The main companion art piece for Through the Moongate, from Wing Commander and Ultima VII to Portalarium has its major drawing elements and is mostly colored in now. There are a lot of awesome Origin memories commemorated in one place here, and I love the Kilrathi and Dralthi bearing down on them all. Artist Manda has also added a thoughtful aside on how the lack of color potentially changes the image, which is an interesting concept. If you'd like to own a copy yourself, original project backers who supported the book have an option to add a cloth version of this painting for €30 by contacting author Andrea Contato.
The dragon’s breath and the clouds by the unicorn’s hoof are both a reference to a space vehicle launch. I want to remind those who have seen it, to recall what it sounds like. The Kilrathi’s snarl, the Guardian’s monologue game, and the star giving off a vast arching outburst of helium, are all meant to evoke tremendous noises.While I can know how my picture will appear, more or less, on the book, I can’t automatically know how it might look if used (for instance) in a book as a monochrome illustration. This comes to mind because the first time I ever saw Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, it was in a black and white book. So here is the painting almost done, and the color removed, but no other modifications whatsoever.In art, color is actually a distraction. People who are color-blind can often see through green/brown/ black camouflage on fatigues. It does not work on them. Deer have very poor color vision in those ranges, and camo actually doesn’t fool them either. In a sense, everybody else is color-blinded.
Consider this snippet of my painting. What do you see?