super image.. Mars my favo planet next to Earth Followed by the planet-moons Enceladus, Titan, Europa, Io and Triton Wondering what Pluto will be like super image as I wrote what a view.. the ship might be as big as one of the 2 Mars Moons (Deimos)

Great image! The Mars mat is definitely a great find. The ship looks great! I see the radiators got bigger... Excellent work!

Great model and scene!!

Mars seems to be a favourite subject lately,and this Mars mat is amazing...very cool ship design and overall scene!

Wow, every time you post something it takes my breath away. This is so cool, the ship is awe-inspiring and gorgeous. You're right, that Mars material is fantastic! Lovely work!

Great planetscape, and fantastic highly-technical spacecraft :)

This is very good lighting and camera lens use. I think we both use the same background plugin "Glitterato?" for our scenes. But your lighting is better than mine.

Absolutely beautiful work David, modeling is superb and that Mario Rossi Mars texture is excellent -- is that the flat texture or the one you need a script to run? Do you know where I can find it? Last I heard (Shatters.net forum) he was out of touch -- I've exchanged e-mails with Guillermo Abramson regarding his amazing textures,and in fact have a zip archive of his Celestia scripts he was kind enough to send me -- I am a bit "experience-lite" though in running scripts in Celestia and to be honest I'm a little leery of messing around with them. All around excellent work my friend!

After Zooming I came to the conclusion that the details on the USS Shenandoah are Unbeleivable!!...Superb Modeling/Scene!!..

Looks fantastic David! :)

Wondeful render but the vessel is a little soft maybe? as though out of focus slightly

Great work as usual. Nice Tribute and sorry for the loss.

Apple UK the soft focus was intentional, I always get comments about everything in my pictures being so crisp, so I decided that I would try something new. Well I just may go back to how I have always created my images. Thanks for your comment. Cheers, David

Fantastic scene and dedi. Corrie

Stunning work - very, very well done.

Hey! You can see my hab from up there! Great image as always!

Excellent work!!!!

superb, as allways, my friend!! btw, the "water" on my venus image is fluid lead ;o)

Nice work, cool to see your still at it with bryce and you on going mars project

Superb Mars, but I have to agree with Apple_UK above; the ship should be very crisp and clear but it seems a bit blurry or as she said, "soft."

keir 99, did you read my comment about what Apple_UK said, I said that it was intentional! I do not know how I can make this any clearer!!! Yes, it is soft, that was my intention!!!

can't wait for the resulting images in series to be set forth... damn fine piece of work.... brings tears to the eyes..

It's images like this that always draw me to this kind of artwork...it's dramatic, well rendered, and in ways that invites intense observation. Great work man ! Regards , Michael.

tremendous image and a touching tribute to a fellow artist

Let those without understanding critisize, hmmm, i dont bitch but lets see who else can produce these images and remember there is never a mistake with David, he gives you exactly what he see's and designs, not many out there who can accurately percieve the universe in all its glory, making relative sized and distanced moons and then trying to light the whole thing with the only light source he ever uses, the sun dial in Bryce, im not trying to be a smartass or nasty, but as many modellers have always stated, people dont understand what goes into making a model, they are happy with a badly posed poser character or some animal parked awkwardly under a non believable sky and it they who get the Ohhh lovely, beautiful or amazing work anyone can throw stuff into Bryce, not many can create a world that is this complex...ok im of my soap box now, time to get pelted with rotten fruit!, Steve ;)

First off, I hav to say that this is a stunning tribute! And in terms of any "softness" or "fuzz" I have to say that, frankly, I didn't notice it--or more to the point, it wasn't noticeable to the point of being a distraction: you more than compensate for that by the skill you've already displayed in just putting this scene together. Mars looks like Mars and not some digital ball with a Mars paint job, the stars in the background are nicely washed out (only the very brightest ones show, and even they're dim) and the ship itself is a beauty! I'm looking for as many "glamor shots" of this baby as I can lay my eyes on. As for myself, I go in three general directions in terms of science fictional art: rather like the genre itself, there's the "hard" science fiction, and then there is the "mid-grade" as I call it, and then there's the "squishy soft stuff" that is actually fantasy in science fiction drag. This is top notch hard science fiction, and all it needs is a soundtrack featuring Gyorgi Legetti compositions, or better yet, Arvo Part. I bring this up because this image reminds me a lot of Arvo Part's music, especially from his "silent" period. He used silence in music as much as sound, and I get the impression with this image that you're using the hard vacuum of interplanetary space as much as you're using Mars, a ship, and an off-camera sun. Brilliant. That "vacuum feeling" is pretty frikkin' hard to capture in a way that doesn't come across as either badly done, or un-aesthetically cold. I mean, there's accurate and then there's anal retentive...you do an amazingly good job of avoiding the anal-retentiveness factor that defines far too much of "hard" science fiction, and that's a matter of audience awareness. I can't say that anyone can do a scene like this, but there are lots of people out there who do scenes like this without ever putting anything in it that the audience can relate to. It's not like anyone has to go out of their way and adulterate accuracy; they just need to do what you did and quite simply convey a sense of wonder; if not from the fictional crew of that ship, then at least from the artist actually being human enough to say (with a piece of art) "hey, space (or science or hardware) is cooler than you think!" You do that here, and it really comes across well. In short, what you've done is nothing short of fantastic. This kind of stuff is what first drew me into the field of Science Fiction in the first place (yeah, okay and Carl Sagan's book/PBS series Cosmos, and Lieutenant Uhura in that red miniskirt and space-babe boots...but anyway, I digress.) This is marvelous work and I look forward to seeing more. Please, feel free to do as many of these as you like.