Neon Space

This is from a long series of small space pictures in my standard format, which I did in 1991. That year seems to have been a "banner year" for small space pictures, and I remember turning them out by the dozen with my airbrush and spatter paint. I showed them in lots of places. This one went to "DeepSouthCon" which was in Knoxville, Tennesee that year. I also brought some of them personally to places like Chattanooga and Dalton, Georgia where I made lots of friends among the Southern fans. I had not been down to the "real" South before and I enjoyed it a lot, and I've kept up with at least a few of my Southern fan friends in Tennessee and Georgia and South Carolina.

The picture shows filaments of glowing gas in a hot nebula. Since neon lights are also glowing gas, I titled it "Neon Space." The nebula gas is not neon, though; most nebulae are made of hydrogen, maybe with a little oxygen too.

My records show that I sold this picture for only 10 dollars, to a fan friend who has long since gone beyond the Galactic Rim. I often wonder what happens to the art collection of a fan who dies. Many fans do not have traditional families to leave things to. What was the fate of this picture and the other ones by me and other artists, which this person once owned? Many of them were never framed by the collector and may have been destroyed. Maybe it will turn up someday in a thrift shop or junk shop somewhere in east Tennessee.

"Neon Space" is acrylic on illustration board, 7" x 10", June 1991.

City of Dreams

"Digipixart" has scanned my 8" x 10" color transparency of my fantasy city picture, "City of Dreams." This is an excerpt from the big file they provided. "City of Dreams" has a name, it is "Al-Kyris, City of Dreams." "Al-Kyris" was the mythical city of decadence envisioned by author Marie Corelli in her 1889 fantasy masterpiece, "Ardath." I did this painting as a commission for the famous art collectors Howard and Jane Frank, in 1993. It hung in their collection for many years before they sold it to an author whose (self-published) book had used it (with my permission) as a cover. This would be the first of four fantasy city extravaganzas that I did in the 1990s. I will probably never match that insane proliferation of DEEE-TAILS again, as my eyes aren't that good any more. However, it might be possible for me to duplicate that style digitally in Photoshop, 'cause it allows you to zoom way in to the image if you want to put a single pixel detail in there.

Here's another detail from "City of Dreams." Corelli describes this gilded boat as the conveyance of the wicked and beautiful Snake Priestess. I could do endless illustrations from Corelli's books. She flourished from 1887 to 1925, writing fantasy and science fiction that was authentic "Steampunk," really from that era rather than a modern retro-fitting.

"Al-Kyris, City of Dreams" is acrylic on Masonite, 30" x 20", spring 1993.

Colliding Galaxies

This is a big universe, but galaxies often collide. They don't smash together like cars, and I don't know that many stars actually ram into each other, but when galaxies get close, their gravity pulls each other out of shape. Complex deformations occur in the spirals and pressure waves set off new areas of star formation, astronomical fireworks displays occurring over millions of our years. Sometimes the two galaxies merge and regain a "traditional" whirling galaxy shape. This has happened many, many times and some astronomers think that even our galaxy may have collided with and absorbed another galaxy. We astronomy fans are also told that in a few billion years, our Milky Way will approach and collide with its neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, and will make a lot of cosmic noise, which only the mathematical spirits will hear.

"Galactic Collision" is acrylic on illustration board, 16" x 20", January 1991.

Night Critter

They come out from under my Wacom tablet late at night. I think they're harmless, but they seem to feed on pixels and bandwidth, which is why my computer is going so slowly.

Photoslug, 7" x 7", June 4, 2010.

Blossom of Light

Here's another iris from my flowery year of 1991. I got the idea of superimposing irises on nebula pictures, possibly because I was so bored with just the same old blue nebula. In those days I was mystical enough to title this one "Blossom of Light." I painted images of a lot of irises back then. I don't think I'd paint an iris painting now, unless someone commissioned it and paid me a good price for it. Maybe I shouldn't yammer on about this now, since no one is lining up to commission anything from me.

"Blossom of Light" is acrylic on illustration board, 7" x 10", May 1991.

Spaceship Liner

What would an ocean liner in space look like? It would not be a space colony with a large area for agriculture, nor a warship bristling with weaponry. It would not necessarily be built for speed. Its job is transporting a large number of people through space, whether to a destination or on a cruise. And it should keep the passengers in comfort and luxury as well as safety. When I designed this ship, I gave it the simplest form I could, an egg or "pickle" shape. These natural shapes are the strongest and most stable. That's why I called this picture "High-Concept Spaceship." So when you go on that cruise on the Celestial Skyward line, you know you will see the galaxy from the best viewpoint and have the most fun while on your way.

"High-Concept Spaceship" is acrylic on illustration board, 14" x 20", January 1991.

Barandigi character sketch

Barandigi is a character from my Noantri world. She is a young (probably middle to late 20s) woman who is endowed with nouergic powers (see my Noantri weblog for definition and more story). She was discovered among a tribal society which the Beka construction company was removing from the land to make room for a large project. She was purchased from the tribe and brought to Beka headquarters where she was trained to do construction using her nouergic powers. She was given minimal education (not taught to read or write) and in any nouergic work was always under the control of an operator. She was kept placid and unresisting by drugs which she took voluntarily, a common habit in that area of Noantri world.

Even with her nouergic abilities, Barandigi was still classified as a "class 3 fem," that is, the lowest grade of female. In her area of Noantriworld, women are judged exclusively by their physical appearance, judged through a series of beauty contests that every female is required to undergo from earliest childhood. (Males are not tested or classified in this way, but they must go through other test procedures to determine their status and fate in life.)

The prettiest and best-shaped are class 1 fems, and live privileged lives, often partnering men of great power. Those who are good-looking, but not glamorous, are class 2, and are used in the workforce. Class 3 fems are those who fail all the beauty contests and will never fit the standards. They are dressed in shapeless jumpsuits and are employed at menial or dangerous jobs. All women, no matter what their class, become class 3 at their fiftieth birthday, though older class 1s and 2s may remain employed in social service jobs.

Barandigi worked on the demolition of Enlil's "haunted" house (chronicled in my Noantri blog) and from that glimpse of another way of life she became restless and resistant to her life at Beka. She found a mentor in an elder male nouergist, one of her trainers, named Ennio Liatris, who was one of the highest ranked nouergists in the country. When the earthquake happened at Eridu, Ennio took it upon himself to go help the stricken city, and he kidnapped Barandigi to help him in the work. Barandigi saved lives at Eridu. Unfortunately, Ennio Liatris was killed in an accident during the earthquake relief effort, leaving Barandigi without a protector or a controller.

There is more to this story at my Noantri world blog, so please stay tuned.

Barandigi's character portrait is Photoshop, 7" x 10".