The Slowboat Passes By by NefariousDrO
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No AI - This artwork was created entirely by hand or with traditional digital tools.
Description
Amongst the many ideas for making life less damaging in space for longer durations is the method of rotating tethered habitats around the ship. This allows the advantages of a larger spin radius, while not involving the mass of a huge ring to push about. Humanity's early phase of developing nearby space didn't always allow for the massive power needed for stronger acceleration, so many of those ideas actually got tried out. Here, one of the transports to a mining outpost on Vesta is passing the moon on its way out. These ships gained the unfortunate nickname of "slowboats" due to their reliance on a slower rate of acceleration, despite the fact that their plasma drives were very efficient and allowed for long periods of thrust in order to eventually reach rather high speeds. Once a nickname is coined, though, it's pretty hard to shed it. Still, these early ships helped develop many of the technologies and experience that made it easier for taking advantage of the Rephi Portals once those finally came online.
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Ship modeled and rendered in Bryce 6.5, The moon comes courtesy of NASA and a Photoshop Plugin called "Lunarcell". The stars started out from another plugin called "Glitterato" but I altered them to a significant degree. Nebula clouds came from photos of actual clouds, and compositing and other postworking all came from Photoshop.
Thanks for taking a look, and have a good weekend everyone!
Comments (21)
Maybe the marketers should have called them "bolos!" heh!
Very cool work and gerat descriptions you're a fan of Larry Niven, aren't you?
very wonderful. I like your ships and backgrounds
Fantastic modeling! Corrie
Outstanding space scene!!!
Nice ship design, although one asteroid strike on the thin tie keeping the ship together would be deadly for the habitats... :s
Nice work. There are many other conceptual space-vehicles... You should have a look not only to ideas from the 'western' world... Also behind the 'iron curtain' have been interesting ideas for space exploration. The very early projects of Ziolkowski, Zander. Plans from the 60ies by Mikojan and others... Or the meanwhile forgotten scifi-stories from the former gdr... it's a view worth...
Well since I've been absent I've been only studying with lights and shadows without really trying to work on anything else.After viewing your models today while catching up in your gallery and learning that most your model building has been done with the use of Bryce presets that I just have to take the inspiration that I have gotten from viewing your work and blow the dust off my own Bryce model building folder and see if I myself have any creativeness left and try and attempt a space model of my own using various presets.My most intense preset model ever I built was the 3 wheel trike in my gallery called "Dads Toy"...That in itself was very labor intensive and for those that have no idea what's involved in model building only need to try one themselves... Awesome Work here my friend!
Very nice design!
excellent sci-fi scene
These incredible spaceship/space scene masterpieces HAVE to be seen full-size! There is just so much amazing detail... Another fantastic ship, Mike! You continue to amaze me with these Bryce constructs - just blows me away! I guess this isn't a slowboat from China.... But then again, it could be. They've already put Chinese astronauts in space.... And they invented the rocket, after all....
Wonderful sci-fi art!!!
Great concept! I like it!
Sure hope those tethers hold out, they look a bit on the flimsy side, but I'm sure the NASA boffins knows best ! Neat modelling and compositing work ! ~Cheers~
Outstanding work.
Excellent work!
Again, your modeling skills and space backgrounds improve with every image you post. Even though I do not comment on all your posts I will tell you that I view yours plus a few others here at Renderosity with great enthusiasm. I am glad to see artists here taking a more serious tack towards space exploration. Keep up the excellent work my friend. Cheers, David
Your models are always amazing. Awesome work. :)
very impresive work , excelent concept in this work , excelentt !
A blend of well thought out design and visually beautiful composition. I can see how you pursue your thoughts on structural design and consistently work them -- producing excellent art along the way. As always, impressive.
Hey, isn't "Slowboat to Vesta" one of those classic songs that hasn't been written yet? It has such a nice neo-Cole Porter feel to it, despite being performed by an all-android band. So much for the "human touch" in terms of musical expression. Okay...all ramblings aside, I have to say that I like this quite a lot. This is actually one of my all-time favorite ship designs. I think I just find it amusing that such a design, especially if it carried a kind of elevator-ferry along its cables, would need an extra supply of barf bags. I learned that from an early issue of the magazine published by the Planetary Society. This image reminds me of one of those images, only I KNOW the artist who did this one, and it's a fantastic image. Really top-notch work, which is no less than I expect whenever I peek into your gallery. Fantastic!