Moon Mining Transport

 

A hopper transport for mining on the moons of Jupiter, rare minerals are excavated from underground and above ground sites, then transported to launch areas in preparation for their journeys off world for processing. Painted in Photoshop over some simple 3d boxes.

The Thunderbolt

 

This spaceship started as a sketch for Inktober 2017, and got promoted to a rough digital painting. As always, inspired by Star Wars, Babylon 5, and all the other spaceships I grew up with in the 80s and 90s.

Premium Edition Prints Have All Been Shipped

All Premium Edition Prints from the Inc Artbook Kickstarter have now been shipped, so if you bought the Premium Edition book, expect the print to arrive shortly.

Now all that's left is to ship are the two editions of the book, both of which are projected to arrive stateside end of January, and the secret stash, which I'll deliver once the books ship. I'll post more info when we have details such as which boat the books are on and when the books clear customs and get on the truck to the amazon warehouse. Thanks again to all who purchased a book, and have a great holiday season, we'll be in touch soon!

Megastructures 9 Gas Giant Refinery

A gas giant refinery is a series of structures that would be suspended in the atmosphere of any gas giant such as Jupiter or Saturn, their purpose would be to harvest large amount of hydrogen / helium or other gases from the planet to prepare the raw elements for transportation elsewhere.

The refineries would be Aerostats held afloat by a lifting gas, and continually process atmospheric gases to collect the useful isotopes. Orbital vehicles would perform round trip visits to the refinery aerostats to pick up and then deliver the final product gases to orbit or any other destinations like nearby moons. The refineries themselves could range from 20 to 100 stories tall, depending on materials used, lifting gas and planetary wind speed.

The collected gases would be used in three ways, as the lifting gases to keep the aerostats floating, to power the refinery process, and as the final product for transport.

This scheme would work better in gas giants with relatively gentle winds, as harsh winds and storms could potentially destabilize the structures. Floating higher in the atmospheres could reduce the wind turbulence, but also limits the amount and types of gas that could be collected.

The Aerostats would likely be unmanned, but could also have a small crew for repairing the ships and helping interface with the Orbital vehicles, or have a small contingent of robots to achieve the same tasks.

Premium Edition Prints And Shipping Update

First the good news, the premium edition prints are printed and ready to ship (see picture below). Rather than them coming physically with the premium edition book, they'll be shipped separately in sturdy corrugated cardboard boxes to ensure no damage, so expect them to start arriving in the coming week.

Now the bad news, we have been informed by our printer that the books will not arrive before Christmas. We had hoped for a Christmas release, but always in the back of our mind knew it may not work out due to the high volume of shipped goods that happens during the holiday time. And sure enough, we have been informed that the shipping company to move 1000 books from Asia to the US is running behind schedule, and the port that receives and processes the books before they are put on a truck for transport to the US warehouse are showing massive delays. Turns out a lot of people want their stuff shipped at the holiday time, and so the system is jammed. Anyways, we've been given an expected date of end of January, first week of February.

Sorry to anyone who wanted to give the book as a Christmas gift, and we hope you understand. Any questions, feel free to send them our way, but otherwise, thank you for your patience, you are still gonna get a high quality book in the really near future. Thanks again for all the support, can't wait to share the final book with you all!

Proof #2 Is Approved

Great News! Proof #2 of the Inc book has arrived, it looks fantastic, and we've given the printer permission to start the printing process. So we're in the cue to have all 1000 books printed! Will update you when the printing is done and the books are ready to ship to our warehouse. In the meantime, for our American followers, have a great thanksgiving. Attached are 3 photos, a wedge test from proof 2, a test print of the premium edition gold foil cover, and the bumper boxes all of the books will ship in to protect them on your journey to you.

Incredibles 2 Teaser out

Here's a taste of what I've been working on for the last year and a half

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJDMWVZta3M

Futuristic Car

Another rough painting based on an Inktober 2017 pen sketch, this is my take on a futuristic car. These cars certainly aren't for offroad, but instead would be part of a large future city traffic system, piloted by automated ai's, driving on low friction surfaces to allow for low energy usage and high speed.

All Print Packages Have Shipped

All Print Packages have been shipped to their kickstarter backers. Premium Edition Prints are next!

Swirling Sands Fine Arts Prints Have Shipped

All Swirling Sands fine arts prints have been shipped to their kickstarter backers. We have a few extra, so if you're interested in purchasing one via paypal, let me know!

The Hornet

This year was my first Inktober, and decided to mostly focus on vehicles. This was my most popular drawing, so I did a rough painting of the ship. Included are a couple of different variations, regular, model sheet, and comic book.

Rough Painting

Art Pen And Prismacolor Marker on Copy Paper

Model Sheet

3D Sketch

Rough Painting punched up a bit to give it more of a comic book feel

Digital Art Live Interview

Digital Art Live Online Magazine was nice enough to do an interview with me about my artwork, especially the Megastructure series I've been working on. You can check it out here:

https://issuu.com/tosk/docs/digital_art_live_issue_23

Thanks guys!

The Inc T-shirts Have Arrived!

Shipping to you soon...

Art Of Soulburn finally has an Instagram Account

I've finally set up an Instagram account for my artwork. Expect a lot of new stuff, some old classics, and a few exclusive pieces now and again. So if you enjoy getting your artwork through Instagram, give me a follow!

http://www.instagram.com/artofsoulburn/

New Video by Gleb Alexandrov on Composition Theory

Artist Gleb Alexandrov did a talk at the Blender Conference 2017 that features my tutorial on Primary, Secondary and Tertiary shapes. He does a great job explaining the theory and provides lots of great concrete examples on the subject. Highly recommended viewing, thanks Gleb for finding inspiration in my tutorial and bring it to the next level.

See the whole talk here (including slides):

http://www.creativeshrimp.com/the-secret-of-high-quality-art.html

And my original tutorial is here for the curious:

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_education/primary_secondary_and_tertiary_shapes/primary_secondary_and_tertiary_shapes.htm

Ship Jumper Starship Hallway 2

Took some of the geometry from my last test, rearranged it into a different looking hallway, then did extensive 2d matte painting overtop to add a little more variety.

SoulburnScripts Updated Oct 16th 2017

Updated 7 older Maxscripts:

bitmapCollector: Added vray bitmap support.
curvatureMaker: All of the maxscript names have been changed for the Data Modifier in max 2018, so added some code to make the script compatible.
curvatureManager: All of the maxscript names have been changed for the Data Modifier in max 2018, so added some code to make the script compatible.
blendedBoxMapMaker: Fixed some UI that wasn't disabling properly.
blendedCubeProjectionMaker: Fixed some UI that wasn't disabling properly.
cameraMapTemplateRenderer: Added better error handling.
sLib: Added sLibGetMultitilesFromMaps.

http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/scripts/3dsmax/soulburnscripts.htm

Thanks to everyone for your support.

Inc Going Home

"At first, the planet seemed to move toward me rather slowly, but once I got close, it seemed to race at me at a startling rate. Clouds zipped past me, then mountains. I even clipped the peaks of ancient, towering coral."

The First Proofs Have Arrived

Our Printer, Mark from On The Mark printing http://www.onthemark.net/ has sent us the first proofs of the book. A proof is a test of what the final printing will look like before they pull the lever on printing all 1000 final copies. Overall, I'm really impressed with the quality, they're attention to detail has been really high, and the results are going to be awesome. Here's a little preview...

First, some of the pages...

Next, they sent a blank copy of the book itself to give an idea on how large and thick the book will be, as well as the binding details...

Here's the material for the premium edition...

And the test book open. I promise, the book you'll get will have stuff inside :)

On to the second proof, and then the final printing stage!

Inc Oasis Wall 3

I just can't stop painting images of Inc and Landis outside of the walls of the Oasis. Seems that the wall gets more massive every time I paint it :)

 

 

Megastructures 8 Bernal Sphere

The original Bernal Sphere (proposed by John Desmond Bernal in 1929) is a space colony that would serve as a residential area for a space manufacturing plant. The residents would be found within the spherical portion of the hollow orbiting space station. The outside of the shell would be dense enough to shield the people from cosmic rays and other sources of radiation. The inner sphere rotates to provide gravity via centrifugal force, with dwellings built on the inside surface. The poles of the sphere would have far less gravity than the equator, and hence would be the location of spaceship docking ports and zero gravity manufacturing. Recreational activities such as low-gravity swimming could also be held in this area. Farms could be placed in stacked rings on the outside of the sphere, or could be scattered in with the residential areas as part of a mixed-use development program.

Smash Jet

A near-future jet design for a short film project code named “Smash” that my wife is doing.

Spider Walker 2 Rough

A more detailed painting based on the most popular of my spider walker thumbnails, several people mentioned it looked very “Star Wars”, maybe that's why it won. As voted on Facebook, Twitter and Artstation.

Spider Walker 8 Rough

A more detailed painting based on the third most popular of my spider walker thumbnails, third place was actually a tie so I picked my favorite of the two winners. As voted on Facebook, Twitter and Artstation.

Heart Of The Giant Hermes Space Tug

Now that Inc is done, I'll give you a small peak at some other ideas I have sloshing around. Here's a bunch of thumbnail designs for a space tug. Used tug boats, balloons and blimps as reference.

The Inc Kickstarter Is Done

It's now official, The Inc Kickstarter has funded at 114% of our goal. Thanks to everyone for all your hard work, now begins our hard work getting the book and other rewards ready. If you purchased a reward, you'll receive regular updates from kickstarter on where we are in the process and when the books/rewards will ship.

In the meantime, this blog page will go back to its original mission, giving you news about new artwork, educational materials and tools. So if you want to follow the Inc stuff, please follow the Inc facebook page, as those updates will no longer be posted here.

https://www.facebook.com/thestoryofinc

Story of Inc Kickstarter Ends In 24 Hours

Today's the day, last day before "The Story of Inc" Kickstarter ends. It's been a wild ride, and we thank everyone for participating. It's almost certain we're going to stay funded (baring some crazy calamity), so now the last day isn't about rushing to reach some monetary goal, the last day is about you and the book. We have worked hard to make the best book we know how. Something with a compelling story and great artwork. And we want as many people as possible to enjoy it.

So if you're still on the fence, consider one final time getting a copy of the book. If you love scifi stories. If you love robots and stark alien landscapes. Aliens and giant alien monolithic starships. And if you want a strong emotional story about a true odd couple that are both trying to find meaning in a crazy world. The book is $20 + shipping, and should be in your hands right before the Christmas holidays. We hope you'll join us on our final day, and again, thanks for watching, pledging and/or sharing this project.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1464795223/the-story-of-inc-narrative-artbook

Inc Citadel On The Horizon Silhouette Sketch

Simple sketches exploring various angles of the citadel.

Chapter 1 Of "The Story Of Inc"

Since we have reached our 100% goal, as promised, Chapter 1 of "The Story Of Inc". This is low res, 100dpi, jpg compressed, so expect the final book version to be cleaner and crisper, but this should give you a sneak peak on the direction of the story and the overall book formatting.

Thanks again to everyone who has contributed and allowed us to reach our goal, we're already half way to our first stretch goal, let's see if we can make it there (and beyond) before Tuesday Morning's closing!

http://www.neilblevins.com/books/thestoryofinc_100dpi_chapt1_kickstarter.pdf

We Are 100% Funded!!

At approx 5:30 am PST on Sept 15th 2017, "The Story Of Inc" Kickstarter reached its goal of $10,000! Thank you so much to everyone who pledged, to everyone who posted about the book on their social media pages, we are super excited, and can't wait to get the book to everyone!

But we're not done yet!

"What do you mean?" you ask. Well, first off, we have 4 more days of the campaign. And there's always a few people who cancel their orders at the end of the campaign. Which means, it is actually possible to fund, and then unfund at the last minute. So lets keep going and give ourselves a healthy margin above the funding goal to make sure there's no last minute shenanigans!

Also, we have stretch goals. So if we reach $11,000 (another thousand), we will release a super highres monitor wallpaper for people to enjoy. I mean at least 3000 pixels across high res. So if you want to see some of the artwork really close up, or adorn your computer with some Inc art, let's keep pushing for a tiny bit longer!

As promised, I will release the first chapter of the book in lowres pdf form first thing tomorrow morning, so stay tuned for that.

A big thanks again to everyone, after 4 years of work, its great to see that this will almost certainly end on a high note. You're the best!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1464795223/the-story-of-inc-narrative-artbook/

Inc God Robot 2

The Citadel was protected by the Guardians, massive compared to a human, which the ancients considered to be minor deities sent by the Great God to guard their water supply. They were feared and worshiped by the Citadel Monks of The Oasis. The second guardian, a good bit bigger and bulkier than the first, as well as having an energy shield, it's whip tail can obliterate enemies both big and small.