On Patrol

The first generation of starships produced by the U.N. Spacy, they are the Oberth Class Destroyer (top left), ARMD Class Carrier (center), and the SF-3A Lancer II starfighter (right and scattered, there are six of them).

The destroyer and the carrier are similar in length (400 and 430 meters) and I decided to add the starfighters to try and convey their size relative to each other, but don’t know if I succeeded.

I have lost track of how long this has taken me, it never seemed finished. The ARMD platform was the first thing I finished, it was all I wanted. But it felt alone, didn’t really tell a story; so I added the destroyer, which seemed larger than the carrier, so I toyed with adding a second carrier in the foreground, but that wasn’t working, and I didn’t want to have to rely on any blurring effects to force perspective.

My biggest complaint is that I painted this at only 72 dpi, a big mistake, as it limited the level of detail I could illustrate. Live and Learn, I guess.

PSCS2 and art tablet

Edit: 4-16-2008

At the time I felt it was finished, I was also tired of looking at it. Lengthened the Lancer star fighter and added the U.N.Spacy insignia just forward of the cockpit. Also added a bit more detail to the hull of the destroyer and its bow facing thrusters.

What do you think?

02-11-08: fixed issues I had with lighting.