Yithian Again

Update: Just could not love the head anatomy, so I revisited an older idea from sketches. Much happier!

I always intended to make this an Astounding Stories cover to honor the original.

Closeup of 'printing dots.'

I revisited an older drawing, and used Photoshop to give it more realistic textures and shading. I am pretty pleased with where it is going. Initial drawings here.

My idea for Yithian life cycle:

Yithian  Genders:

Better composition:

Old One

(Update: added some subsequent images I forgot to include)

One of the first images I did last year when i started futzing with Photoshop brushes in 2009.

Another version I did a bit later, more controlled.

Weird Brittle Star

Loboplectris

Soul Spider II

New version of old idea, from a nightmare I had.

Flying Botanical Gardens, 1900 Paris Exposition

I had this idea of an alternate universe where the tropical plants were housed in beautiful flying vivariums that were only reachable by aerial taxis (roleurs au ciel).

I found this great panorama of the 1900 Paris Exposition, so I added a lot more sky, expanded the parchment border, and started rendering the flying gardens. I used Strata 3D to model the gardens, the taxis and most of the people. I discovered it was easier to just illustrate the people, and splice them in via Photoshop later.

A happy accident: when looking at maps of the 1900 Paris Exposition, I discovered that the horticulture section is directly below in this view. How appropriate!

By the way, it's worth your time to Google the Exposition. Amazing level of technology for 1900. They had electric moving sidewalks in parts of it. There some are images here.

Source for city view

Final

Details

Pencil sketch

The Cumaean Sibyl

As envisioned by Gene Wolfe:

"As I had suspected, the Cumaean was not a woman at all; yet neither was it one of the horrors I had beheld in the gardens of the House Absolute. Something sleekly reptilian coiled about the glowing rod. I looked for the head and found none, though each of the patternings on the reptile's back was a face, and the eyes of each face seemed lost in rapture." Gene Wolfe, 'The Claw of the Conciliator'

This beautifully written description creeped me out: I just had to illustrate it.


Sketch:



Illustrator template for scales, elements. Scales were done with custom made brushes.

Cumaean's face: in human guise, Wolfe described her as a crone. The face in the reptile's patternings were not described so, but it seemed appropriate.

Final: I omitted the hood from the Cumaean Sibyl's faces — too much! I also moved the source of the rays from the glowing rod to the Sibyls' eyes.

Detail: