It is also my graduation present from Ain, in lieu of flowers. A book, I thought, would not wilt after a couple of days. I spent the same number of days for flowers to wilt reading the whole book. It was very engaging. Also, the book did not wilt. Yay. The premise is simple, astronaut Mark Watney, a botanist – who looks like the guy who Tom Hanks had to rescue back in World War 2 – gets left behind on Mars in a freak accident while his fellow astronauts had to leave immediately because of a dust storm. What should have been a fatalistic “that’s it no one knows I’m still alive and doesn’t matter not enough food I’m dead anyway good bye everyone” 3- day short story becomes a full length novel for survival that extends for months and years as Watney uses his engineering and botanical skills […]
Continue readingCategory Archives: Misc Sci-Fi
Star Trek Hybrids
So, I drew some cross-species hybridization as Star Trek aliens are wont to do. For example, Spock is a Human-Vulcan hybrid and K’Ehleyr is a Human-Klingon hybrid. A Tholian-Vulcan hybrid! I only remembered the pointy eyebrows after I finished drawing. A Horta-Cardassian hybrid. No space beneath the silicon-based body for a Gul Macet-style mutton chops. And think of the amount of hairspray needed to keep that ‘do in shape. A Tribble-Andorian hybrid. How is this even- I- Never mind. Everyone go home. Nothing to see here.
Continue reading
Ruthermore’s First Cover: Redux
The cover of Ruthermore Heidigens and the Fifth Planet was the first in the series that I drew for Ebb and Folks back in 2011. There was a request for an enhancement of the cover. Originally painted in water colours, I employed GIMP to give it a digital upgrade by smoothing out roughness and applying digital paints where required. For a look at the original painting, click here.
Continue reading
Ruthermore’s Fourth Cover
After creating the cover of David Leyman’s debut entry of his science fiction story Ruthermore Heidigens and the Fifth Planet, followed by the covers of two subsequent entries, Ruthermore Heidigens and the Voices and Ruthermore Heidigens and the Nights at the Round Table, now comes the cover I made for the upcoming fourth installment of the series in Ruthermore Heidigens and the Fires of Avalon! Check out the dragon. He seems nice. Keep an eye out for its ebook release on Amazon at David Leyman’s website here!
Continue reading
Star Frontiers: Balneum Blue
Last year I illustrated some pictures for Balneum Blue, an article for Star Frontiers RPG. And after more than a year it’s finally released in the pages (and the cover) of Star Frontiersman magazine issue 25! Here’s the cover I did, of some gigantic floating aquatic jellyfish creatures called the hydrozoan. The planet known as Balneum Blue has an intelligent native species called the Gnatha that live in biotech coral cities. All the image above needs is a map of all the train stops. Download Star Frontiersman #25 for free to read more about the planet here. Check out the other images I made for the article in my gallery.
Continue reading
Day of Dredd
Earlier this week there was a drive via online social networks for a sequel of 2012’s film Dredd starring Karl Urban as Judge Dredd. Known as Day of Dredd, there were many posts and tweets about it across the internet. Even Psi Judge Anderson actress Olivia Thirlby herself made a thank you video for fans who helped with this drive. Dredd was an enjoyable, very tight, very focused story with just the right balance of grittiness and the absurdness of the future social dynamics of Mega City One. Its violence is very explicit, assaulting viewers with the atrocities of the film’s villains. It sets the tone for the grimness of the situation of having Dredd and the rookie Anderson trapped in a vast but somehow claustrophobic Peach Tower residential block by Ma-Ma, the local drug lord played by Lena Headey. Of course the dire circumstances only serves to accentuate how […]
Continue reading
Ruthermore’s Second and Third Covers
After illustrating the cover of David Leyman’s first “Ruthermore Heidigens” science fiction novella, Ruthermore Heidigens and the Fifth Planet, here are two more cover artwork from two other stories in the series, Ruthermore Heidigens and the Voices and Ruthermore Heidigens and the Nights at the Round Table – the former of which I made over a year ago but forgot to post here since.
Continue reading
Salvage Ops Card Art
Here are a series of artwork for Salvage Ops card game by DWD Studios. Players play members from four space salvage corporations. Here are five of the gear in space derelicts that the players could grab for points during the game, and two of the hazard card artwork that might thwart your operations! Purchase the game, which is now available at GameCrafters!
Continue reading
Doctor Who AITAS: Feet of Flesh, Feet of Steel
Doug GMed Cubicle 7‘s Doctor Who Adventures in Time and Space RPG for Irfan and I for the first time and it was an enjoyable night. For Irfan this was the first time someone other than me was the gamemaster. We played Fox and Olujimi just as they were stranded on the planet Klaris in the far future after hunting and failing to detain the big game hunter Breybrooke who was driven insane, corrupted by alien technology he had unearthed in Kenya in the year 1977. Episode 01 Klaris The game began as the duo was dining with their impromptu host Hermis, a Klarisian who served them haphis, a floating and slowly-spinning ball of edible mass that replenished itself as it was being scooped by cutlery. Olujimi thought it would taste more like cheese but it did not. Fox just ate away in silence. Stranded on Klaris City guards knocked […]
Continue reading
Salvage Ops Box Art
I have been working on artwork for card prototypes for a card game entitled Salvage Ops by DWD Studios. The game allows players to take charge of four space salvage corporations. They play the cards to explore, encounter threats, retrieve salvageable gear (see the blog post here for samples of the gear) and win points. The box art can be seen below. I hope this game sees production soon! Update (30th Aug 2013): The game is now available at GameCrafters!
Continue reading
Hokusai’s New Morph
In Eclipse Phase roleplaying game, I play the Neo-octopus Hokusai Tarnungshaut. Hokusai used to be in an uplifted octopus in an enhanced octomorph body. Used to. After his death by postal bomb, he was loaded into a worker pod morph. Later, he farcasted into an arachnoid morph on Venus and died again there. Without knowing he died there once, Hokusai farcasted again to Venus, this time in a slitheroid morph. This is what he looks like now. Using the fake Mesh ID Heinrich Ausfahrt Plissken, he is now part of the Fastball Express contingent (using the Gamera Security hypercorp front) investigating stuff among the aerostat cities of Venus. While on Venus, Hokusai – after being a freelance troubleshooter in Fastball Express for many months – has decided to go back into the public eye as an artist, but this time with another fake online persona, and perhaps an art studio […]
Continue reading
Pacific Rim: Tacit Ronin
So I quickly painted the PPDC Jaeger Tacit Ronin, which was seen for about 0.4 seconds on screen in the movie Pacific Rim, Guillermo Del Toro’s mecha vs kaiju movie which I immensely enjoyed by the way. Check out the larger image of Tacit Ronin on my Tumblr.
Continue reading
Moment of Faith
Note: This short story is slightly edited from a 1500 word assignment for Professional Writing 1: Core Competency submitted on July 14. I thought it would be prudent not to throw around too many (or too funky) posthuman science fiction concepts in this story, just in case the tutor would be unable grok it. Faith Jinnouchi drew her Ruger-Miroku Egocapture pistol from her overcoat pocket. She casted her Ego Enforcement Department ID across the local network to all the other patrons of the café. Her words rang like a bell across the café. “Somerville Olafsson. Your Ego ID has been confirmed to be false. You are under arrest for being an Altered Ego under New Amsterdam’s EED Regulations Ten-Seventy.” The Egocapture pistol’s smartlink had confirmed this criminal act. So Faith fired at the distressed Olafsson. Transferring an Ego from one shell to another takes hours of scanning a neural scanning, […]
Continue readingCover for Five’s The End
[[image:ebb-n-folks-5s-the-end-cover.jpg:Cover with the creature Three:center:0]] Here is another cover commissioned by Ebb and Folks. Five’s The End is a novella by David Leyman that completes the trilogy that begins with Three’s Company and continues with Four of a Kind (the second artwork in this post). The style of digital inks and colours (instead of a painterly look) of the cover for all three novellas is an editorial decision.
Continue reading
Irfan Treks to an Exhibition
Irfan went to the National Science Centre. Star Trek the Exhibition was being housed there for the time being. Shane managed to go to Star Wars Identities which looked better, but I takes what I gets. They didn’t beam us aboard, we had to walk up the steps and push the door open. Thankfully, this procedure did not need the use of a Heisenberg compensator. There’s a reason why most of these photos aren’t in the exhibition hall. Taking of pictures are not allowed inside. We’ve never been to the science centre before, and we’ve discovered reasons to return in the future when we can. There are a lot of great interactive science exhibitions that are child-friendly. I’d bet Yaya would love to explore the science exhibits. Them’s fighting words below! Did I say photography was not allowed? I managed to sneak a couple of shots. I couldn’t pass an […]
Continue reading
Wallpaprometheus
I appear to have a new wallpaper for the Artist X 1.0 desktop. Click to expand it. It’s that ship sent by Weyland Industries. S.S. Lollipop or something. Can’t wait for the movie. I’m not saying it’s ALIEN, but it’s ALIEN.
Continue reading