The Lamplighter

There are books you read. And there are books that read you.

The Little Prince belongs to the second category. I've lost count of how many times I've read it. It always comes back. As if each reading revealed something the previous one hadn't quite reached.

This project was born from that.

At first, the idea was ambitious — to recreate all the planets the Little Prince visited, one by one. Every character, every world. But every project starts with a first step, and the Lamplighter imposed itself naturally. This character has always spoken to me.

He stands alone on his asteroid. His task is absurd — lighting and extinguishing a streetlamp, over and over, relentlessly, even when no one is watching. Even when everything is deserted around him. He doesn't question it. He lights.

There is something deeply human in that.

To modernize the character, I chose an astronaut. Orange suit, helmet, contemporary gear. Not to betray Saint-Exupéry — but to bring this story into our time. To say that this man still exists today. That he may be among us.

Behind him, Jupiter. Immense, indifferent, magnificent.

Technically, the project was built entirely in Unreal Engine. The astronaut character comes from an asset purchased online. I modeled the match-stick and the lamppost myself. Post-production in Photoshop. Four to six hours of work, somewhere between total focus and a state of flow.

There is a line from The Little Prince that I've carried for a long time:

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

This project is time wasted for a rose. No one asked for it. It appears in no contract. It generates no revenue.

But it matters. Precisely because it serves no purpose other than to exist.

And this Journal, in a way, is the same thing. A way of taking the time. Of not letting what I make disappear silently onto a hard drive somewhere.

The Lamplighter lights. Even when everything is deserted around him.

— Philip Rivard