Artsnova Digital Art and Space

It’s been three months since I originally wrote about the National Space Society’s Space Settlement Art Contest. The art submission period closed a couple days ago and the process of judging the entries has already begun. Seventy submissions made it through the screening process. There was actually a rather large number of submissions that were rejected. The most common reason for rejection was that the artwork failed to meet the contest’s subject and realism requirements. Perhaps most surprising was that the submitted images were spread so equally across the four contest categories: Asteroid Settlements, Mars Settlements, Moon Settlements, and Orbital Settlements. We were sure that we would be overwhelmed with pictures featuring Moon and Mars settlements. Also suprisng was that the Asteroid and Orbital categories appear to be the overall strongest.

Of the accepted entries, about 90 percent were created using software and 10 percent created using traditional art media. For software, I was not surprised to see that Bryce was the most commonly used 3D graphics package. I was especially pleased to see so many Lightwave submissions as that is the 3D software I am currently in the process of learning. There were also a few submissions using Pandromeda’s Mojoworld software, an exceptional 3D package specialized for the creation of planets. I myself am a user of Mojoworld and Pandromeda was the first sponsor of our contest - thanks to the courtesy of Ken Musgrave.

The work of space artists has always been an important component of space exploration. The artist’s ability to envision a spacefaring future and to then protray that vision in such a way that others can see the possibilites of the future is crucial to helping people understand what a spacefaring civilization is all about. Recognizing the importance of imagery, NSS activists decided that a space settlement art contest would be a great way to achieve several objectives:

• getting artists interested in portraying space settlements,
• establishing an online art gallery to help people understand space settlements,
• producing a space settlement calendar to more widely spread the idea of a spacefaring future.

In looking over the entries in the gallery, I am quite struck by the imagination exhibited by the artists relative to portraying our future in space. For example, in the Moon Settlement category, there is The Soaring Arena by Bill Wright which features Lunarians donning wings for human-powered flight around the lunar dome. In the Orbital Settlement category, we have Inside Orbital City by Murphy Elliott with a colorful biker on what is an apparently juiced-up jet-bike, not to mention Richard Bizley’s romantic Islands of the Gods shown at the top of this article. Perhaps the most emotional of the submissions is to be found in the Mars Settlements category. The piece Mars from a Young Perspective by Javier Arizabalo is simply a picture of a young boy out on the surface of Mars with a calm thoughtful look on his face as a spaceship takes flight in the background. I wonder what he’s thinking.

Once the judging is over and assembly of the calendar is complete, it is my plan to prepare a presentation summarizing the NSS Space Settlement Art Contest and reviewing the associated 2008 Space Settlement Calendar. Likely venues for this presentation are the International Space Development Conference in Dallas and the Duckon Science Fiction Convention in Chicago where, I am proud to say, I am this year’s Science Guest of Honor.

While we do not yet have space settlements, you’ve got to go and check out the NSS Space Settlement Art Contest Gallery to see what a number of artists think that future may look like.

Ad Astra, Jim

Who is that girl? Why it’s Elaine Walker of ZIA wearing her Martians video spacesuit. If only NASA had spacesuits that stylish.

Space art is more than just inspiring pictures of planets, spaceships, and astronauts exploring a new frontier. Space art is also music and music videos. The group ZIA has just released a video with a message. Titled Martians, the song and video promote the exploration of space, specifically Mars. Quoting the band’s founder Elaine Walker, ‘This video has a simple message, “Look! We could actually live here!”‘ I, for one, think that Elton John got it wrong when he sang that “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids.”

The Martians video was filmed on the location of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project on Devon Island in the Canadian arctic. Devon Island is considered to be one of the most Mars like locations on Earth. The island is also home to the Haughton impact crater, a feature of considerable interest to the project’s geologists. You can find out more about Devon Island at
http://www.marsonearth.org/about/devon.html

You can watch ZIAs Martians music video at either YouTube or ZIA’s Myspace space

Ad Astra, Jim

Rorschach Moon By Jim Plaxco, 18″ x 27″

Rorschach Moon is a picture that I recently submitted to the IAAA (International Association of Astronomical Artists) Critiques Page under the title Discordant Moon. The purpose of the Critiques Page is to make it possible for an artist to get feedback from fellow artists about a particular piece of art.

I typically submit pictures that I have completed but which leave me wondering if I’ve got it right. This is both the blessing and the curse of working in the digital medium. Because it is so easy to go back and make changes, you get in the habit of going back and making changes in what could become a never ending cycle of “tweaking” your picture.

The idea for the title Rorschach Moon came to me as a result of a comment made by Walter Myers about the Moon reminding him of a rorschach inkblot. This is sort of the effect I was going for and immediately felt that a name change was in order. The idea for doing a mirrored moon came to me as a consequence of having read the book “Adobe Photoshop Master Class” by John Paul Caponigro. One of the techniques that he likes to employee with his photography is to produce mirrored images or objects. For my moon, while I did want it mirrored, I did not want to have it perfectly mirrored about a central vertical axis. Such an effect would be too obvious. Instead I created an unbalanced axis lacking perfect symmetry thus making the effect slightly more subtle.

Having said all that, the real purpose behind my writing about this picture is because of one of the comments that I received about the picture. Fellow artist Garry Harwood felt that this picture was a “stylistic departure” for me. This left me scratching my head. What did he mean? In response to my question, Garry pointed out how this piece differed from my previous submissions, primarily with respect to contrast (narrow vs wide dynamic range) and colors (pastels vs strong primaries). Reflecting on this I realized that he was absolutely right - I had just never been conscious of it. In fact before submitting this image, I had considered going back and pumping up the colors and dynamic range.

Bottom Line: Sometimes the best way to learn about your art is to listen to what others have to say about it.

Ad Astra, Jim

Okay, here it is, simple, sweet, and requires no Freudian analysis. My guide to distinguishing between astronomical art, space art, and science fiction art.

Astronomical Art
If the picture looks like it could be in an astronomy textbook or could have been taken by a robotic mission to a planet or looks like something you would see through a telescope and the picture contains only natural forms, then it’s astronomical art. If it doesn’t then it ain’t.

Space Art
If it qualifies as astronomical art and has humans in space suits or man-made rocket ships or man-made structures and nothing more, then it’s space art. This is the type of art used to illustrate non-fiction books about the future of human space exploration.

Science Fiction Art
If it contains BEMs (bug-eyed monsters), battles, bimbos, or battlin ‘Bots, then it’s definitely SF art. Note that space art can be used to illustrate the cover of a science fiction novel but you will not see a picture of a lecherous robot blasting through space in hot pursuit of a scantily suited astronautess being used to illustrate the cover of NASA’s latest report to Congress.

How’s that for simplicity - and clarity. That concludes this lesson

Ad Astra, Jim

The International Association of Astronomical Artists has awarded space Artist Michael Carroll with its 2006 Lucien Rudaux Memorial Award. I have only met Michael one time and that was at the International Space Development Conference in Denver CO several years ago. It was in a discussion of space art with Michael that he suggested I investigate joining the International Association of Astronomical Artists. I did join the IAAA shortly thereafter and have consistently renewed my membership every year since.

I believe that my first exposure to Mike’s work was through his paintings of the exploration of Mars, a subject that I have lectured on for over 15 years. You can check out Michael’s web site is http://www.spacedinoart.com/. In addition to a small gallery of his artwork, there is a very interesting article titled The Meeting of Science and Faith.

You can learn more about the Lucien Rudaux Memorial Award and pick up some background information on Michael, as well as past winners, at the IAAA Lucien Rudaux Memorial Gallery.

The National Space Society is sponsoring an art contest in which artists are to create visions of a spacefaring future - a future of space settlement, be they on the Moon, on Mars, on asteroids, or orbiting independently in space. Twelve winning entries will be chosen to illustrate the NSS 2008 Space Settlement Calendar. Judges include world-renowned space artists David Hardy and Pat Rawlings.

The Grand Prize winner will have their artwork featured on the calendar cover and as one of the monthly images. This winner will receive a Beyond-Earth Enterprises 8 ounce Flight Container for sub-orbital rocket launch and return (valued at $1,500.00); a physical copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480.00); a $250.00 cash prize; a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.

There will be four First Prize winners in the categories of Best Lunar Settlement, Best Mars Settlement, Best Asteroid Settlement, and Best Orbiting Settlement. In addition to being published in the calendar, each of the four First Prizes winners will receive a physical copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480.00); a Beyond-Earth Enterprises Large Photo Kit for sub-orbital rocket launch and return (valued at $74.95); a $100.00 cash prize; a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.

The remaining seven winning entries will each appear in the calendar and the artists will each receive an electronic download copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480.00); a Beyond-Earth Enterprises DNA Flight Kit for sub-orbital rocket launch and return (valued at $34.95); a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.

For all the contest details go to http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/

The National Space Society (NSS) is an independent, educational, grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. For US tax purposes, NSS is a tax exempt 501(c)3 educational nonprofit corporation. NSS is widely acknowledged as the preeminent citizen’s voice on space.

Ad Astra,
Jim Plaxco, Chair,
National Space Society Space Settlement Calendar Committee

As a part of the Windycon Science Fiction Convention I will be participating in the panel “Designing a Spaceship.” From the panel description:

“How does an artist go about designing a realistic looking spaceship? How do authors make their spacecraft believable?? As they discuss the process, a rocket scientist will comment on their progress and process.”

From the lineup I see that one of the other panelists will be accomplished artist and 2006 Hugo Nominee Stephan Martiniere. He certainly has some impressive work on display in his web site galleries. If you like SF art, I highly recommend a visit there. The other panelist are Jeffrey Lilly, Francisco Ruiz, and Donna Waltz.

This promises to be a very interesting topic because different artists and authors have portrayed spaceships in such vastly different ways over time. Even within a single series of stories we see fantastic variety. Take Star Wars for example - there is the moon mimicking Death Star (with no visible propulsion system); the highly compact TIE fighter (complete with hyperdrive, deflector shield generators, laser cannons, not to mention life support); to my personal favorite - the ultra-sleek and very shiny Nubian Cruiser which has not a greeble in sight. For more information about these ships, see the Wikipedia List of Star Wars capital ships.

It’s interesting to look back over the years and see how depictions of spaceships have changed. Way back in the 1930’s spacecraft were primarily blunt nose bullet shaped objects with rocket engines at the back. Perhaps the best example of this design is Zarkoff’s Rocket Ship seen in the Flash Gordon serial. This seems to have been the dominant form until after World War II. Perhaps influenced by the real world design of the German V2 rockets, spaceships took on a more streamlined shape in the late 1940’s and throughout the 1950’s. These spaceships were sleek, smooth surfaced affairs with large tail fins. Of these my favorite must be the Cosmostrator from the movie “First Spaceship on Venus.” Of course the premier artist from this time was Chesley Bonestell.

The late 60’s saw the arrival of what I will call the “segmented look”. Spaceships took on more of an industrial look with an abundance of girders and modules. A classic example of this type of spacecraft is the Discovery from the movie “2001: A Space Odyssey”. Another popular example would be the Nostromo from the movie “Alien.” Perhaps the move in this direction was influenced by the decidedly unaerodynamic shape of the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module.

The onset of computer graphics has seen a competition of sorts in the addition of complexity and detail to the spaceships that artists are creating. Much of this additional detail comes in the form of greebles or nurnies. Greebles and nurnies are the small shapes applied to the exterior of a spacecraft to give it added detail or texture. The intent is to make the spaceship look more technologically complex. According to the Wiki page on greebles, the term greebles was first used by the Star Wars special effects crew.

Shining examples of the visually complex spacecraft created with 3D software are the creations of my friend David Robinson. David creates incredibly detailed spaceships using the boolean tools in the 3D graphics package Bryce. You might want to check David’s web site to see what I’m talking about. Be sure to check out the spaceship USS Shenandoah.

At some point though one needs to stop oohing and aahing over how cool a spaceship looks and ask the question “just how believable is this design?” Believability is a design detail that should not be overlooked as it is one element in the viewer’s perception of the picture in question. There are a couple things that have always bothered me about many of the fictional spaceships one sees on book covers and in movies. First is that apparently unlimited fuel and/or power is contained within amazingly small spacecraft - kind of like the old westerns where it seemed the revolvers had an unlimited supply of bullets. What makes this most bothersome is that many of these spaceships are apparently powered by traditional chemical propulsion systems. Physics is physics and fuel can only be compressed so much.

The second aspect that I find troublesome is what I’ll call design impracticality. Many depictions of spaceships can be likened to a Rube Goldberg device in that they are ridiculously complex or nonsensical. One look and you say to yourself “no rational engineer would build it like that.” But this aspect does not bother me nearly as much as the size issue since taking liberties with the design makes the spaceship more visually interesting. I poked around on the net for an example of a design that would lead one to ask the question “why” and came up with a piece of cover art for Science Fiction Monthly by Bruce Penningtion. I won’t go into the questions I have about this design but rather leave it up to you to ponder why a ship would be designed in this way.

If you’re attending the Windycon Science Fiction Convention and want to know more about spaceships, be sure to attend our panel.

About the Picture Pleasure Cruise
The picture shown at the start of the post is titled “Pleasure Cruise.” I created this piece about 5 years ago using a combination of Bryce and Adobe Photoshop. The original picture is on a much larger scale and features a blue giant star. I cropped the image back to just the spaceship and downsized that for posting here.

Ad Astra, Jim

One common use of space art is to illustrate astronomical concepts that are beyond the ability of our telescopes to represent. An example is the above picture of an exoplanet in orbit around Epsilon Eridani, a young star only 10.5 light years away from us.

In the large version of the image, we can see that there are actually three moons orbiting the exoplanet. There are two things that bother me about this image. The first is the disparity in illumination of the planet and its orbiting moon. The second is that while the planet’s rings lie in the planet’s plane of rotation, it certainly looks like none of the three moons do.

This illustration brings to mind one of the problems facing space or astronomical artists: a small canvas in which large expanses of space must be captured.

For more information about the planetary system being illustrated by this picture, read the Hubble press release Artist’s Concept of Nearest Exoplanet to Our Solar System.

Ad Astra, Jim