Chinese New Year Update And New Inc Wallpaper

Hello everyone!

So Chinese New Year is upon us, and I wish all of the wonderful people who helped print "The Story Of Inc" book a fantastic holiday. If you haven't heard of Chinese New Year, it is a huge holiday that basically shuts down the entire country for 3-4 weeks. A little reading on it here: http://www.ewmfg.com/chinese-new-year/

Anyways, the downside of the holiday is if your book isn't on the boat before the holiday starts, it will sit until the holiday ends. So you can probably see where this post is going. The books haven't left the port yet, and so they won't until the holiday ends in about 3 weeks. It's my fault for not scheduling the book printing earlier, and asking for a final tweak to the premium edition, so I apologize to everyone, I have sure learned a lot and will take all of that new knowledge with me into future projects.

In the meantime, I am uploading a new Inc wallpaper for your computer as a thank you for being patient!

http://www.neilblevins.com/books/inc/Inc_Kickstarter_Wallpaper_2.zip
The zip file contains 4 wallpapers: 2560x1600, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 1600x1200

I will inform you once the book is on the boat and has left the port, and will inform you again once they arrive at the stateside amazon warehouse and start shipping to you! Thank you all!

Spider Walker Robot 6

The Spider Walker MK 6, affectionately known as "The Pup", was a Mars military tracker robot. Its head carried sensors of every sort, from telescopic cameras to radar to infrared sensors to footfall detection. It's job was to pursue its target, pinpoint their exact location, then call in a strike team to capture or kill. It also contained a self destruct mode if the strike team couldn't arrive in time, and there was danger of the target escaping. While its large head was excellent for holding all of the tracking equipment, it was also one of its major design flaws, since it made the robot somewhat unbalanced, and a strong blow to the head could lead to it tipping over. Spindly legs allowed it to move fast over a variety of terrain, but didn't help the balance problems.

Inc Advance Copy Has Arrived!

Happy new year everyone!

The printer has sent me an advance copy of the Standard Edition of "The Story Of Inc" book, and I'm really happy with the results. See a couple of pictures below. The blacks are black, the colors are vibrant, the binding looks solid, overall I think the printing company did great, and I'm sure you'll agree once your copy arrives.

All the rest of the Standard Edition books (including all the copies for the kickstarter folk) are currently waiting to be put on the boat for their cross Pacific trip to the Amazon warehouse (I had heard they were already on the boat, but now I have the official word that they are just ready for shipment).

What about the Premium Edition you say? Almost there, the cover needs a little more time to cook, but once it's ready they'll be heading across the pond as well.

I'll give you more updates when I have them, thank you so much for believing in this project and being patient. I so wish shipping several tons of books across the globe was a faster affair, but sadly, it still takes longer than we'd all like. They're coming!

Thusolan Teardrop Craft

The Thusolans are a species of intelligent liquid dwelling lifeforms, each creature is almost microscopic, but together they form hive minds capable of incredible computational power and limited telepathy. Their spacecraft are basically giant bottles of liquid, each filled with enough Thusolans to form a local hive, these teardrop craft traverse the galaxy in search of raw materials for their interstellar projects.

Heart Of The Giant: Ganymede Freighter Aphelion 1

Ganymede Freighter Aphelion is a transport ship that hauls raw materials between installations on the moons of Jupiter. In the future, mining crews melt giant sink holes in Ganymede's icy crust down to the salt water oceans below, a little like ice fishing in the arctic. The ocean is used as a source of propellant for deep space exploration ships. Freighter Aphelion travels between the moons in space, and then lands on the Ganymede Ocean where it converts to an amphibious vehicle, glides along the water to the port, and receives its cargo. Inspired by Star Wars ships, submarines and tug boats, after an initial sketch, this image was painted digitally over a few simple 3d blocks.

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!