This page contains a gallery of original pictures. Typically, these images have something to do with aerospace technology (real and imagined) and space, but there are other things here too. I included both things that were finished and things that could stand to use more work if I thought they were still somehow interesting enough to display.
A variety of high (and sometimes low)-end hardware and software tools were implemented in the creation of these images.
If you are interested in commissioning similar original artwork for your own purposes, contact me using this contact link. Still and video graphics are available, as well as sound and music (all original, if desired).
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This is this site's mascot ship, Conductus. The version shown here is a 3D digital creation, but it is a replica of an original cardboard model, with LED's for lights (which look pretty cool when they're on), which was photographed for this site's homepage image. The picture of the earth is real, borrowed from NASA (thanks, government--I really have a tough time making it out to space myself for such images). The main control panel, in the third image, is a splice of images of Space Shuttle and 737 cockpit components. The last image is a bizarre rendering of the digital model using some texture that reminds me of rock candy or colored glass. The scenery behind it was created in the same program.
The ship isn't very complex, but the digital version did take months to create, whereas the cardboard model just took a few days, but I did add more stuff to the inside of the digital version--various rooms, not shown here. Nevertheless, in the Movies page of this Web site (see link at the top or bottom of this page) is a small movie featuring this ship, both on the outside and the inside. The movie is about a minute and a half long, complete with original sound and music.
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These two rockets are the same one, just on different planets. The ground scenery is actual textures from earth and Mars images, applied to digital 3D flat-plane models of the ground, and, in the case of the Mars scene, to a digital 3D model of a mountain (see it way back there?).
The rocket was my first attempt to create a spacecraft using 3D software, so it's somewhat simple, but it proved to me the possibility. It even flies, in four little movies. Go to the Movies page of this Web site (link is at the top or bottom of this page) to see the movies.
Saturn V
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Transport Class Spaceship
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The Saturn V is a digital 3D replica of the real thing, the rocket that took people to the moon back in the late 1960's and early 1970's. This one was originally made on commission for a model rocket company, that makes miniature flying rockets for hobbiests. I used actual Saturn V measurements to make this rocket, which I got from a variety of Internet sources. Time and budget constraints didn't permit every little detail that the real thing has, but I think enough of the important ones went into this copy to make a nice replica. See a short movie of it on the Movies page (link at top and bottom of this page).
The right picture features a fantasy spaceship. This is not a 3D image, having been made in a 2D illustration program. It was an experiment to see what the program and I were capable of, spaceship-wise. It is supposed to somewhat remind you of an ocean-going ship, since it has what resembles an ocean-ship hull. the ship is also supposed to be miles long. Ironically, I used a 3D program to make a simple version of the main ship to help with some perspective problems I was having in drawing it in the 2D program. The round artificial object in the upper left of the picture is also a 2D illustration. The starry background is a real picture of the sky from a digital camera, a picture I took myself. The moon picture was also taken by me, crudely aiming a camera through a pair of low-power binoculars. It took using a makeshift stand to hold the camera steady and in position, while a camera stand held the binoculars. That planet at the lower left, featured a little lower on this page by itself, was created in a 3D scenery program, and it was post-processed in a photo program to give it the same angle of shadow the moon image naturally has.
Paper-Roll Spaceship
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Tool-Package Spaceship
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The pictures here are not computer graphics, like the other spaceship pictures are. These pictures feature real physical models. Astonishing, isn't it?
They aren't finished, as you can see, and they may never be (though I may decide to finish them anyway). They are revised as time allows and inspiration hits. The purpose of making the models is mainly to come up with spaceship ideas. That's one reason they aren't finished: they can be added to, and changed, indefinitely.
Materials used to make these particular vehicles: paper, cardboard, wood, plastic, glue, rulers, and a modeling knife. The idea is to use whatever materials are available for the purpose. The left model uses paper-towel and put-on-my-face-room (my own euphemistic phrase) as the main structural components. They, of course, dictate cylindrical features being prominent. The right model uses a plastic-package covering from a tool. A balsa-wood base was made to match the tool covering, which is above it. In the case of this model, the packaging dictates the fuselage form. Wings and engines are made from balsa. Each ship contains bits and pieces of wood, paper, and cardboard to make it look detailed. Sometimes the detail is placed arbitrarily. Sometimes the detail must be matched on the other side, for symmetry.
I have found that making models this way is indeed inspirational. I can conjur spaceship ideas better than I used to be able to do, as a result. What to apply these ideas to? Well, I make CG (computer graphics) models, ultimately. These are the final product because they can be easily used in movies, short or long. Physical models could be used too, but they are more difficult to use in movies, especially for a bench-top/desk-top movie maker like myself, since they would require expensive hardware, blue screens, and such to video. CG models are relatively easy to manipulate as you wish. Creating spaceships from scratch is indeed possible in CG. Some of my spaceships are only CG. I think one should create any way and every way they wish. I don't think this applies to the finished product, though. What it is depends on your purpose. Since I make movies, I like to make CG models as the final product. A display model would, of course, need to be physical, though it could be designed using CG (or not).
By the way, the mascot ship of this Web site (shown on the front page) was originally a finished physical model. I came up with it before I had CG software. I made a CG version of it too (see up higher in the Spaceship Conductus section). The physical model appears on the front page, and the CG model appears in the pictures at the top and in a movie.
I didn't always make spaceship models. When I was a kid, (and also after I grew up) I made model airplanes and rockets from kits, but these were nearly always the flying kind. Yet, the experience I gained helps in making these spaceships. Since we are a product of our experiences, the things we do tend to reflect those experiences. You can probably see the flying-model roots in the materials of my spaceships. Their appearance in form is certainly inspired by all the space fantasy and science fiction movies I have seen. Who knows what real spaceships of the future will look like?
Alien Scenery
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Space Station
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Star Trek-ish Ship
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These images are pencil sketches. The first and last are clearly fantasy, but the middle one is supposed to remind one of a real space station, but it is not a replica of any space station that does or ever did actually exist.
The store has aircraft products too. Just click the banner heading to see a link to them.
Proteus
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Red Biplane Painting
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Early Plane with
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Mechanical Bird
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The Proteus image was done in a 2D illustration program, and it is a trace of a photograph of the actual Proteus, built by Scaled Composites, Inc.
I was experimenting with water colors when I created this biplane painting. I included it here because it is complete enough and I like the ways the colors go together in this scan. No, I don't know where the pilot is, and I don't remember consciously leaving the pilot out. I have flown model airplanes, and they don't often include a model pilot, so that may be the reason the painting doesn't have one.
The black-and-white aircraft is arguably the first to fly (it is the Wright Flyer on its very first flight) in a controlled and sustained manner. The jet engines (put in with a photo program), aren't really the first jet engines ever, though. They aren't even the first to make a plane fly. They are among the first, though, the first to propel a jet-fighter aircraft, the German Me 262, which the Germans used at the end of World War 2. I got the jet-engine images from a picture of one of these.
The mechanical bird and robot are CG (computer graphics) models, done in software. (Yes, the robot doesn't technically belong here, but here it is anyway.) They are prototypes of models I want to perfect a little more. The robot looks amazingly like an actual robot I saw once in a news picture (though I didn't know about it at the time). This was coincidence, which is likely, since they are both simple and minimalist--just enough to get the job done. There are two movies featuring the bird and the robot on this site. Wanna see? Huh? Okay, here's the link: Various Movies.
You probably noticed how nicely the ads go with my pictures. I like to choose ads with the themes of my pages, so that they are more than just ads, but a part of the design. I'm a model airplane enthusiast too. I recommend that you try the wonderful experience of flying model airplanes if you haven't already, but do try to learn with an instructor, even if the kit is for a beginner, or you might experience sorrow (and safety first: always mind spectators--never learn when they're around, and avoid them at all other times, and get model airplane insurance from the AMA). You can buy the planes through a local hobby shop or get them online through these ads or other places. I personally prefer going to a local hobby shop if I can, so I can talk with the guys there and such, but if that's not really an option for you (maybe you live far, far away from one), here are some ads. You don't necessarily have to just consider the plane you click on either. Other ones come up after clicking. Oh, yes, consider getting some model flight-simulator software for training too. The stuff from Great Planes (I think) is excellent. You can probably find the plane you bought in it, and learn to fly it in the software. Of course, this is all money money money, so consider your budget.
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The first image is a pencil sketch from one of my sketch books. It's an attempt at surrealism. I was trying to put scenes on objects at unrealistic relative scales.
The second image is a digital painting done in a photo program. It is an attempt to create an earth-like planet. This is one of the things I would really like to do a little more to, but I thought it was complete enough to display for now.
The third image is also a digital painting done in a photo program. Yes, you can paint in the program, using swatches probably originally intended for just touching up photographs.
That last image, of a planet with a gaping hole, was created in a 3D program. It's one of many planets I have created with the program. Many of those planets are featured in a 5-minute musical video I have posted here titled Megacosmic Voyage. It is posted in the Movies section of this Web site. See link at the top or bottom of this page. This planet is being used in the image here titled Transport Class Spaceship, posted a little above.
The sketch depicts some spaceships and such with lots of detail. I was inspired by the detail shown on ships in Star Wars to draw such a scene. (By the way, this sketch is still a work in progress. Someday I plan to show a better scan of it. In the interest of adding something to this page, I am displaying it a bit prematurely.)
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The first three images are of an igloo-like rock building. I made a real miniature rock igloo, small and light enough to hold in one hand, out of pebbles, which is in the first image. This igloo inspired me to create a 3D virtual version (a quick hack), which you see in the next two pictures. In the first image, the foreground is a close-up of the ground, about a foot or two above it. The physical igloo was put on it digitally. The plant is real, and much larger than the igloo in reality, and it too was put in digitally. The tree is a 3D digital (not physical) object. The aircraft is an original 3D digital model, and it is also a spacecraft, which is supposed to be enormous (see its shadow). The mountain in the background of all the images is from an original photograph of Mount Hamilton in the Santa Clara Valley, on top of which is Lick Observatory. In each image, the sky has been digitally replaced. In the first two images, the sky is simulated. In the third image, the sky is a photograph I took one morning while driving east, towards the sunrise.
There is now a short animation on this site featuring the first picture as a setting. It shows a walking robot, a flying robot, and that background ship flying along. Go to the Movies page of this Web site (link is at the top or bottom of this page) to see the movies.
This third scene (with mountains and buildings) is a creation in a digital 3D scenery program. It is not nearly as complete as I would like it to be. Maybe one day you will see this re-posted with much more detail.
That last image is a ball-point-pen sketch. (You can see, by the variation in color, where different pens were used.) It is full of detail, and the details were drawn about as small as they look in your browser after you click the thumbnail image. (You've been clicking the thumbnails, haven't you? Those small images--the thumbnails (or miniatures)--are meant to be clicked on if you want to see bigger pictures.) Yes, you can see the Star Wars influence. This image was added to a little at a time over a bunch of days.
The bottom sketch shows a hypothetical planetary scene. I mixed images (mainly, but not exclusively, from my imagination) of the earth with those of the moon and Mars, to come up with this one. I believe a geologist would say that the scene is most improbable. Yet, when you see images of Mars, you see geological features which are hard to explain there too (some controversy exists about how and when the planet's supposed water channels were carved, for instance). When I see and study up-close images of all the planets and moons in our solar system, I notice how different each one is in topography and composition. It seems that there are many possibilities, many of which I try to put in my sketches. (By the way, this sketch is still a work in progress. Someday I plan to show a better scan of it. In the interest of adding something to this page, I am displaying it a bit prematurely. Actually, many of the things here are works in progress, if I ever get back to them. I don't think I ever really finish anything. This is the hopeless situation of most anyone who creates something--you never know when to finish because you could always do something more. I will say, though, that it's sometimes a shared opinion, as to when or whether something is not finished enough.)
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This is a monster eel. No such actual creature exists. It seems to appear evil while at the same time being accessible and approachable. Right? Ha. It was made using a 3D program's vertex modeler. In other words, it was made the most tedious way imaginable, but, with the program I was using, this seems to be the best way to create a creature like this. The colors were applied with a painting program to its exported UV map (a UV map is basically an image of the polygons unwrapped into a flat picture, so that you can somewhat easily make an image on it in a 2D art program which, when the image is imported back into the modeling program, will fit the model precisely).
For you types that like to see the inworkings of things, I included a couple screen shots of the model in its un-rendered (unpainted) form. The left of those pictures is a wire-mesh view, that shows the geometry of the object when "smoothed" for rendering. The right of those pictures is the vertex-model view, showing the polygons (shapes between the red lines), lines (red), and vertices (the points at the line intersections) that I actually worked with. The model started out as an elliptical sphere (an oval ball). Many hours and days of tedious stretching got the model in the shape its in. I only made one half of the model. Then I copied a mirror image of that half and joined the halves together. The teeth started out as ovals as well. They were simply made by stretching those ovals with a magnet tool.
Here's some good news: I'm selling this model on TurboSquid. If you model or animate, and need a creature like this, go get it. I'm charging little for it. No bones (for animating) are included, but textures are included with most of the different formats offered. If you have something similar in mind to this creature for your own modeling project, this could be a good thing to start off with and modify. Or use as is. Here's the URL: http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/402200
Are you interested in commissioning similar original artwork for your own purposes? Then, let me tell you, you're at the right place. I like to create my work with a variety of methods and styles, and surely I can create something to suit you and your purposes.
Price and terms negotiable. Please click here and make your request.
All images, unless otherwise indicated on this page, are created by George Parashis.
As is true with all material on the Conductus Productions Web site, your comments are welcome. Please use this contact link for a contact form.
Conductus Productions: Pictures
Copyright © 2008 Conductus Productions
Printed on recycled paper.
To buy a bumper sticker with this snake on it, click here.
