Art of Justin Slick

I made a next-generation space telescope concept.  It kinda mixes the shape of the Chandra observatory with the cool segmented mirror of the upcoming James Webb telescope, and uses a huge tethered mirror like those recent design studies from Darpa and CU-Boulder

Man, I really haven't done much personal stuff lately, but last night I was setting up a test scene to render some curtains for work and just started going wild.

I seriously don't ever read or watch horror, so I have no idea what compelled me to turn an underexposed test render into a spooky comic panel.

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie

Fantastic. Nothing else to say, really, except that all the hype is well deserved. 

It's an expansive, enormously original story. It's framed as a space opera, but saying that it's just a space opera would be like saying The Iliad is just a poem about a war.  Thoughtful ideas, super impressive world building, confident execution.  Plus, that gorgeous John Harris cover art...

This might actually be the first time in my life I've read a sci-fi title the same year it was released.  I still have a huge backlog of stuff I want to get to, but I'm incredibly happy to have caught this one from the beginning. 

This is Ann Leckie's debut novel, by the way, which makes it all the more impressive and promising.  I wouldn't call it a perfect novel (few books are), but it was damn good.

Verdict: For me, I'd say it was a 4.5/5.  But in the wider context of science fiction--who knows--if it manages to snag a Hugo or Nebula it could very well be a future classic.

Similar To: Of all the authors I've read, this probably falls closest to C.J. Cherryh.  I've also heard people mention Ian Banks, but I haven't read him (I know, I know).

Next Up: Leviathan Wakes (Because, oh shiit, I'm into space opera now.)

*edit* - Started Leviathan Wakes.  I'm like half an hour in, and WTF the set-up for this is like 98% indistinguishable from Pushing Ice.

I’m not really a photographer, but I think going out and shooting is a really good habit to get into.  Guys like Simon Stalenhag and Scott Robertson have both said that they regularly use their photography to inform and aid their illustration and design process, and if Sparth does it it must be right.

So anyway, I went out and took some pictures around Bellingham late last night.

I was playing around with some new techniques last night and came up with this.  Actually, it was just a test render that I decided to do some post-work on... I've been doing little thumbnail studies of Sparth's work recently, and the way he plays with light/shadow and scale is just mind-blowing.  So I guess this is me trying to capture those qualities a little better.

Ash Giant - For the daily spitpaint group.

Sketch dump? Sketch dump.

About once every 3 months I see something that triggers my deep seated desire to get better at Warner/Disney style line-drawing, which looks deceptively simple but is so incredibly challenging (imho) to do well because you have to have such a confident line to pull it off.

Like, you guys have seen those expression sheets from Frozen, right? Best. Fucking. Drawings. Every mark is literally perfect.

Anyway, I actually do like some of these (some of 'em are preeetty wonky though), but you should see my rubbish pile : )