 |
| Click to embiggen |
Every time I sit down to draw one of these I usually Google the ship and skim over the images that pop up. This gives me a fresh look at what the ship looks like, how other people have positioned it, and starts to give me an idea of what I want to accomplish. I give a tremendous amount of thought to each ship and what I feel will present each of them in the best light. But these are not solely intended to be works of beauty, the over-riding goal is always personality first.
Looking back over the sixty-two pieces already completed I believe I've done a good job in capturing what I started out to capture. There are only a couple of the early pieces I'd probably like to revisit at some point. I thought there would be more. Any project like this evolves and changes as it progresses. The process gets better, I get better at doing them, and my eye continues to improve. At least I hope so.
Certainly the illustration process is what takes the most time and effort, but the design is the thing. Design is where the magic happens. I strive to design each piece individually and without regard to the others that have come before. Each ship gets the same amount of consideration when it comes to color, positioning, lighting, and everything else that goes into making each piece unique. And again, all of that is about expressing the unique personality that each ship brings with it.
This series is beginning to feel like the culmination of my six years in Eve. "Celebration" might be a better word for it. Eve has always been about the ships for me, and I suspect for a lot of you. We spend hours and hours in them, use them, fight in them, explode them, build them, transport them, and share adventures in them. They are the objects of all our desires, our fears, our goals, and our being inside of Eve.
They are, each one, beautiful in their own right.