I think that a lot of independent sci-fi projects I see around aren't very compelling to me because I find they re-tread the same ground. Especially after being a moderator of the largest online worldbuilding community for about two years, eventually you get tired of seeing the same re-hashed discussions and "explorations" of space travel, biomedical science, militaries, that sort of thing. I'm no less guilty, but I figured I might as well try to push it in new directions.

For background, in Light Era, the Terrans are largely split into two large factional groups: the Social Democrats are a urban, industrious, highly technocratic, let's-build-some-cool-stuff people, whereas the Anarcho-Communists are far more relaxed, go-with-the-flow, communal, and almost luddite-like by contrast. There's more to them than that, which I will get to in the future, but that's a workable distinction for now.

I didn't want the factions to be identity politik excuses for conflict like I see in a lot of other scifi works, where each faction is kind of just a shallow superficial vessel with a name and flag. I tried to explore the implications of each faction's doctrine in the way the people live their lives in them instead, and really focus on their philosophies as legitimate cultural artefacts. It seems to be a success, since this is one of the most well-received series of worldbuilding art I've done so far.

I encourage other worldbuilders to take a step back and try this method too. It's harder than just making United League of Space NATO Federation again, I know, but give it a try—I promise your work will be richer as a result.

Anyway, as promised, dorky memery:

This work actually predates Light Era's name by a bit...

I think it was earlier in 2020 when I started exploring the idea of the infrastructure in this world, since I did want to worry more about the everyday life of the people living in it. Part of the goal was also so that I could have some lore behind how the interior spaces are designed.

The first concepts of this involved electricity:

And I thought, well, that's kind of neat, but what if it was like...light? I mean, I had already canonised the use of photonic computers, as well as photocapacitors, which were the universe's equivalent of batteries that would store photons in a super-dense way that surpasses just about any chemical fuel.

The prompt of "what if power was delivered via light" kind of set a lot of things into motion. I worked on the concept of antemir, but I couldn't stop thinking about it...it felt so thematically perfect for the worldbuilding I was doing. Lore-wise it was a massive effort to modernise and standardise the infrastructure of Juxta Sagittaria (the region of settled/explored space), but there was an interesting metaphor in that: the idea that the underpinning of this world was brittle and fragile, like glass, that held it together.

Gosh, you know what I missed about Tumblr? Being able to post multiple pictures as part of a single large project.

When I watch science documenatires, some of my favourite visualisations were CG shots of what it would look like in the skies of a gas giant like Saturn or Neptune. Just an endless sea of clouds...I thought, what would it be like to live there?

The obvious solution would be to have airships of some sort. Which like, yeah, but also it didn't feel very...Light Era-ey, you know? I didn't really know it at the time, but eventually Light Era's whole space thing is about aeroplanes and stuff, not ships. Besides, for the science pedants out there, with the atmosphere composed primarily of hydrogen and helium, it's not exactly like you can fill your balloon with something lighter to float.

So as an alternative I thought about having giant, ultra-efficient gliders of varying sizes that would use the violent winds and updrafts of these gas giants to stay aloft. They would have some kind of intermittent thrust system that can be used in a pinch to increase power from the atmosphere around it, but for the most part, they're coasting. The largest of these would be the kilometres large and would host a town's worth of people. They'd also travel in flocks. Perhaps the sky would get crowded quick, but Neptune's quite a bit bigger than Earth: plenty of sky to go around.

Something that people don't think I do is actually do calculations and engineering thinking to investigate the viability of an idea (and if not, what would make it viable). I don't tend to speak about it, since that tends to attract the worst kinds of scifi worldbuilding people who act extremely pretentiously because they read Atomic Rockets and designed their world's map after watching Artefexian videos.

Nevertheless, I did actually run the maths. For the altitude, I learned that at the altitude of Neptune where the air pressure was around 1 atmosphere, the air density (which is important for flight) was about the same as Earth at 9km above sea level—the same as a commercial airliner. So, pretty viable, it's like flying a jetliner, except you don't actually need to pressurise because the air pressure outside is the same as inside. You would have to air seal, though, since the atmosphere is absolutely not breathable. Oh, and it's also -200°C.

More importantly, though, that placed the rough flight level of these gliders right on the cusp of the cloud levels. They can be in and out of them...how fantastic! Lots of swirling ideas of the kinds of scenery you'd be able to see, living a life in the eternal deep blue...

Around this time I also got in contact with a Twitter fan of mine who just happened to be an aerospace engineer (though, like everyone in the STEM department, they do fullstack software/web development now). Ran the idea by them...apparently it checked out. That's that diagram you see in the main photogrid above, with every glider under going a steady, gentle up and down motion between a higher fast air current and a lower slow one.

If there's one thing I wish was better? It's actually the final painting. I wanted to get the scale of the city-glider across, but I think this composition wasn't really the best. In theory the one-person glider should give an idea of how big the city-glider is on scale, but I don't think it was really clear, and the lack of atmospheric depth doesn't really convey the size.

I learned that I really, really liked comms where I was tasked to tell a story in a single still composition. The Yinmai series of commissions was an experiment in limiting/directing the prompts to suit this desire: the composition is inherently limited with the anamorphic-esque crop, which means having a typical character-on-white-background comm isn't really possible. The space around a character becomes exaggerated and emphasised, and so by nature this comm style forces you to engage in visual storytelling.

Luckily, I seem to have really good clients who know how to rise to the occasion. I actually had a contingency tier for Yinmai, where I would accept avatar/portrait comms for those not interested in the whole cinematic affair—no one took me up on it.

In order of appearance:

AstroVernox

She commissioned me years ago, before she came out as trans. I think her initial prompt was actually a more mundane scene of being in a cupola, but to work with the drama of yinmai we agreed to adjust it, as well as making a bit of a reference to her transition.

Noir

A fun experiment in quads composition, where the negative space around the subject is further exaggerated and creates a strong sense of empathy. Good for a bit of horror.

Flake (Light Era diagetic)

Ditto as above. One of the two trial comms before I opened publicly. The character of theirs is Trellis, and they included a Dropbox folder of inspiration images; one of them was of the hydroponics scene from the film Sunshine. I incorporated that into this.

Fosh (Light Era diagetic)

She wanted a piece about being out in the field in the Olympic forests. I had a lot of fun with the trees and the colour in the sky makes it really stand out amongst this set.

Taky (no social media) (Light Era diagetic)

They requested them as a Wintertide Adept, which got me a bit hesitant since I never liked to romanticise the military aspect of Light Era too much, but I read their prompt further and they requested a more sombre mood of anticipation, maybe dread. A great example of a client understanding the assignment, if you will. I thought about showing the feeling of isolation by strategically placing the window frame to separate him and the rest of the group in the background.

Forth & Hydrophagist

The other trial comm of this series. The dramatic nature of Yinmai means it's predisposed to show character at a moment of weakness or emotional vulnerability. It makes me more comfortable portraying military themes as it moves it away from ideas of dominance or strength.

Ashii (Light Era diagetic)

Much the same as above, but taken to a larger scale—a little more chaotic, a little more frantic. Playing with depth was very fun. This one is the most popular piece of the series, apparently.

Panzica

Prompt was making a call under the feeling of uncertainty, if I recall correctly. I sneakily referenced a police interrogation room for the environment. The worm's eye view works for the idea, but I feel like I could have executed the anatomy better.

Phenokage

It's officially been over a year since I rebranded my worldbuilding project to "Light Era". For me, the choice was predicated on the realisation that Light Era was just an exceptionally personal art project that reflected just about everything I thought about the world. It realigned my priorities, made me appreciate the fact this was my project that I could do whatever I wanted with and work on at my own pace, and also made clear the kind of conflicts and themes I was interested in exploring.

Notably I realised the division between the Social Democrat faction and the Anarchist faction in Light Era didn't actually have much to do with (Western) leftist schools of thought, but rather outlooks on life: The SocDems were the embodiment of achievement, aspiration, and aiming high to do good in the world, whereas the Ancoms were about the embrace of nature or at least "natural-ness", simplicity, and a focus on compassion. I feel as though I'd always been fighting to ensure the balance of these two sides within me, and so it makes sense that it would show up in my work.

Additionally, as an Asian, this turned out to be the dichotomy between the traditional Asian philosophies of Confucianism and Daoism, so ingrained in my culture that I had inadvertently written a whole world about the conflict and interconnectedness of the two without realising it.

So a change that encompassed everything it was to me: a political exploration of my own inner personal conflicts, my outworld political beliefs, and my culture and identity in broad society.

This was not long after I figured out the general vibe of Light Era as we know it today, with its focused on a more nuanced and relaxed aesthetic in scifi while incorporating my long-lost Asian heritage.

Someone in a worldbuilding community mentioned how it would be easier to just dome parts of a moon and terraform it rather than trying to do that to the whole thing. While I liked this idea of the Terrans being a bit more frugal, I didn't really like the idea of "domes" in Light Era. Instead I opted for massive trenches with a flat transparent roof, which could also help to serve to modulate Rhea's double-length day and night cycle.

Contrary to what some people might think, I do actually do a substantial amount of background research when approaching my topics in Light Era—here I went as far as to determine the angular size of Saturn in the sky of Rhea so I could accurately depict how big it might actually look.

Mostly me continuing to experiment with the idea of "softening" the depiction of the military in Light Era. I took a principle from graphic design and GUI design where one uses dark schemes to look "pro", whereas light schemes imply friendliness—seeing how typical sci-fi soldier designs bias towards dark and imposing silhouettes, I tried to go the opposite here.

A particular character design trick I learned doing these kinds of designs was the exposure of the face: generally, the more you hide, the more unrelatable and distant they will feel. I iterated the visor helmet so that it was even lighter and ensured that the individual's face remained visible and head silhouette intact.

They're still military, but as far as scifi designs I've made sure to keep the feel lightweight—they have a vest and exoskeletal suit but no power armour or even any large amount of solid armour at all, instead relying much heavier on their shields (which are lighter and regenerate, so they're better anyway) and mobility over brawn. Other than that, I also tried to make it clearer that they are wearing a kind of hoodie as well to further add to the casual-isation.