Galaxy Prime Art 7: Battleship

Available at Amazon.com

It just dawned on me the other night, that I've been sharing the art of Galaxy Prime with you for almost two months now, and I've never bothered to show you the cover of the book that all my work appears in. Now, first of all,

I DID NOT CREATE THIS COVER ART!
This was painted by the very talented AMY FANNING.

I did, however, do a lot of work on this. It was painted on a large canvas board and I had to scan it with a standard flatbed scanner. I believe there were at least 8-10 scans to get it all. I then had to stitch them together and do some color correction. It was quite a bit of investment in time and technique to get it all to look right.

I did design the logo, though (two of them, actually -- this is the second... the first was more Star Wars inspired and creator James Shade wanted something a little more modern). I also chose to use the purple band at the bottom. This was a necessity because the vivid colors at the bottom made it too difficult to read James' name. This purple bar solved the problem by making it easy to read, and it helped provide a nice anchor to the page.

If you're interested in getting a copy of Galaxy Prime for your own, you can buy one at Amazon.com (among other places).


Don't Sink My Battleship
This week's image was a simple one, but one of the first where I used the rough lines to give it the retro feel that I was developing for this project.

GP pg. 103, "Long-range starships are used by explorers, merchants,
and anyone who wants to travel the stars in style and safety."

Although this one came out okay, I do think it looks better in the book because it was in the equipment section on starships, so the static shot (rather than an "action shot" of it in space) fit in well with the section's design.

Also, for those of you who are interested, here's another look at the original color render from Strata Design 3D.

Original color render.

In this one, you can see the highlights and shading that formed the basis of the image above. It is worth mentioning (again, for those of you who are interested in this sort of thing), that this is an exaggerated color render. By this, I mean I specifically used odd colors so that the various parts would stand out from each other. If everything were just a simple shade of white or chrome, it would be very difficult to recolor it into the b&w image that made it into the book.

Galaxy Prime Art 6: Routine Maintenance

I think this one was also an earlier illustration. I recall that I originally intended to put this into space, but I had some better ships, so I used them, instead.

GP, pg. 108, "Routine maintenance isn't just a good idea...
it's a matter of life and death!"

And now for a revelation that is hysterical... at least to me. As you can see, I did this four years ago. It's been in print in the Galaxy Prime Role Playing Game book since early 2011. This is the first time I ever noticed that the front landing gear is not connected to anything! Yup. I deleted a line on the ship, or something like that. Anyway, it's just floating there. Unbelievable!

Honestly, someone should contact the editor of the book and give him a piece of their mind... oh, wait. I WAS THE EDITOR. Ummmm... never mind.

Behind the Scenes
I don't know if any of you are really interested in the process behind how I create this artwork, but as I've said, I basically use two programs, one of which is Strata Design 3D. As with all 3D applications, you place a model into the program and then you can move it in three dimensions, putting it as close or far away from the "camera" as you want. You can also move the camera around (up, down, turn left or right), and in this program, you can even define what type of lens and shutter speed you want to use. In other words, it tries to duplicate the real world as closely as possible.

While working in the program, everything is very rough. You see shapes, basic colors, and even some detail. But it's still a far cry from the final image that is "rendered." The images I render (that is, process into the final image with reflections, shadows, etc.) are actually in color. Another thing about rendering -- you can render at different levels of complexity. The image above was based on a level of complexity that included detailed shadows on the fuselage of the ship and you can see the details on the fuel depots in the background (yeah... that's what those are supposed to be). One of the other base renders I created included simplified shadows -- sort of a "toon" render, if you will. This helps provide basic color blocking and outlines... at lease usually. As you can see, the outline on the landing gear flap didn't come in and I missed adding it by hand (and yes, there's a lot of touch-ups that are required in this process).

A simplified color render that was used as part of my process that
ended with the image above. In other words, this is a "Before" picture.

Now, you may ask why I bother with color, only take it out in the end? That's easy -- 3D apps are set up to work with real-world colors, so taking it out there wouldn't be easy. And as for my Photoshop trickery that converts it into black & white line art? That's easy. I take out the color because the book was printed in black & white!

PS: Looking at the color image above, I can see how, in my haste, I removed the metal flap that covered the landing gear.

Galaxy Prime Art 5: Sector Marshals

This was my first multi-ship image in the series I created for the Galaxy Prime RPG. Yeah, it's the same ship repeated over and over, but I actually did put four of them in this scene so I could get the angles right and convey a sense of perspective.

GP pg. 183, "Depending on which side of the law you live on, the sight of the
Sector Marshals is either a welcome sight, or if you're a pirate, it's time to pray
that your Q*Drive is faster than theirs.

I remember this one being a pain in the you-know-what because I was kept having to tweak the "exhaust" to get it just right. Plus, the cratered surface of the moon took a lot of work. I also recall that the surface texture of the ship's was problematic. It looked better in color than in b&w, so it took a little doing to get them to work in print. because of the problems I had with the surfaces, I didn't try for a strong retro look with this illustration. I let the lines stay smoother than usual and also let the highlights stay softer.

All in all, though, I liked the way it all turned out in the end.

Galaxy Prime Art 4: The Getaway

This week's image from the Galaxy Prime RPG was, if I recall correctly, one of the early images in the series. As such, it's a bit smoother and cleaner than the later images. The more I created, the more I realized that I wanted them to feel "old school," as though they had been copied out of an old pulp magazine, like Amazing Stories or The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (the latter a favorite of mine, growing up).

GP, pg. 82, "When setting explosives on a timer, always make sure
you leave enough time for your getaway.

Like last week's image, this one is at the bottom of the page and the ship looks like it's about to fly off the bottom of the page.

By the way, if you're interested in this level of detail, this is a 3D model I purchased a few years ago, and you can see more about it here at the Daz3d Web site: http://www.daz3d.com/stinger.  The original model was created by an artist named Kibarreto, who did an excellent job with this vehicle. Check it out at their site, and you can even see the cool details inside the cabin and on the undercarriage.

Galaxy Prime Art 3: Space Battle

This is probably my second-favorite piece that I did for the Galaxy Prime Role Playing Game.

GP, pg. 120: "When facing a Runarian Dreadnaught, the best
strategy for an Izars Heavy Fighter is to run!"

Because of time considerations, this is the only real action shot in the book The other images are cool, but a bit static. Honestly, I just didn't have the time or skill at that time to create cool space battles. It took a few images to develop the skills and speed I needed to make something like this.

By the way, this picture is particularly effective in the book because it's at the bottom of the page, so it looks like both ship and laser blast are about to speed off the page to escape capture.

For those of you interested in this type of detail, if you look closely at the Dreadnaught, you'll see that there is a slight curve to the ship. I achieved this by bringing the camera in close and using a very short focal length; as in the real world, this contributed a little fisheye effect to the picture, which I think helped enhance the sense of movement and menace. This also accounts for the distortion of the outer nacelle to appear a lot bigger than the other one.

Galaxy Prime Art 2: Icarus

As promised last week, here's another sample of art from the Galaxy Prime Role Playing Game by Epic Age Media. Like the work in this series, this is actually created and rendered in a 3D program called Strata Design 3D. I've been using this program for a very long time (it's currently on version 7.5 and I started waaaay back in version 3 -- probably around 1999-2000).

From GP, pg 125: "The L'Kri are known for their fast ships that
utilize powerful Q*Drives to traverse the vast distances between systems."

This particular ship design is called the Icarus, named after the doomed young man who flew too close to the sun in Greek mythology. The L'kri, by the way, are on of my favorite races from this cool game. I've got to hand it to game creator James Shade... he really came up with some super cool aliens for this game.

Galaxy Prime Art - Blast from the Past...

I was looking through my archives the other day and found some cool images that I hadn't posted here. These were created for the Role Playing Game, GALAXY PRIME, that is published by Epic Age Media.
These are all 3D images that were originally created in a very cool program called Strata 3D. I then used a lot of Photoshop wizardry to give them a cool, retro look.

From Galaxy Prime, pg 113: "Short-range interceptors and light fighters
usually have room for two crew members: A pilot and a gunner."

I've made several illustrations for the book. I'll post them here, one a week, every Friday until they run out. Hope you enjoy them!

PS: Scroll down -- there's more GP art below.