Becky Chambers’ new book, and the last of her Hugo Award Winning Wayfarer’s series – The Galaxy and the Ground Within, by HarperCollinsUS. This is the cover art I created for her final book in the series:
The Galaxy And The Ground Within by Becky Chambers
This piece was entirely digital and spans the front and back of the book. I was asked to show a series of spaceships in orbit above a small airless world, the main location of the book. The ships were to look as though they were each from a different species, similar to how Star Trek handles the look of their ships.
Layout and text was handled by Richard Aquan of HarperCollinsUS. My thanks go out to Richard, HarperCollinsUS, and Becky Chambers for the privilege of making the covers for these great books.
For those of you who enjoyed Becky Chambers’ science fiction novels, I have made prints of the cover art that I made for her and Harper Collins US. They are available in my store, and will be on hand at my upcoming local events.
And my congratulations to Becky Chambers for winning the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Series. I am thrilled to have met her and I wish her the best.
Cover Art Prints for Becky Chambers’ Novels
If you haven’t read her books yet, I highly recommend them – especially if you enjoy science fiction books. She’s done a great job and I am honored to have participated in a small way.
Over on my Youtube Channel I have posted a time-lapse video of me painting Recurring Dreams #32. I’m working on a longer, narrated version that will be available on my soon-to-be-active PATREON page. I will be posting more about my Patreon page soon, but in the meantime here is the timelapse painting:
About the painting
Folksbier Braueri from Brooklyn, NY commissioned this piece for their Recurring Dreams #32 IPA. They wanted a retro science fiction inspiration, in the style of artist Paul Lehr. I was thrilled to paint this scene for them.
They identified a color scheme, a gradient from mauve to deep blue tones with a few stops in between, and several of their favorite Paul Lehr images to get a feel for the style they were looking for. I made a small color sketch and proceeded to paint their scene.
Small color sketch
I used Richeson Casein Paint, which is a water-based paint used by illustrators and artists for many years. It’s fast, like acrylic, and can be painted opaque like guache or thinned for washes like watercolor. It’s very versatile and the colors are bright. Casein was used by many of my favorite artists, and James Gurney (Dinotopia) has some wonderful videos on how to use casein.
Richeson Casein Paint – Titanium White, Permasol Blue, Rose Red, Naples Yellow, Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue
Recurring Dreams #32 is out, as of this writing. So if you’re near Brooklyn, NY drop on by and try out Folksbier Braueri.
This piece was made digitally. The spaceship, an Exodan Homesteader, was entirely hand-drawn in Photoshop with my Wacom Intuos tablet. These are old colony ships, and have spent hundreds of years in space and have gone through generations of renovations and improvements.
When I was first given the assignment, I had no description of the spacecraft but my art director definitely wanted a spacecraft in a nebula. My first sketches had a totally different spaceship but I was happy with the color scheme. After the first drafts were complete, I received a book excerpt with descriptions of these vast spacecraft, and her own sketches. Becky had even cobbled together a paper model of the ship as she envisioned it.
With all the new information at hand, I went back and re-drew the Exodan Homesteader in similar colors to work with the background.
I highly recommend Becky Chambers’ books. She’s doing fantastic work and I am thrilled to have been a small part of her commercial publications.
I have previously written about my work on the covers for Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. It has had several iterations before the final US release by HarperCollins.
Winding into Fall of 2015, I have been taking my design sketches into more finished pieces. As fun as it’s been creating my #spaceshipaday entries, it’s clear that I also need to demonstrate more finished work like the ones I’m showing here. I set out with several goals for these drawings:
Draw something that would make me want to read this book (clearly from a science fiction aspect)
Tighten up details from my original sketches, while embracing my somewhat chaotic style
Practice more subtle use of color tones (often my color work stays a bit too saturated).
The first two pieces started out as #spaceshipaday line and marker drawings that garnered a lot of compliments and attention through Twitter, Instagram, and on Facebook. My thanks to you all who’ve been following along. I appreciate the comments and compliments I’ve received so far.
Original Sketch for the John Berkey styled ship
Color pass and extra detail using Photoshop and a Wacom Intuos Stylus
Clearly influenced by my love of John Berkey’s artwork, I wanted to draw something that had the same amount of crazy and wonderful details as his work. Since I’ve time-boxed my initial sketches (45 minutes or less), it’s actually tricky to get in a lot of detail especially if you’re trying to make it fit in some fashion with the rest of the ship. Overall I was happy with the concept, although some pointed out that it’s starting to look like the spaceship from the Coneheads movie, or maybe even Colonial One from Battlestar Galactica (the new show). Influences aside, my focus was more on the process.
The sketch was photographed and taken into Photoshop where I gave it a quick color pass (above). As of this writing, it is still unfinished, I’ll post the final in my Gallery.
Heavy Transport in a deep atmosphere. Rendered with Procreate on an iPad
This next image was also quite popular as a sketch, this time I stepped more into Chris Foss territory. I tried to leave the atmosphere fairly bland compared to the ship itself, although looking at it now I think it could be even more diffused. I realize I’ve left in many of the lines from my original sketch. To me this is still one stage away from being a final cover art piece and my focus has been on trying to achieve an emotional impact with the design and rendering.
Speed Chase – no sketch, entirely drawn with Procreate on an iPad
Finally there’s this fun piece that was created entirely in Procreate on my iPad. There was no sketch. Sometimes everything comes together all at once and it all becomes a joy to witness. This is one of those moments where I just let my hand run free with only my artistic lizard brain at the controls. I don’t know of any other way to describe it but everything from the color, composition, and the frenzied style seemed to fit together nicely without a lot of effort. I would be inclined to read this book if I saw it in the store.
I’m happy to announce my first book, Coloring Space 1. This is a coloring book for adults and children, featuring 24 of my own spaceship designs and scenes. Each one is drawn and formatted for an 8″ x 10″ trade paperback. The paper is a bit heavier than standard trade publications, and each image is presented on its own page so bleed-through will be less of an issue for those using markers or watercolors.
Front cover to Coloring Space 1
Back Cover to Coloring Space 1
Inside I have placed the artwork on the right-facing pages, leaving most of the left-facing pages blank so that any bleed from markers or watercolors will not destroy the next page behind it. A couple of the first pages include helpful text as seen in the sample below.
Sample page from Coloring Space 1
Ordering
Autographed copies of the first printing of Coloring Space – 1 are available in� my store right now! They are expected to arrive the first week of October, orders will be sent out immediately afterwards.
Coloring Space 1 is also available at Blurb.com using the link below, and will soon be available through a number of online retailers. I will have Coloring Space 1 distributed to a number of retail stores as well.
If you live in the area, I will have a number of signed copies available at several appearances in October, so keep an eye out here and on my Facebook and Twitter pages for details.
Work is underway on two more books in the Coloring Space series -� Coloring Space 2: Stars, Planets, and Galaxies, and Coloring Space 3: Alien Worlds. Details will be posted shortly.
Author Becky Chambers is preparing to release her first Science Fiction novel, The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet. Becky contacted me Spring of 2014, looking for cover art for her book and the finished cover is finally revealed.
Keep an eye out for the April 2014 issue of MUSE Magazine, which features articles about Space Elevators. My Space Elevator piece is to be featured on the front cover!
A Space Elevator is literally an enormous elevator from the ground on Earth to a fixed location in space. People and hardware are delivered to space with a train-like elevator car, eliminating the need for expensive and dangerous rockets. The idea goes back to famed Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, and more recently Robert L. Forward who worked on building some of the first real investigations on such a technology before his death in 2002.
We are decades away from building such a device, but the idea is being pursued in spite of the fact that no material known to science is strong enough to be used as a 600 mile cable from the ground to space. Yet.
It’s possible that a space elevator will be built on our moon, which would be a far simpler engineering task. Time will tell, in the meantime I hope you enjoy my Space Elevator piece and be sure to check out MUSE magazine when it hits the shelves.
In conjunction with my good friend Andrew McDonald, a talented photographer and all-around creative individual, I’ve put together a few samples of cover art for books. These could be used for printed or electronic books, and can be formatted to fit a variety of sizes. Enjoy, and check out more of Andrew’s photography on his site!
Cover Art with Photos by Andrew McDonald
Cover Art – Christopher Doll
And here are a few using my own Space & Science Fiction art:
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