The Invictus!

Isn't there a restaurant inside the volcano?

Muledrvr

I've seen lots of "space art" over the years, and I think that this painting sets a good tone for the start of this story. Great choice, looking forward to seeing more.

Just spotted a detail I missed earlier: On the planet's surface, in between the Invictus and the fighters, is a big ass volcano. No idea how I didn't spot that before, but damn, that's a big mountain. That means the red/orange around the base is lava. Neat.

Jedi Khan

Very good, very atmospheric which is odd since there's no atmosphere!

ringill

Very nice, especially when you zoom in.

Yea Genthalas and view of the Valaden should be awesome ;)

Very nice. Now we need to have a similar scene with Genthalas in the background so we can get a comparison to Olympus, as well as an idea of what Maliri ships look like. Maybe also a scene of the Invictus leaving the Ashanath shipyards? If I recall correctly, those are planet-side, so the scene won't be so dark and we could possibly see more detail. By the way, would it be possible to get some artwork in the future that's scaled for desktop wallpaper, i.e. 1920x1080 resolution?

Jedi Khan

That is awesome. He's done a really good job. First saw it on my phone at work. Couldn't wait to get home and view it full screen.

doofus67

You're welcome! If your mental picture of it was that far off, I probably need to describe it better. :-) That's almost exactly what I had in mind when I was thinking about the space battles. With Alyssa/Jade rolling the ship so that Calara can open up with all the Beam Lasers off the top deck (Laser Cannons in this picture). I have actually drawn up the deck plans for the new Invictus, but they're very rough and I can't really be bothered to tidy them up.

Tefler

ok I was wrong, THIS is the new desktop background.

He's done a bunch of really nice pieces on his site. I spent a couple of days searching through loads of different artists on DeviantArt and narrowed it down to him and a couple of others.

Tefler

Yeah. I liked the old one, but the new one has a lot more going on in it and it's customised too!

Tefler

It's really nice to see it fleshed out like that!

Tefler

Thank you!

Tefler

I quite liked that too, but it didn't look quite shark-like and predatory enough. You might argue that neither does the Invictus from that angle, but from a side profile it starts to look more shark-like. For the next one, I might get him to do a side profile view of the black Invictus slugging it out with a Drakkar cruiser, so you can see it better from a different angle.

Tefler

I see you wasted no time setting up the new image for your page.

Yeah, I think he did a really nice job. He stuck very close to the brief I gave him (and the dozen or so sample pictures I sent!)

Tefler

Thanks :-)

Tefler

Glad you liked it Ben!

Tefler

Tefler, thank you so much for having this picture commissioned. I lack fundamental knowledge of ships, and despite numerous readings of the Chapters 7-8, the mental picture I had was no where close to resembling this. I really mean, not even close. The space battles are now making even more sense than before. This picture, above all others, should be the one you use for your first book. Now I'm even more curious as to the deck layouts.

DemonHunterCole

The artist drew in the Beam Lasers popped up like that and I quite liked the look for the artwork, but yes, you're right, in the story they're more embedded in the hull. They can still turn slightly so they've got a 45 degree fire arc to the front. Now I've got the cover art and the content is done, I'll look into publishing it tomorrow. As you say, I need to come up with a title! (Maybe time for a poll!) :-)

Tefler

Great View, great artist with impressive detail to be able to see it is to know how the Invictus started as John and Girl's home is.

I created a second post with a zoomed-in shot. :-)

Tefler

I always thought the beam laser barrel were built in to the hull. but the art work is amazing. so how long til the ebook? and whats the title, boss?

Very impressive!

Amathew2

I think it's a cool look and a nice layout to use for a cover or something. Kinda wish I could get a better look at the Invictus closer, can't quite make out where the mass drivers are. Regardless, it's a pretty awesome piece!

Dragonkain

Most of the front half (200m) is dedicated to the Mass Driver rails. The living quarters and all the rooms are in the next ~250m section, with the last 50m for the engines.

Tefler

Olympus is massive and a long way in the distance. He's added lots of freighters around the shipyard and each of those is several hundred metres long. From tip-to-tip Olympus is 20km across.

Tefler

This really helps to give perspective on the size of the Invictus. Nice work!

Nice, but I did liked the previous keel (front bottom) better. To me this is less spaceship and more boat like.

Magnus Wittstrom

That's really cool. My first thought is, "that's big for what I imagined a ship would be" and then I realized from thinking back to all the cabins, "yeah, that thing has to be pretty huge".

Chef Marco

Awesome!

Dark Storymaker

Nice

Very cool!

Benj

Olympus seems to be quite far away, or it's extremely tiny. Any dimensions for the spaceport?

Sindre Bjørnhjell