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IAPLC winner hardscape

Kezzab

Kezzab

Member
Joined
18 Jan 2016
Messages
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Location
Carlisle
I saw this on Facebook and i thought it was quite striking that this hardscape was actually quite simple.

Well chosen wood, placed cleverly, and a bit of fiddly stuff to add the vertical bits to the wood. But, at first glance, not that complicated.

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My issue with this is that it doesnt appear like a slice of an underwater scene anymore, but more an avatar like fantasy world, very artificial. Not saying its not pretty or extremely well made, its just not my cup of tea and would bore me very fast. The big log frustrates me because you know the tank is deeper, but you cant see half of it because that huge log is blocking your view. But still interesting to see how it was set up without the plants :)
 
It is deceptively simple and I suppose it has many of the ingredients needed for a winning show tank. The first thing that jumps out at me is that the scaper has used the entire tank. And that there is a good contrast between light and shadow. It also has a decent sense of depth, I count 3 maybe 4 layers from front to back. But it's not my cup of tea at all.
Kezzab said:
But it's interesting that it doesn't appear to be some huge glued up model making kit thing
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That's my contention too. Diorama often has far more to do with model making than perhaps it should, but that's what wins competitions
 
Artistic licence .Probably appeals to some and not to others but l think we all agree say every member of UKAPS had to vote for their favourite a lot of the judges selections might not be prominent in the poll. That's the beauty of aquascaping . Not a easy task for the judges and it's known that quite a few winners were never Amanos personal choice but of course he respected the decision.
 
I don't think it's much different from gardening. If you look at some of the gardens that win gold at Chelsea flower show, it's more to do with meeting the brief and ticking the boxes.

It's a clever scape and well done, not my ideal thing either but sometimes making something look simple is the hardest thing to achieve.
 
Not my style either, but I do like this scape more than what's typical of this style as stated above with thousands of individual pieces glued in.

It's this style I really am not a fan of.

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Nick potts said:
Not my style either, but I do like this scape more than what's typical of this style as stated above with thousands of individual pieces glued in.

It's this style I really am not a fan of.

54e9f246a6dd86.03365420.jpg
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Glad it isn't just me then. These scapes are beautiful and a lot of work, but just don't get it myself. There seems to be a trend towards creating scenes from above ground and then flooding it and adding fish. I've seen similar scapes with model train tracks in, just seems a bit strange. I appreciate that a collection of rocks, roots and plants arranged to please the eye is far from a natural habitat, but just seems more natural that way.
 
noodlesuk said:
Glad it isn't just me then. These scapes are beautiful and a lot of work, but just don't get it myself. There seems to be a trend towards creating scenes from above ground and then flooding it and adding fish. I've seen similar scapes with model train tracks in, just seems a bit strange. I appreciate that a collection of rocks, roots and plants arranged to please the eye is far from a natural habitat, but just seems more natural that way.
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Definitely not just you.

I appreciate that whatever we do will never be natural, and one of my favourite styles is Iwagumi. The ultimate for me is the flooded forest/jungle style, I know it is not really a true representation of nature, but it is what I picture in my head if I think of the scene.
 
Nick potts said:
Not my style either, but I do like this scape more than what's typical of this style as stated above with thousands of individual pieces glued in.

It's this style I really am not a fan of.

54e9f246a6dd86.03365420.jpg
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Aquascapes like this have not appeared in high ranking positions in the IAPLC in the last 5-10 years to the best of my knowledge, perhaps never. Ironically aquascapes like this, that attempt to mirror a natural scene tend to lack a sense of nature. The higher ranking IAPLC results, have 'artificial' compositions, which I find to be pleasant and impressive, but don't suffer from lacking a sense of nature. In my opinion, the real beauty of the Nature Aquarium style comes from the interaction of the fish in their environment and a strong sense of chaos and nature, with simple but charming composition.
 
The sense of nature is decent, fish choice underwhelming, depth is good but not exceptional, planting and detail work is interesting and well executed, but what the layout excels in is its composition. Despite the backbone being two large pieces the small vertical pieces make the layout. The way the vertical pieces act in the 'endpoint' (the light background) is beautiful and I think that it shows a good deal of skill, originality and creativity to execute the idea.
 
glasscanvasart said:
Aquascapes like this have not appeared in high ranking positions in the IAPLC in the last 5-10 years to the best of my knowledge, perhaps never. Ironically aquascapes like this, that attempt to mirror a natural scene tend to lack a sense of nature. The higher ranking IAPLC results, have 'artificial' compositions, which I find to be pleasant and impressive, but don't suffer from lacking a sense of nature. In my opinion, the real beauty of the Nature Aquarium style comes from the interaction of the fish in their environment and a strong sense of chaos and nature, with simple but charming composition.
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I didn't mean just in comps, it's just a style I don't like that much.

There have a been a few grand prize winning works that I would class as the same style, 2014 and 2012 notably.

The current IAPLC (2019) has imo a good top 100, with nothing to outlandish except maybe number 4
 
glasscanvasart said:
The sense of nature is decent, fish choice underwhelming, depth is good but not exceptional, planting and detail work is interesting and well executed, but what the layout excels in is its composition. Despite the backbone being two large pieces the small vertical pieces make the layout. The way the vertical pieces act in the 'endpoint' (the light background) is beautiful and I think that it shows a good deal of skill, originality and creativity to execute the idea.
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Agreed. It's the execution of something simple but that required some inspiration to see the possibility.

I wonder if the was all planned in Photoshop etc or if he just saw some lumps.of wood in a bucket and though a ha!
 
Nick potts said:
Not my style either, but I do like this scape more than what's typical of this style as stated above with thousands of individual pieces glued in.

It's this style I really am not a fan of.

54e9f246a6dd86.03365420.jpg
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mort said:
When I see scenes like that I always think there should be a little model train going through it.
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Knew I'd seen that scape somewhere before...

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The hardscape looked pretty amazing and i would really love to do similar type of scapes.. I think shadows is been kept as a key component in many of the IAPLC 2020 work. Also when Josh sim introduced shadow and reflections, it changed the whole aquascaping idea.. Many iaplc entries i see the inspiration majorly from josh work..
 
NiteshAquascaper said:
The hardscape looked pretty amazing and i would really love to do similar type of scapes.. I think shadows is been kept as a key component in many of the IAPLC 2020 work. Also when Josh sim introduced shadow and reflections, it changed the whole aquascaping idea.. Many iaplc entries i see the inspiration majorly from josh work..
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Josh learnt from Takayuki Fukada the importance of shadows and many other Aquascaping effects. Until a couple of years ago Josh was learning from Fukada, as was Steven Chong who overtook Fukada this year as well. However it was from Josh (from his Green Aqua Masterclass) that I learnt the importance of shadows as did many other people and for his sharing of advice he deserves a lot of credit.
 
glasscanvasart said:
Josh learnt from Takayuki Fukada the importance of shadows and many other Aquascaping effects. Until a couple of years ago Josh was learning from Fukada, as was Steven Chong who overtook Fukada this year as well. However it was from Josh (from his Green Aqua Masterclass) that I learnt the importance of shadows as did many other people and for his sharing of advice he deserves a lot of credit.
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Yes i miss that point... Fukada san is the master of shadows.
 
Kezzab said:
I wonder if the was all planned in Photoshop etc or if he just saw some lumps.of wood in a bucket and though a ha!
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The reason why usually these high level diorama style tanks have hardscapes constructed out of many pieces glued together is because the scaper has a concept or drawing he/she wants to follow. It becomes much harder to execute if you have to look for the perfect piece of wood or rock.

I'm curious as well if this scaper found the perfect piece or created the scape inspired by it.

Personally I don't mind if hardscape is constructed out of many small pieces as long as the result is coherent.
As an example I find this years number 2 to be well executed as opposed to number 4 (from the photoshop aquarist).
 
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