, so I took a cylinder and squashed it down to give the ground a curved, hilly feel. Several large and irregular toruses served to round out the background.
It was going to be a lunar lander scene, though a grey planet would not have been too thrilling. A series of fluctuating redness seemed to be more visually engaging. I also placed my camera a fair distance away from my objects, then lowered the FOV to zoom in, making a tighter shot and ensuring a viewer sees exactly what I want to show them.
