Looking to the stars...

For my latest piece of artwork, I finally decided to create something inspired by my favourite SF novel – The City and the Stars by Arthur C Clarke. Not only was this the book which sparked my obsession with reading science fiction, but it also re-ignited my passion for SF art, thanks to Chris Moore’s amazing cover artwork.

I had always been hesitant in doing an illustration based on The City and the Stars, as I feared it might never be as epic or stunning as Moore’s cover to the Gollancz paperback, nor do justice to such an awe-inspiring novel. But then I decided to ignore any artistic inferiority complex, and simply make my version – a piece in my own style that embodied the concept of the book, while looking at another angle of visualising the it. 

Version 1...

The joy of working digitally meant I had a great deal of flexibility. Taking the novel’s protagonist Alvin, and the domed city of Diaspar, the first version I created showed a silhouetted figure staring back towards the city.

Version 2...

From this, I tried a second version, without the figure, instead adding a starship (which if you’ve read the book, you’ll know its relevance). The addition of a planet in the sky was more metaphorical, suggesting the notion of other worlds beyond our own. Overall I didn’t think this worked as well without the human element – it’s key to the book after all!

I looked at the dozens of covers the book has had over the decade – some better than others; some brilliant, some completely irrelevant! So I was pretty confident my interpretation was going along the right lines, but I wanted to create something that would also work as a piece in its own right, outside of the original inspiration. 

The finished piece – "Last City"

All the elements were in place, and it was simply a case of finding the right balance. So here’s the final version, now titled Last City, which was derived from a tagline on one of the early editions, “It was the last city built on Earth”. 

This takes the piece into its own, especially viewed with Richard Hayes’ accompanying text, which you can read on my website…

Beneath the surface

A couple of posts ago, I talked about the value of the opinions or contributions of others towards your work. Case in point, Richard Hayes – a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and the British Interplanetary Society – has kindly contributed some specially written text to accompany the science fiction artwork on my website.

Not content with my own descriptions of the background to the pieces, I wanted something more evocative and interesting to accompany the artwork – something to perhaps raise questions. Richard’s text does this and more. His narrative sheds new light on some pieces, hits the nail on the head on others, and poses new doubts or questions as to many of the subject matters. This reminds us that on the surface, not everything is always as it seems...

Here is Richard’s text for my latest piece of artwork, First Light:

“A red giant star dominates a planet’s sky, and a city spreads out before us in its unearthly light. We ask ourselves whether the city is in its dying days as a result of an expanding sun - perhaps the remnants of a civilization are surviving in its domed structures. Obviously whoever lives there needs the domes as well as the buildings - presumably the atmosphere is toxic, or has perhaps recently become toxic. Are we witnessing the last stages of a once-great society?

Or could this be the civilization’s normal existence and its inhabitants have learned to survive in what simply looks to us like a hostile environment? It may be thriving within the structures that we see. After all, it’s not a dead city – there are two clear signs of life: a rocket and a land car. It might merely be an image of the time of day when little is going on, and the city is awakening. Or could these be the last inhabitants trying desperately to make their escape from a doomed existence?”

If you enjoyed this, then come and take a look at the rest of the SF gallery pages…

Last Patrol

I thought I'd go into a little more detail into the making of my most recent painting, Last Patrol. I began with a digital sketch, under the working title "Grounded", continuing the theme of space exploration and the fear of being stranded on alien worlds.

This was the first sketch, which I did using the Intuos tablet (my initial sketches are usually pencil on paper):

Happy with the general composition, I opened a new canvas with the sketch as a layer which I could work over and continually refer to. I started off by blocking in the snowy background.

The next step was to create the half-submerged crashed spaceship. I wanted to give the impression that the viewer could only see a portion of what was clearly a bigger ship, so it's mainly the booster section that is on show, but with a conveniently located escape hatch!

Following this, I worked on some of the atmosphere; snow and cloud, and began to paint in the main astronaut's figure.

The final stage was the addition of the silhouetted opening which frames the image – this could be a nearby cave. I wanted to create a tension and feeling of apprehension as the figure gazes into the unknown.

Finally, details like astronaut's reflective visor, the planet's outer rings and various shadows and ice are added, and here is the end result!