To Touch the Creator

My newest piece based on the dramatic (and slightly confusing) climactic ending of 1979's Star Trek the Motion Picture. It depicts the reconstructed mechanical form of lieutenant Ilia, was played by stunningly beautiful and late actress Persis Khambatta. She is joined by Stephen Collins who played the character of commander Willard Decker. I made two color versions, one with the Enterprise in a light white-gray and the other in Gold as an homage to an early publicity shot of the ship in metallic yellow

To Touch the Creator

Pencil, Photoshop

August 2012

To Touch the Creator, Gold

Pencil, Photoshop

August 2012

Anatomy of a Cartoon Starship Part CUATRO

As I mentioned earlier, while it's not required, symmetry works with industrial or mechanical designs, like spaceships for example. After duplicating the "warp nacelles" or engines, rectangular guides are laid out on separate layers to help balance the two sides.

I didn't like the handwritten call letters I started with, so I opted for photoshop fonts. In the case of this particular whimsical cartoon rendition, I felt the giant letters looked appropriate.

Anatomy of a Cartoon Starship Part DEUX

This next step makes one imagine I'm crafting a really ugly image but it demonstrates a process that helps tremendously when making something like this. While I wouldn't do this for every illustration I create, in this case duplicating and flipping selected elements makes mechanical objects (like spaceships) more symmetrical.

Anatomy of a Cartoon Starship Part ONE

As some of you already know, I'm a huge Sci-Fi geek. Primarily "vintage" Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, Doctor Who, to list only a few. While some artists might work in such realms as the bizarre, others the violent, some the shocking and yet others the abstract, I try to stay in the realm of "cute" (at least half the time). So a lot of my recent sci-fi homages have been "cute-ified" to some degree.

Anyhow I want to share with you the "construction" of a cartoon-ified Starship Enterprise. To begin I started by sketching certain parts of the Enterprise that I later merge with other parts recycled from scans of my cartoon Reliant. Both are very similar so it works, me thinks.