The Art and Graphics of Nick Stevens. Available for hire.I specialise in unbuilt space projects, and the spacecraft of the Soviet Union.
Pioneer 11 was the first probe to reach Jupiter and Saturn. It is not often remembered, I think because of Voyager 1 and 2 followed on relatively quickly, and these probes delivered much superior imagery.
But Pioneer 11 was important, not least because it established if it would be safe to send the voyagers very close to the giant planets – the amount of radiation and debris near them was not clear before the encounters.
This November I was proud to be featured in an exhibition arranged by the British Interplanetary Society, visions of space:
https://www.bis-space.com/2015/08/25/15130/visions-of-space
Here are some picture from the show:
I keep meaning to find the time to learn Modo properly. It’s clearly a powerful and logically laid out piece of software, but I keep falling back on Lightwave which I know so much better.
Here’s a relatively rare Modo item from me, a displacement mapped Moon, (that’s Earth’s Moon, just to be clear!)
My favourite film, without a doubt is the stunning “2001 A Space Odyssey”. Even all these years after its release, it still manages to look credible and futuristic.
I have now finished the model of the alternate design for the 2001 Space Station. This mesh is based on sketches in the excellent book “The 2001 File” by Christopher Frayling. The bulk of the book is the design sketches by Harry Lange that were done for the spacecraft concepts used in the film.
The sketches were basic, so I added lots of details from the design actually used in the film.
I’ve also made a short animated video to show it off, I recommend watching in HD if possible!
Continue reading “2001 A Space Odyssey – Alternate Space Station Design.”
This was done before the second TRON film came out. I always really liked the bright edges look of the first film, and decided to see what I could do with that approach.
The theme was inspired by my mate Pete Williamson and his band “Anubis”, an Egyptian space rock sort of thing.
Sound track done with Sonic Fire Pro again. Main animation done in Lightwave 3d.
This is a (very) short documentary I made on the British rocket, the Black Arrow. The UK remains the only country ion the world to develop a successful satellite program, and then shut it down.
The model I built for the video was based on personal photographs taken at the London Science Museum.
I am gradually moving my videos over to Vimeo, they get less views there than at YouTube, but the quality is higher, and you won’t get interrupted by crappy adverts!
A couple of new renders of my old Saturn mesh.
I think I may want to revisit the planet map, and see if I can come up with something of my own – this is by Bjorn Jonsson. The ring maps are based on occultation data from Voyager.
This was a bit of a quickie – exported from Daz Studio for rendering in lightwave 3d. A Zorn overlord.
I like the cheap content and posing capabilities of Daz Studio, but I really can’t get on with the renderer or lighting. All the user friendly qualities of a cornered rat,
This is something I am still working on. It’s an alternate design for the famous Wheel Station, much more disk-like.
All the outer sections will be completely replaced, I’m still trying out ideas here. The design is based on “The 2001 File”, the Harry Lange archive.
I don’t intend to get the viewpoint as close as is shown in the near image.
The hub is pretty much the same as the ends of the core as used in the original film. The dark ribs on the inside of the outer sections will have to go too.
When I visited Chisinau ion Moldova in September, I visited a small cosmonautics museum. They have an impressive collection of photos of cosmanauts visiting Moldova from the early days of the manned space program.
Here are a couple of photos of the first man to walk in space on his trip!
