Book Cover Illustrations

Here are several illustrations I’ve completed the last few days (and soon to go to my Premade Science Fiction Book Cover Artwork site).

The one below is a retro-rocket ship, similar to the rocket logo that often graced the spine of science fiction novels in many public libraries when I was a kid — so these retro “rocket ships” have always had a special place for me.

This retro-rocket actually started in the lower left corner of another illustration I did (below — in red and yellow).

Since I work at a higher resolution and larger size than will be needed for book covers, cropping a section of an illustration from the main picture and then altering the colors a bit makes it possible sometimes to have a secondary piece of artwork from an original.

This retro rocket design eventually made its way over to Amazing Stories. There my similar retro-rocket (in the image below) eventually was selected by Steve Davidson who is the editor of Amazing Stories for the revamped magazines’ first official T-shirt. (The T-shirt version of the picture is sans Earth and 1960s’ style space station.)

Of course it almost goes without saying that a retro science fiction collection of illustrations must include a UFO, so the third picture I completed yesterday just about had to have a flying saucer in it, right?

It is interesting that our own space flight has opened up the idea that nighttime cities can be viewed from space. Thus a picture like the one above can be recognized by most viewers as a very populated planet — something that would not likely have been the case back in the 1950s-1960s. Which is how it should be: Good science should always influence science fiction writing and artwork.

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When not drawing and painting UFOs and retro-rocketships, Duncan Long works as a writer/illustrator. You can see more of his science fiction artwork at Duncan Long’s Science Fiction Art Gallery.