SCIENCE FICTION ARTIST IN-DEPTH INTERVIEWS

DigitalArtLIVE.com

ELON

ELON MUSK

DARYA GIRINA

LUCA OLEASTRI ISSUE 54 | DECEMBER 2020

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2
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3
We now have a monthly ‘little sister’ title for makers of comics:VisNews.
This is part of our new Visual Narratives Academy for comics makers.

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6
 Front Cover:
Detail from “Blender
Sci-fi” by Brawnyink,
made after a YouTube
tutorial on the style by
Ducky 3D. Made in
Blender.
First cover inset with
thanks to SpaceX. Elon
mini-picture (below)
with thanks to Dan
Taylor Heisenberg.
THE ‘ELON’ ISSUE

CONTENTS
OUR LIVE
WEBINARS!
―― 02

VISNEWS
―― 04

EDITORIAL
―― 09

THE NASA
MARS
INTERVIEWS
HABITAT
CHALLENGE ―― 10 ―― 16 ―― 54

―― 26 ELON MUSK DARYA GIRINA LUCA OLEASTRI

BACK ISSUE We present a short Darya is a digital sculptor, Luca is an Italian sci-fi
INDEX interview with the man and she talks with us artist in the Chris Foss and
himself, discussing space about how she crafted a Syd Mead tradition, using
―― 38 aesthetics, the future of fine and detailed new 3D to make impressive
Mars, and much more. sculpt of Elon Musk. book covers.
CONTESTS
PIONEER | VISIONARY ZBRUSH | MARVELOUS POSER | BRYCE
―― 42
“… if you optimize for “I spent a long time “For many years I made
ULISES aesthetics it… doesn’t working on the Elon physical models and
SIRICZMAN work … how do we make sculpture. ... constantly dioramas of the things I
something that looks cool coming back to and imagined — but over time
―― 46
and works, and with a key clarifying something. ... I this form of creativity
GALLERY goal here of... when wanted to express a lot in seemed limited. When I
people see that spacesuit his face and figure... found 3D graphics, finally,
―― 66 precisely because the I could materialize all the
you want them to think
IMAGINARIUM ‘Yeah, I want to wear that personality of Elon Musk is spaceships, aliens, tech
thing one day. Yeah, that comprehensive and and worlds I wanted and
―― 78 looks awesome!’” multifaceted.”
7 let others enjoy them.”
 MAGAZINE PODCAST
Join our mailing list to get a free Our audio inspiration for sci-fi
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Subscribe at digitalartlivecom Subscribe to the Podcast feed

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digitalartlive.com

Credits for pictures, from top left: Detail from “Land Ahoy” by Dadrian; NASA report background design;
anonymous concept art, NASA Dryden Flight Research Centre — concept for a Morphing Airplane (2001).

Paul Bussey Dave Haden

Editor-in-Chief, Conferences Editor and magazine layout
paul@digitalartlive.com david@digitalartlive.com

Please support Dave

at Patreon.

Copyright © 2020 Digital Art LIVE. Published in the United Kingdom. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of
the publisher. No copyright claim is made by the publisher regarding any artwork or writing made by those featured in this magazine.

8
 EDITOR’S LETTER

WELCOME...
“
Welcome to the latest issue of our free Could you get an advanced quick-brew kettle
magazine. This issue is a special tribute that boils in just one minute instead of four, or
to a special man, Elon Musk. He too is even have a stock of cans in a mini-fridge
an artist of a kind, a visionary who paints on a located right by your desk? Congratulations,
grand scale — his brushes are minds, machines, you found yourself an extra six hours a week!
money and... a touch of well-earned Want another ten hours per week on top of
showmanship. His artistic canvas stretches that? Throw your TV in the nearest dumpster.
from deep tunnels to deep space, from the
If your goals are complex, complex as in “how
human mind to A.I. On this immense canvas
do we get humanity living and thriving on
his vision is every day being made real, and is
Mars”, you need access to very smart minds.
reaching further into the future — giving hope
While making digital art isn’t quite that kind of
to young talent and restoring a gleam to the
rocket science, it is still highly technical for the
eyes of those who recall the Space Race of the
most part and you thus need to find the best
1960s and early 70s. What can digital artists
support — which for artists means software,
learn from Elon Musk? Many words have been
tutorials, coaching, webinars, news and insight.
run on such matters, but usually for business
leaders. Yet some of these approaches transfer Your ultimate goal may be to make an
to artists, and could be stated as follows... animation, a graphic novel, an artbook, a card
set, a live VR performance, a point-and-click
Learn as much as you can about your field of
game, to make a superb portfolio, or even to
work. Keep pace with it, and even learn how to
get into 3D content creation. In which case
anticipate it, to the extent that you are “out in
work out a road-map of small but effective
front” and become the expert on at least a part
steps to get you there, and the milestones that
of your field. In digital art tools that could
might keep you motivated. These should be
something as simple as being the expert on how
real milestones that involve you having
to create and render 3D fur, or as ambitious as
improved skills and your creations, not vapid
making a marvellous rendering plugin such as
prize-winning at ‘award ceremonies’. Such a
Reality. In workflows, it could be doggedly
workplan and pace doesn’t mean ‘no fun’,
discovering the best ways to have 3D emulate
because in our field learning and fun can and
comic art, or pioneering a new form of digital
should go together. Elon, we can be fairly
interactivity. Share your work and ideas
sure, is having a whole lot of fun. But why
generously, with people who can carry them
hear it from me? Turn the page, for a short
forward, as Elon did with the Hyperloop.
interview with the man himself.
Find time to work harder and more consistently.
Time can be found. For instance, if each time DAVID HADEN
you leave your desk to make a drink it takes Editor of Digital Art Live magazine
ten minutes to get back, and you do that ten david@digitalartlive.com
times a day, that’s an hour and a half gone.

FACEBOOK: www.facebook.com/3DArtDirect RSS: https://digitalartlive.com/feed/

9
We’re pleased to present a short interview with Elon Musk,
discussing new industries in space, the space station, space
aesthetics, the settlement of Mars by hardy pioneers, and
the grit it takes to personally keep moving foward.

DAL: Elon, welcome, thanks so much for your That’s the sort of thing that that needs to
time. Time is short, so straight to the first happen for humanity to have a great future in
question. Why SpaceX and where is it going? space. So we want to keep pushing what I
think it likely key to that future — which is
EM: I think that a future where we’re a space-
reusability. The real key to opening up space
faring civilization, and a multi-planet species,
is rapid and complete reusability — or near
is a very exciting, inspiring, awesome future.
complete reusability. Like we have with our
And in order for that to happen we’ve got to
aircraft or cars, or almost any form of
dramatically improve the cost of spaceflight
transport. But it’s super hard with space,
and that’s why SpaceX exists. The overarching
because we’re developing on a planet with
goal of SpaceX is to try to advance the state
pretty high gravity. It’d be pretty easy on
of space transport — advanced space
Mars, but Earth’s gravity is really pretty high
transport — technology, to the point where we
and we got the atmosphere and that’s tough
get it as far along the path as we can do. To
— you’re going through vacuum, hypersonic,
where space travel is a hopefully
supersonic, transonic, subsonic… that’s just a
commonplace, at some point in the future,
lot of regimes for any sort of flying object to
and where we can send large numbers of
go through.
people and cargo to other planets. 10
 ELON MUSK

USA

PIONEER |
VISIONARY

WEB

Picture: “SpaceX
Starship passing the
Moon” (2018), with
thanks to Wikimedia
and SpaceX. Our thanks
for facilitating the
interview to NASA’s Kirk
Shireman and Mike
Suffradini, and to the
Center for the
Advancement of Science
in Space (CASIS).
CASIS is mandatated by
the U.S. Congress and
operates from NASA’s
Kennedy Space Center
with NASA funding,
oversight and control.

But I mean it’s kind of like just any mode of
transport — there’s a ‘before’. Before there
was the Union Pacific [railroad] across the U.S.
to California, people thought building the Union
Pacific was just crazy. Because you know like…
“nobody’s here, so why are we pulling a
railroad to nowhere?” Now California is the
most populous state in the country. If SpaceX
and other companies can lower the cost of
transport to orbit, and perhaps beyond, then
there’s a lot of potential for entrepreneurship at
the destination. Before there was the railway it
was real hard to have commerce between the
West Coast and the East Coast. They’d go by
wagon [over the Great Plains] or on a really
long sailing journey, but once there was the
transport then they were opportunities.
Now look at all the industries that have been
created in Silicon Valley, in Hollywood, but
you’ve got to have that fundamental transport
element. So we’re trying to establish that
transport element, make it easier to get to low-
earth orbit and hopefully in the future make it
easier to get to the Moon or Mars. If there was
an affordable transport ship to a place like
Mars, I think the entrepreneurial opportunities
would be phenomenal. Just an enormous
amount of opportunity for people to create
things on Mars, and then it’d be different
things, some of the things would be so different
they wouldn’t even imagine them on Earth.
DAL: Science-fiction tends to assume we need
a warp-drive or anti-gravity to get to space…
11
EM: Well... I think we can get by with current
physics. Rather than rely on a breakthrough.
It’s difficult to envision what that breakthrough
would exactly be… I’m quite confident that with
what we know of current physics — where the
standard model of physics is today — that there
are dramatic improvements possible in
spaceflight.
DAL: Great. That’s encouraging. That leads me
back to my question about the technology,
which was on your use of 3D. We’re rather
interested in 3D here, and so are you… in a
different way. You’re 3D printing your giant
engines. There are significant advantages?
EM: Well, with 3D printing you can print
something that you can’t make by any other
means, so it actually ends up being lighter and
cheaper than if we built it by traditional
methods. So that actually helps us in speeding
up the development. Instead of waiting for
castings to be developed — which can take
several months… Then, if the casting is wrong,
you’ve got to iterate in the casting and each
iteration can take several months. With printing
we can have those iterations [and they] can be
reduced to a matter of weeks or months.
DAL: Super. Ok, we won’t go into all the
technical details, but it’s common knowledge
that this and your other technical innovations
Picture: Crew walkway for boarding the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. The craft recently successfully docked with the
International Space Station on its first scheduled flight, one of many, and four fresh astronauts boarded the station.
Opposite: SpaceX Crew Dragon interior and control surfaces. With thanks to SpaceX and WikiMedia.
12
have got you the contract to re-supply, and
now to send regular crew missions, to the
space-station or the ISS. Congratulations. I’d
imagine you’re now familiar with almost every
nut and bolt of the station.
But instead... can we talk about the symbolism
of the space station, which I know is an
important part of space for you. What does the
ISS mean to you in the ‘larger picture’ of your
vision for space?
EM: [Well, for quite a long while] I actually
hadn’t even really seen a proper movie of the
inside of the space station, until I went to see a
preview of the IMAX [cinema ISS experience].
It’s awesome. I actually bought my whole team
at SpaceX to go see the IMAX movie. It is a
very unique laboratory, because this is the only
thing that’s in sort of microgravity, that’s above
the Earth’s atmosphere and you can learn a lot
about basic human physiology and do
experiments that you can’t really do any other
any other way. You can bring scientists up and
they can actually work in this incredibly unique
lab, so I think that there’s a lot to be gained
there. What’s done in low-earth orbit has
benefit to those of us on earth, who will never
actually go to space. I don’t think [that some
of] the public realise how cool ISS is. That is
an awesome thing that’s up there.
It’s like… some people don’t realize we have a to wear that thing one day. Yeah, that looks
space station. Seriously, we have a gigantic awesome!’
space station and huge projects [inside it]!
DAL: Yes, and that’s the sort of aspiration
Really gigantic. I mean it’s a pretty incredible
raised by good hard near-future science-fiction
structure that we have orbiting over the Earth.
too. Especially for Mars, in terms of having
Other people just lose sight of it, like they
people think — and with increasingly good
think… “Oh, it’s like a little thing”. It’s big… it’s
cause — that ‘I could survive there, if I had that
real big. I think you [also] can’t ignore the
cool suit and a good greehouse…’. In that
coolness factor of it. I think it’s pretty cool, and
respect, I presume you’ve read the famous
you know the public should have something
novel The Martian. What did you think of it?
going on in space that involves people. So it’s
the coolest thing going on in space, and that EM: Certainly one of the most realistic books on
has a lot of value. Mars that that I’ve read. I mean I’d like… there
were a few things… like the wind force on Mars.
DAL: Indeed. And ‘the cool factor’ and
It’s not really that high, it’s not going to knock
aesthetics is something you’ve paid a lot of
you over or anything. It’s high velocity with low
attention to. But time is short, so could we just
force. But overall I thought it was pretty cool.
talk just about one aspect of your work in terms
But I’m a little worried that it might not make
of your crew spacesuit designs…
people too keen or go to Mars. Like… ‘this looks
EM: Yes, It is actually really hard because if really hard!’ I think we need a show about how
your [suits are] just optimized for functionality Mars is like the Wild West, and you’ve got the
then it’s one thing, but if you optimize for gunslingers and like… cool cowboys and that
aesthetics it… doesn’t work. kind of thing.
DAL: Ah. ‘Pretty spacesuits go… pop’? DAL: Indeed. Yes, sedate tales of mild-
mannered greenhouse gardeners might not
EM: So it’s just… like okay… how do we make
have the same appeal… especially as the Mars
something that looks cool and works, and with a
colonists should actually have no pests or plant
key goal here of… when people see that
diseases to deal with...
spacesuit you want them to think ‘Yeah, I want

“It’s like… some people

don’t realize we have a
space station. Seriously, we
have a gigantic space
station and huge projects!”

13
EM: Actually, like, one of my first ideas for
Mars… I thought… well… if I could do a small
greenhouse and send that to the surface of
Mars with seeds in nutrient gel, and you’d
hydrate the gel on landing. Then you’d have a
little miniature greenhouse — ‘first life on
Mars’. I thought… well… that could get the
public really excited [about Mars]. My idea was
that we’d use Martian regolith, [in a
greenhouse structure of] like a metre across or
something, but just to prove the concept. The
real goal was to get the public excited, but
you’d also get some engineering data about
what does it take to maintain a little habitat on
Mars.
DAL: Brilliant. I’d imagine it could have been
like a ‘bottle garden’, just carrying on
perpetually in a sealed balanced environment.
Nice idea. But I know that you passed on that
initial idea. What keeps you moving forward
and weighing up such pioneering ideas and
possibilities? Keeps you pushing past the
occasional ‘not likely’ shelved project such as
that, or even outright failure?
EM: Well, I mean, I think I’m kind of
constitutionally just geared to just keep going.
Certainly there are times when you know things
don’t go well, and so then it’s difficult to
proceed with the same level of enthusiasm. But
I do think the things that we’re doing are you
know pretty important to the future, and if we
don’t succeed then it is not so clear what other
things would succeed. And if we don’t succeed
then we’ll be certainly pointed to as ‘a reason’
why people shouldn’t even try for these things.
So I think it’s important that we do whatever is
necessary to keep going.
Anything which is significantly innovative is
going to come with a significant risk of failure.
But, you know, you’ve got to take big chances
in order for there to be the potential for a big
positive outcome. But when executing ‘down a
path’ I actually do my absolute best to reduce
risk, or another way of saying it to ‘improve the
probability of success’.
DAL: Great. Which brings us to solar. Do you
think solar will help give people living on Mars
that ‘improved probability of success’?
14
EM: The role of solar in the exploration of Mars
is probably fairly significant, for Mars. What’s
going to be quite important is having a very
lightweight solar [power] system, both
volumetrically and gravimetrically. We were
sort of playing with the different concepts… you
know that party [novelty-squeaker] thing,
where you play it and it rolls out. I think one of
the solar concepts is [like that], to have a big
roll that you just basically inflate and if it rolls
out, with like really thin solar panels on it. It’s
going to be pretty important, because you’ve
really either got to do that, or nuclear. Nuclear
has its challenges, but for solar it’s pretty
straightforward.
Picture: “Engines”
But I think we’ve got to have by Maciej Rebisz
a base on the Moon, and then of Poland.
going beyond that get people
to Mars. Just having some permanent presence
on another heavenly body… moon base, and
then getting people to Mars and beyond. That’s
the continuance of the dream of Apollo, that
people are really looking for.
DAL: Indeed, and a dream we can all help go
forward, in our own small ways. Quite literally
‘go forwards’, perhaps. Because some have
said that ‘virtual reality is the future of space
exploration, because you can put people on the
very front-end of every exploration mission’. Is
that something that you’ve given much thought
to or have any opinions on?
EM: I received the virtual reality demos and it’s
pretty impressive. You can sort of imagine… if
that’s extrapolated into the future… it’s really
going to super feel like you’re there. And I
wonder if some people are never going to want
to take that off. Honestly, it’s like… it’s pretty
entrancing. I do think it’d be quite exciting to
do that for space.
DAL: Ok, that’s a good point to end on. Elon,
thank you for your time today.
Elon Musk is online at:
https://www.spacex.com/
https://www.tesla.com/
15

We talk with teacher and interior designer Darya Girina
about her new sculpt of Elon Musk wearing Tesla Cybertruck
clothing. Darya uses ZBrush and Marvelous Designer.
DAL: Darya, welcome to Digital Art Live
magazine, and to the ‘Elon’ special tribute
issue. Firstly tell us about your career as a
designer, please. Did you begin with digital, or
did you move to digital from a traditional form
of creativity?
DG: Yes, I moved to digital from a traditional
art. During my childhood, I drew in all my free
time. Later I graduated from art school and
then from Moscow Pedagogical State
University, where I took a specialisation in
Visual Arts & Drawing.
DAL: Wow, that suggests quite a drive toward
art. And then the digital interest came…?
DG: Yes, I found a passion for art + 3D
videogames, which defined my love to 3D
technologies. Especially a love of ‘creating
virtual 3D space’ has perspective, light and
shade. This has of course made the computer
my favourite tool for working task and for fulfil
my own fantastic ideas.
DAL: I see. And more specifically did you have
training in ZBrush and the other software, or
were you self taught? Or, where did you train?
DG: My favourite kind of personal question! All
the computer software that I usually use, I
have studied by myself. The modern digital
‘information space’ is a fertile environment for
nurturing the development of any personal
interests, and endless professional growth.
DARYA GIRINA
UKRAINE
ZBRUSH | 3D
SCULPTOR |
INTERIOR
DESIGNER
WEB
Here in Russia I’ve lectured on a lot of
computer courses for 3D technologies in
Modern Design, because of long-standing
professional training, and this allows me to
share a lot useful information with those who
want to learn.
DAL: Great. Turning now to Mr. Musk, where
were you when you first discovered the man
and his achievements? First impressions?
DG: It seems to me, and many others, that
Elon Musk is an outstanding figure in our times.
His innovative projects and wide-range
activities are of great importance to all
mankind, and they have global planetary and
deep human significance. A key point for me,
after which I regularly began to keep track of
Mr. Musk achievements was the successful
practice run for landing the boosters from the
Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket: a reliably controlled
reentry, then descent and landing. It caused a
deep admiration in me and even shock!
The SpaceX success with the Crew Dragon’s
test flight, sending the NASA astronauts Bob
Behnken and Col. Doug Hurley, was also very
emotional for me. Everyone knows the phrase
of the British science-fiction writer Arthur C.
Clarke: “The only way of discovering the limits
of the possible is to venture a little way past
them, into the impossible.” I think it’s very
appropriate for Mr. Musk’s activity.
16
17
DAL: Indeed. And he’s also doing so much
more. In fact, I’ve been thinking that we
almost need a regular quarterly magazine that
just respectfully and straightforwardly covers
all his recent achievements and progress. Kind
of like NASA’s Spaceport Magazine, which I was
recently sad to see appears to have come to an
end with the Jan/Feb 2020 issue. Ok, turning
now to your creative work, I see that you did a
number of human sculpts prior to Elon. Your
portfolio shows figures from Fifth Element, The
Matrix, Blade Runner, Conan, for instance.
How long did it take you to feel that you and
your skills were ready to tackle sculpting Elon
Musk?
DG: Regarding the Fifth Element, Blade
Runner, etc. — thos sculpts arose because I'm
a great fan of science-fiction. I just say that
I’ve never been absolutely ready to create
sculpture of Elon Musk or any such figure. But
learning is possible and necessary for a
lifetime. It’s an endless fascinating process.
The Greek philosopher Socrates tells us that
‘we cannot be better than in seeking to become
better’. I started making a sculpt of Mr. Musk
because I couldn’t help making the sculpt. It is
a fundamental philosophy of the creative
process: you do something because you really
want to talk about how you feel or what you
think, in the language of visual arts. So I
wanted to express my admiration of Elon Musk.
I’ve also always been interested in astronomy,
theoretical physics, space engineering
technologies and yes I love science-fiction. So
all my interests and preferences appear to be
magically joined in the identity of Elon Musk.
DAL: Great. How long did the Elon project take
you, all told? Lots of picture-research?
DG: In general, I spent a long time working on
the Elon sculpture, certainly. I did it in my free
time and when I was in the right mood,
constantly coming back to and clarifying
something. I began, of course, with a portrait.
Because this is the most difficult part of any
sculpture, when one must respond to and also
remain faithful to the person being sculpted. I
wanted to express a lot in his face and figure...
precisely because the personality of Elon Musk
is comprehensive and multifaceted.
DAL: I see. Do you work “straight to digital” or
do you make rough sketches first with pencil
and paper?
DG: I’d love to do some Elon Musk sketches
‘from nature’ certainly, but I'm afraid it would
be unlikely in terms of permissions. So I
worked “straight to digital” from pictures.
DAL: I see. And you mainly used Zbrush for the
work? What was the most challenging part of
the process? And where did the Maya software
fit into this process?
DG: Yes, I mainly used Zbrush plus Marvelous
Designer. Sometimes I use Autodesk 3DS Max,
not Maya. I use Max often, in architectural
visualizations, so it's more comfortable for me
to use that.
DAL: I see, and Marvellous Designer was used
to make the clothing?
DG: Yes, right. I think this is the most effective
solution for clothing now.
DAL: Yes, the new version 10 certainly looks
like it’s maturing nicely now. What sorts of
feedback and responses have you had for Elon?
DG: Well to be honest, I didn't specifically go
about any analysis of the dynamics of human
reaction to my project! In general, though, it’s
safe to say that ‘whoever likes Elon Musk will
like any creative things about him’. If a person
is an adversary of the innovation and business
activity of Elon Musk, then usually it is difficult
for me to maintain a reasonable dialogue with
such a person.
DAL: Do you think you’ll do more work on him?
DG: Well, Elon Musk is an inexhaustible source
of inspiration, so I'm sure I’ll get back to him.
DAL: Super. Ok, moving away from Elon now,
let me ask about the ‘digital creative’ scene in
Moscow. Is there one, and what’s it like?
DG: Well, in every country there are people
who like computers, 3D graphics, modern
design technologies, art and design. There is
always someone who wants to express himself,
exchange experiences, and also to find new
likeminded people. Moscow is no different.
Here there are also many fans and practitioners of
18digital creativity.
19
20
 Pictures: some of Darya’s other works in Zbrush
sculpting and clothes design with Marvelous
Designer.
Top: “Alien Winter”, futuristic clothing for colder
environments. Of obvious use for the stylish
elderly in winter, but also potentially for the
poles of Mars. Designed in Marvelous Designer.
Opposite: “Cybernetic Identity”, a Zbrush future-
warrior study, done to learn more about hard-
surface sculpting.
Opposite: A study of the famous actor Keanu
Reeves as imagined in the role of Gordon
Freeman, in a hypothetical future movie of the
Half-life videogame.
Darya has many more sci-fi sculpts at her site.
21
DAL: Great. Specifically, what titles or names
should we be looking out for from Russia, in
terms of recent fantasy and science-fiction?
Whose work has impressed you, and whose
work do you follow?
DG: I'm a big fan of Arkady and Boris
Strugatsky's science-fiction and Kir Bulychev,
but they are not so modern.
DAL: Ah yes, the novel Roadside Picnic and the
Alisa stories. Both are available in English, if
our readers want to read these classics.
22
DG: I like works of Victor Pelevin, he is a
Russian fiction writer, considered a writer or
‘postmodernist’ fiction with elements of esoteric
philosophies. I’m especially impressed by his
science fiction novels about the problems and
philosophical possibilities of artificial
intelligence. On movies I'll stay a fan of my
favourite western film studios, animation
studios and video game and software
developers. I’m looking forward to the sequel
Avatar 2 directed by James Cameron and Edge
of Tomorrow 2 directed by Doug Liman.
DAL: Ah yes, Edge of Tomorrow was good great option for emotional relaxation.
entertainment. I liked the ‘making of’ Avatar,
DAL: I see. And you also 3D design interiors.
the technology behind it and how it was put on
How do you find KeyShot for that size and
the screen — but the story was risible. Now,
complexity of interior rendering? It’s lovely
turning back to art… you’re also an
software but most people think of it as a single-
accomplished watercolour artist, depicting the
product rendering software, good for small
Russian rural landscape. Your pictures look to
objects and standalone figures — not for big
me like you use real watercolour, rather than
complex scenes.
the Rebelle watercolour software? Am I
correct? DG: If I think about it seriously, I would say
that the strong suit of KeyShot is ability to
DG: Yes, you are right, I love to paint
make quality renders ‘on the fly’. It is
watercolour, and also make sketches: this is a
KeyShot’s superpower.

23
DAL: Yes, apart from grain, the viewport is big
and just about “what you see is what you get”.
WYSIWYG real-time is where we’re all heading,
but not quite there yet, at an affordable price.
Nearly... iClone was a good start, but basic.
DAZ Studio’s iRay viewport is there now, but
you really need a $600 graphics card to do it
justice in real-time. Blender’s Eevee is 80%
there, and there’s an OpenGL-based plugin for
Cinema 4D that is an equivalent of Eevee. But
Keyshot just nails the problem very effectively
and elegantly. But, back to my question… I
was asking about making big renders with
Keyshot?
DG: Yes, I believe that its user interface and
tools are designed in such a way that this
program is the best for a single-product
rendering. That is why the creation of large
complicated multi-component, detailed
residential interiors is very difficult, from the
point of view of control of objects and
adjustment of lighting sources. You’ll ‘win’ with
it if you can strike a balance between complex
and simplicity. For example KeyShot could be
effective for visualisation of custom furniture,
small-scale interior compositions, art
installations and so on.
DAL: Yes, on the lights I think the latest
version 10.0 (December 2020) adds more
controllable individual lights for those who need
them, to try to solve that problem. Talking of
upgrades, are you — like many — planning a
new PC in 2021?
DG: I think I'll stay with my lovely old
computer!
DAL: OK. Turning now to your clothes design, I
like your “Alien Winterwear” futuristic clothing
render. Good for keeping warm in a Russian
winter, I’d imagine, if it were to be made in
innovative fabrics and layering. Have you also
considered doing some similarly futuristic
interiors? Or, what other “aspects of the
future” would you like to get creative with?
Transport interiors, perhaps, the Hyperloop?
DG: Of course, I dream of making a real
futuristic interior… some day. I'm very
interested in futuristic themes, in residential,
public and also in engineering interiors.
24
For example, interiors in spaceships or in
residential stations on Mars.
Humanity is always dreaming about the future.
It's a fundamental part of human nature and
human psychology. Humans always create
mental strategies and material objects for
future living. These are steps in the evolution of
civilization, material culture, arts, part of
stages of individual development and so on.
There is also the contemporary feeling that
science-fiction artworks are sources of ideas for
contemporary scientific researches, original
advanced inventions and projects in the area of
new production technologies and industrial
design. It is sort a ‘creativity running ahead our
time’! Some years ago I even wrote a series
post on my blog about futuristic interiors in
cinema and futuristic interior design, and this
was followed by five long visual surveys of
futuristic designs: Post + surveys: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
DAL: Super, thanks. Those links lead to a
visual treasure-trove of ideas, readers. What
are you working on at present?
DG: Lately I’ve been immersed in the study of
the Marvelous Designer software and cyber-
punk futuristic fashion design in a spirit of
William Gibson’s science-fiction.
DAL: Wonderful. Make sure you read Snow
Crash too. I assume it must be available in a
good Russian translation.
DG: Thanks. I always want to learn more and
learn something, but sometimes the workload
begins to bother me too much, and this
prevents me from finishing something.
DAL: Indeed. Yes that’s something many feel.
Darya, many thanks for this short interview, it’s
much appreciated.
DG: Thank you very much. I wish everyone an
‘optimistic scenario’ for their science-fiction
future.
Darya Garina is online at:
https://daragir.artstation.com/
25
We present a short survey of a few of the
inspiring submissions to NASA’s recent “3D
Printed Habitat Challenge”. Top design
teams were challenged to create an on-site
habitat for the humans who will one day
live on the planet Mars — with a handsome
$2m prize-purse up for grabs.

26
NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge sought to
foster development of new technologies. The
aim was to additively (‘3D print’) manufacture
a habitat using local indigenous materials with
the possible addition of recyclable materials.
The brightest and best were asked to help
NASA figure out how to build a liveable frontier
house for Mars pioneers to live and work in, by
using advanced 3D printing technology in the
most efficient and sustainable way possible.
Speed of building will also be of the essence in
the early years on Mars, and became factor in
the judging of the finals.
The 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge ran in three
phases:
A Phase 1 Design Competition first asked for
considered concepts and visualisations.
27
Phase 2 required teams to show how they
would manufacture the required structural
elements seen in their designs and concepts.
Phase 3 then ambitiously challenged the
remaining competitors to actually fabricate
their proposed habitats, at an on-site building
competition in summer 2019.
Below: Here we see the solar array of the first
Mars pioneers, and in the distance are dotted
the “MARSHAs” — the pot-like structures which
formed the entry from AI SpaceFactory. Their
prototype was printed by nearly autonomous
robots in 2019, and within a 30-hour
construction window. AI SpaceFactory won the
contest and now develops construction
technologies that enable the expansion of
humanity beyond Earth.
28
Pictures: Here we again see two renders envisioning
how the habitat proposed by AI SpaceFactory would
work in operation at various types of sites on Mars.
We see a completed MARSHA starting to form the
nucleus of a processing station supplying a
communications uplink connecting Mars with Earth.
Robot drones ferry in lighter tanks and cables, while
ground robots hoist and carry heavier components.
Below we see wider view of settlement construction
near a rocket landing site.
Following their proven success, AI SpaceFactory
began work on their larger habitat called “TERA”,
which will create eco-friendly 3D-printed dwelling
entirely with sustainable materials. TERA envisages
that near-future advances in the technology,
together AI and robotics, can quickly recycle waste
into viable and habitable structures on earth.
29
30
 Pictures: Top, we see AI
SpaceFactory MARHSAs at a
specialist nuclear power
site. Autodesk, makers of
Maya and 3DS Max, helped
the team greatly with
sponsorship and facilities.
Opposite we see interiors of
habitats proposed by other
teams. On the left is an
entry from RBSystems. On
the right a cut-away scale-
model from the
“BubbleBase” — being the
proposal which came from
the Israeli space exploration
team.
31
Despite the above-ground visuals presented by
many of the teams, it is clear that underground
and illuminated interiors will also need to be
closely considered for human life on Mars.
Here we see again the AI SpaceFactory MARSHA
project, this time from the inside of one of the
structures. Food is being prepared by a 3D
printing ‘robo-kitchen’ with human assistance.
32
In the visualisation we also see a server stack
on the right, presumably helping to passively
heat this upper space in the structure. Below it
are perhaps sturdy cases with parts and media.
33
In the centre a plastiglass dome gives a useful
view of the lower floor. On the right a robot
floorcleaner sits ready on the shelf, near a 3D
printer for quick fabrication of small parts.
34
In time, larger habitats will be constructed
above ground, most likely with even bigger
structures running in caves beneath. Here we
see the HASSELL + EOC design for a Mars
Habitat, designed by Xavier De Kestelier.
35
Builder-bots are seen completing the top of a
sloping covering for a large inflatable structure
of pipes and mesh overlay. Barrel-bots carry
local crushed rock to supply the wall makers,
and grader-bots are repairing the surface ruts.
Below we see again the HASSELL + EOC design
for a Mars Habitat, designed by Xavier De
Kestelier. This time as a smaller and more
relaxed version. It is nearly night and two tired
workers — early life on Mars will be tough and
hard, despite robot help — await permission
from the AI to enter the airlock and then the
local relaxation dome for some well-earned
flavoured oxygen, hot 3D-printed food, drink,
campfire music and companionship.
36
In the inset diagram we see cut-aways and the
sections that would sit beneath a larger version
of such a habitat structure. Powered by a small
nuclear reactor station (the twin umbrella-like
structure) this working Mars station consists of:
37
a Workshop; Greenhouse; Laboratory; Private
Quarters for sleeping, with mini-Gym ; Living
Quarters, and a Storage and Medical Bay. A
waiting Mars Exploration vehicle enables long-
distance travel if needed.
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Inset: Issue 28 (’Future Oceans’ issue) cover art by Artur Rosa.

Issue 1 : October 2015 : Designing Future Cities.
Issue 2 : November 2015 : Alien Plants/Creatures.
Issue 3 : December 2015 : “A Galaxy Far Away…”
Issue 4 : January 2016 : The new Poser 11.
Issue 5 : February 2016 : Cosmos (space art).
Issue 6 : March 2016 : Cyber-humans.
Issue 7 : April 2016 : Future Female Heroes.
Issue 8 : May 2016 : Mars, Our Future Frontier.
Issue 9 : June 2016 : Blender software special.
Issue 10 : July 2016 : Steampunk.
Issue 11 : August 2016 : Future Landscapes.
Issue 12 : September 2016 : Second Skin (tattoos). Issue 28 : April 2018 : Future oceans.
Issue 13 : October 2016 : Spacewrecks (TTA).
Issue 14 : Nov/Dec 2016 : CyberTRONic issue.
Issue 15 : January 2017 : Mistworlds.
Issue 16 : Feb 2017 : Future vehicles (Syd Mead).
Issue 17 : March 2017 : Movie magic.
Issue 18 : April 2017 : Vue 2016 special issue.
Issue 19 : May/June 2017 : Sci-fi comics.
Issue 20 : July 2017 : Digital clothing.
Issue 21 : August 2017 : Ecofutures.
Issue 22 : September 2017 : Lighting for effect.
Issue 23 : October 2017 : Space exploration.
Issue 24 : November 2017 : Abstracts in sci-fi.
Issue 25 : December 2017 : Dynamic posing.
Issue 26 : January 2018 : To the skies!
Issue 27 : February/March 2018 : Giant monsters.
Issue 29 : May 2018 : Fantasy Portraits.
Issue 30 : June 2018 : Alternative History.
Issue 31 : August 2018 : Sci-fi Rocks! (music).
Issue 32 : Sept 2018 : Design for Videogames.
38
Issue 33 Oct 2018 Issue 34 Nov 2018 Issue 35 Dec 2018 Issue 36 Jan 2019
Abstract characters Future Interiors Getting value for your art Megacities

● Ulrick V. Jensen ● Tarik Keskin ● Chris Hecker ● Lorenz Ruwwe

● E. Golavanchuck ● Daniel Maland ● Drew Spence ● Jon Hrubesch
● Lovecraft posters ● ‘Petipet’ (Petro ● Gene Raz von Edler ● James Ledger
● Claudio Bergamin Apostoliuk) ● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues
● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues ● Mini-review: Meshbox ● Review: Bryce 7.1
● Gallery: Abstract ● Gallery: Future ‘H.P. Lovecraft 3D’ landscape software
Characters Interiors ● Gallery: To the Beach! ● Gallery: Megacities
● Imaginarium ● Imaginarium ● Imaginarium ● Imaginarium

YOUR YOUR YOUR

ART ART ART
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Issue 37 Feb 2019 Issue 38 April 2019 Issue 39 May 2019 Issue 40 June 2019
Giant Historic Creatures Super Skin Deserts Depicting character

● ‘AM’, aka Alessandro ● Dave Abbo ● Armando Savoia ● Glen, aka ‘Glnw43’
Mastronardi (LAMH) ● Anestis Skitzis ● Ken Musgrave ● Anja von Lenski
● Arthur Dorety ● Pixeluna ● MojoWorld tribute ● Lisa Herron
● Herschel Hoffmeyer ● ‘La Femme’ review ● Steffen Brand ● Lovecraft on covers
● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues ● Michael Efriam ● Moon contest
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prehistoric creatures alien skins ● Gallery: Sci-fi Deserts character
● Imaginarium ● Imaginarium ● Imaginarium ● Imaginarium

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 YOUR YOUR YOUR
ART ART ART
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Issue 41 July 2019 Issue 42 Aug 2019 Issue 43 Oct 2019 Issue 44 Nov 2019
Moon Comics Real-time Ethereal
● Xin Liu of MIT ● Atomic Robo ● FlowScape ● Adriano Portugal
● Jeremiah Humphries ● Kara, ‘Karafactory’ ● ‘Crazy-Knife’ ● Lyndsey Hayes
● Jan van de Klooster ● Ricardo Bresso ● Michelangelo Cellini ● Marcos Alipio
● NASA Moon art ● Best graphic novels ● Jonathan Winbush ● Murilo Francisco
● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues
● Gallery: ‘Bases and ● Gallery: ‘Comic and ● Gallery: ‘PCs and ● Gallery: ‘Exploring the
outposts’ cartoon art’ devices as creatures’ aetherial’
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Issue 45 Dec 2019 Issue 46 Feb 2020 Issue 47 March 2020 Issue 48 April 2020
Ancient Gods & Heroes Epic Vistas Software issue The Lost Temple

● Joseph C. Knight ● Adrian Mark Gillespie ● Joel Simon ● Danny Gordon / NWDA
● Daniel Eskridge, aka ● Gary Tonge ● Virginie C. ● ‘Agura Nata’
‘Deskridge’ ● Anaor Karim ● HP Z600 review ● George Pal
● Dani Owergoor ● Gary Haimeng Cao ● Avatar maker survey ● Ryzom art
● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues ● Index of past issues
● Recent comics ● Comic strip ● Contests ● Contests
● Gallery: ‘The Mythic’ ● Gallery: ‘Epic Space’ ● Gallery: ‘Nic022’ ● Gallery: Mandelbulb
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40
 YOUR YOUR YOUR
ART ART ART
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Issue 49 May 2020 Issue 50 July 2020 Issue 51 August 2020 Issue 52 Sept 2020
Mono issue 50th issue Beneath Interface
● Logan Stahl ● For this issue we ● Doug Lefler ● Michael Okuda
● Matt Timson invited all previous ● Bjorn Malmberg ● ‘Spiraloso’
● ‘Kvacm’ interviewees to ● Richard Heggen ● Stefan Kraus
● ‘Kooki99’ contribute a mini- ● Sylvia Ritter ● Review: PzDB
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Issue 53 Nov 2020 Issue 54 Dec 2020 Issue 55 January 2021 Issue 56 February 2021
Hair and fur Elon Battle-suits Moist

● The HiveWire team ● Elon Musk

● Andrew Krivulya ● Darya Girina Are you interested in being interviewed
● AprilYSH ● Ulises Siriczman in a future issue? Or presenting a new
● Survey of fur-making ● Luca Oleastri webinar? Please send the address of your
tools in 3D and 2D ● Mars habitats
● Contests ● Contests gallery or store, and we’ll visit!
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paul@digitalartlive.com

MojoWorld 3.11 Crossdresser HP Z600 Workstation

#39 | May 2019 #44 | November 2019 #47 | March 2020
41
 Here we offer our readers a
small selection of contests,
for your consideration.

eVolo 2021
eVolo invites architects, students,
engineers, and artists from all
nations to take part in the 2021
eVolo Skyscraper Competition.
This recognizes outstanding
optimistic ideas that redefine
future skyscraper design through
the implementation of
technologies, materials,
aesthetics, and spatial and digital
organization. Judging by entries
in past years, contestants appear
to be especially encouraged to
ambitiously explore the
relationships between the
skycraper and nature, the city
and its resources, and its peoples.
Winners are usually a made up of
a multidisciplinary team, as eVolo
expects not only visuals but also
‘buildable’ structures and serious
background research. They’re
looking for building science that
stays up — not a fantasy that will
fall down.
Register by 26th January 2021,
and the cost is $135 per project/
team. If that sounds expensive,
consider that if a five-person
team of amateur 3D designers
signed up, they would only need
$27 each to register as a team,
and could more that recoup the
cost via free local and regional
Picture: 2011 entry by S3 ARQUITECTOS + JA PROJECT. The concept
is that in future a skyscraper would be “grown” organically, much like
coverage in the media.
a tree or a sea-sponge, with its growth patterns directed by the http://www.evolo.us/
strong magnetic properties of the inner man-made tube at its centre.
42
The 11th Annual Space Foundation
International Student Art Contest is now live.
Student artists aged up to 18 years old can
submit “original, space-oriented artwork” on
the 2020 contest theme of “How Space
Technology Helps Improve Life on Earth”.
India is running an illustration competition, via
ArchDais. This invites illustrators and designers
“to imagine taking a walk” on a Mars colony
circa the year 2326. Specifically “walking
through a future Martian street, involving
movement through habitats and social places”.
43
Signing up and submitting artwork is free.
Submission should be at least 2,400 pixels by
2,400 pixels in a .JPG or .PNG file.
Deadline: 31st December 2020.
https://art.spacefoundation.org/
Creatives from all nations are welcome to enter
the “Mars Calling” illustration competition, but
those outside India are subject to a $30 entry
free (in India, 1,200 Rupees) before 25th
January 2021.
https://archdais.com/competition/
SFman is kindly giving away this store-quality The Base was built with the popular 3D
iRay DAZ Studio modular sci-fi interior for free modeller tool DAZ Hexagon, and is seen above
at his DeviantArt pages. He calls the set “The in an artistic render by SFman.
Base” and it includes the occupant of the tank
Unlike some current DAZ environments, The
but not the human colonist figures. There are
Base is lightweight at a modest 95Mb
no presets, so you will have to construct your
extracted. Your renders can be used
own layout. The Base can be downloaded here.
44commercially, for instance in a graphic novel.
SFman also used Hexagon to make another The kit’s licence then enabled fellow DeviantArt
matching modular science-fiction corridors / artist ‘2OT’ to re-package the 50-piece modules
interior kit of 50 items, which is easily used to as pre-built presets which can be had here.
extend The Base. The modular kit is also free
Once installed, The Base and its expansion /
and also for iRay, and is available here. This kit
presets can be found in DAZ Studio under:
is very generously licenced under Creative
Environments | Architecture | SFman
Commons Attribution.
45
 Young UI designer Ulises Siriczman recently spent many weeks
researching and building a visual reconstruction of the Crew Dragon
control surfaces designed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX team. We talk with
him about the painstaking creation process and where it led him.

DAL: Ulises, welcome. You recently re-created
the UIs for the control surfaces of the SpaceX
Crew Dragon, so we thought you’d be a fine
interview for our ‘Elon’ special tribute issue.
US: Thanks for having me! I’ve always found it
really inspirational to learn about other
designers’ processes, so I’m really excited to
share a bit of my process with you and your
readers.
46
DAL: Firstly, what inspired you to try to
undertake the User Interface (UI) recreation?
US: When the Tesla Model 3 car was
announced, before most people could get their
hands on one, the designer Andrew Goodlad
recreated its user interface and posted it on
Reddit. It was a great way to allow everyone to
experiment with it. I wanted to try and to make
the same thing for SpaceX’s Dragon Crew.
 Taking humans to space, SpaceX
has returned America’s ability to fly
astronauts to and from the
International Space Station (ISS)
on American vehicles, for the first
time since 2011.
In mid November 2020, a SpaceX
Falcon 9 rocket carrying the Crew
Dragon spacecraft and crew
launched from Kennedy Space
Center, on the first of what will
become many scheduled
commercial missions.
Below we see a recreation of the
control surfaces and some key user
panels used by the astronauts to
control the Crew Dragon spacecraft
safely, as faithfully re-envisaged by
Ulises Siriczman.
ULISES SIRICZMAN
You can try some of the UI live
USA / ARGENTINA
online, because SpaceX has a Crew
Dragon Virtual Simulator on the
Web. This lets the public try to UI DESIGNER |
FIGMA | ICONIFY
virtually dock with the ISS.
Our thanks to SpaceX, and to their
WEB
unknown UI designer.

I did this project as a way to explore what the
SpaceX team might have gone through as well,
since I haven’t had the chance to design
something like this before.
DAL: I see. What sort of reference materials did
you start off with, in the work of re-creation?
US: Luckily I had many sources to reference.
For instance, SpaceX has a Docking Simulator
where you can try the Crew Dragon to the ISS.47
That helped me when designing one of the main
screens. The Youtuber ‘Everyday Astronaut’ also
had a video where he visits SpaceX’s HQ in
Hawthorne, California, and handles an earlier
version of Crew Dragon. I found some videos on
Discovery and NASA’s YouTube channels too. I
didn’t have interaction references, so I had to
make an educated guess. And there were a
couple of screens that did not show up much on
the footage. Or were really out-of-focus.
DAL: I see, so did you reach out to the
unofficial SpaceX community for some
materials, or was the picture-research solo?
US: I did the research mostly on my own, but I
think that the fact that the SpaceX project has
an active fan community definitely helped me. I
certainly leaned on the existence of fan
material, both as source material, and as an
inspiration to produce my own original work. I
think that if the project wasn’t as popular as it
is, none of that material would have existed.
DAL: I see. Specifically, how did you get
around those limitations you found?
US: During my research I made screenshots of
stuff ‘like my life depended on it’. This led me
to face two challenges: the UI had changed
significantly from what I had in my source
material, and from what we saw on launch day.
Most UI reference images ended up being
cropped, low-resolution screenshots. To get
around that I had to put together images that
showed different camera angles and to mix
closeups with wide shots. That way I could get
a feeling of how every element was sitting in
relation to the rest. Another limitation was the
lack of footage showing some of the screens
and interactions. I built them based on a lot of
assumptions. Having something like the
Docking Simulator really helped me a lot in
figuring out that screen’s functionality and look
and feel, and I was extrapolating that for the
other screens.
DAL: What software did you find useful in the
process? Was it the standard tools, or did you
find upscaling AI, and perhaps even forensics
software, useful? Perhaps you also found some
software you were not previously aware of, that
proved useful?
US: My tool of choice was Figma for the first
sketches, the proper UI design, and the final
prototyping. It’s a really versatile tool and I’ve
been using it for a few years now. It has a
growing plugin ecosystem that really empowers
designers and allows us to quickly do things
that used to be really time-consuming.
48
A plugin that I used a lot was Iconify. It allows
you to choose icons from several different
libraries to use in your design. Everywhere you
see an icon, it’s been pulled from Iconify.
Another tool I used was Photoshop. There were
a couple of screens that needed some more
photo editing than what you can do in Figma.
First I tried Photopea, an online editor that’s
basically a Photoshop clone, but I didn’t feel
fast enough and I ended up doing that
compositing in regular Photoshop. For taking
the screenshots I used VLC. It has a nice little
trick that allows you to take the screenshots in
each video’s native resolution. Since I have a
rather small screen this really came in handy to
work with the best image quality as possible.
DAL: I see. Thanks, those sound interesting.
And then once you have all the visual reference
materials assembled and enlarged and de-
fuzzed, what was then your workflow for the
reconstructive process?
US: The first thing I did was to lay down
everything on Figma’s canvas and see what I
had and what was I missing. Then I grouped
similar pictures together and began to define
the general proportions and layout. I had to
rework that a couple of times, because as I
added elements it turned out that the first
version wasn’t so accurate in terms of the
proportions. The next thing was working on the
bottom button panel. I struggled a bit to
illustrate how some of the buttons are
illuminated. First I tried doing it from the top of
my head and it looked terrible, so I looked up
some references and it started to look so much
better. The other thing that threw me off a bit
was the glass effect. It looks like each section
is covered with a glass or clear plastic panel.
Pulling off the shine and transparency was a
challenge. Luckily someone in the Figma
community already had created a ‘glass look’
file and published it for everyone else to freely
use. I used that file’s styles on each of my
glass panels. Then I moved on to design each
touchscreen. The easiest one by far was the
Docking one and the hardest one was the one
for the Seats.
Ulises’s prototype recreations of the SpaceX Crew Dragon’s Seat Audio and Cabin Atmosphere user
controls. Labels many not all be accurate or up-to-date — “do not build”!

49
For that last one, I had to do a mashup of
different seat pictures, because I couldn’t find
one that matched that same angle. And then I
moved on to the interactive prototype. Here I
added some animations to showcase how
astronauts could possibly interact with each
touchscreen. It was pretty basic, but I think it
adds a fun touch.
DAL: Right, so yes… there’s more than one UI
screen, of course. How long did the whole
thing take you, in the end?
US: I tried to pull it off in a couple of days, but
it ended up taking about two weeks. I also
wanted to write an article about it as a way to
present it, so that added a couple of days on
top of the design itself.
DAL: Wow. Well it’s very impressive, and has
obviously been worth it. Did you also consult on
the functions for the vehicle, in terms of finding
what you might have missed? Like: “Well, they
have a Flange-widget Venting Valve, so they’re
going to need a manual control for that, and
logically it’s likely got to be next to the GizmoX
Gimbals Spinner”. That sort of thinking?
US: Yes, that’s a really good question. I
actually couldn’t clearly read some of the
buttons and I wanted to be as faithful as
possible. Two come to mind now: the one that
says “Jettison Nose Cone” and the one that
says “Drogues and Mains”. I had to do some
hardcore research there to see if what I was
guessing actually were possible features of a
spaceship. But the truth is to this day… I’m not
sure if that’s what they really say.
DAL: I see. Yes, so “Jettison Nose-cone” might
actually be “Jumpers in Nose-cone”. And the UI
was also a fast-changing thing. They tweak,
change and improve things all the time. Were
there then some other bits that still had to be
“left to assumptions” and “filled in” with your
own “designer-sauce”? if so, what were those?
US: Yeah, you’re right, they like to change
things around. And with good reason, I
assume! I found that out when I compared
footage from different points in time.
50
The main thing that I filled in was the
animations. I couldn’t find any examples so…
there’s one of the screens that I ended up not
including on the prototype, because for the life
of me I couldn’t figure out what the central
panel said. It’s the Cabin Settings screen,
where astronauts can change lightning settings
inside the cabin.
DAL: I see. What did you come away most
admiring, about the work of the SpaceX UI
designers?
US: I think that the designers did some
groundbreaking work. When technology meets
opportunity and hard work, great things
happen. We hadn’t seen touchscreens in a
spaceship before and having them surely
presented a challenge for the UI team, but also
for the developers and even for the industrial
designers, who had to design touchscreen-
compatible gloves for the first time. The ability
to work together between different areas and
pull that off, that is what I admire the most.
DAL: Did you find out who the designers are?
US: I did not know who the designers are. I
read an AMA on Reddit, but it was the
development team who were answering the
questions. It was a bit far from my area of
expertise, but still really interesting to learn
about the process behind developing something
that’s so innovative as this.
DAL: Thanks, that’s all very informative. And
then you released it. What sort of reactions
and feedback did you have?
US: The thing that surprised me the most was
that both UX Collective and The Startup
reached out to offer me the possibility to
publish my article with them. I definitely did
not expect that. Even knowing that The Startup
has more followers, I chose UX Collective
because I’ve been a huge fan of it for years and
it has helped me tremendously in my career
throughout the years. So it was my way to
make a little contribution and hopefully inspire
someone else, like I’ve been inspired by so
many articles published there before.
Ulises’s prototype recreations of the SpaceX Crew Dragon’s Flight Commands and Deorbit user
controls. Labels many not all be accurate or up-to-date — “do not build”!

51
Besides that, I even got some job interviews.
All this positive feedback definitely inspired me
to start writing more often.
DAL: Wonderful. Now, more astronauts
launched just this week, in the first scheduled
crewed transport launch of the Crew Dragon to
the space station. Have you kept track of the
pictures for the launch, and noticed changes in
the UI even now?
US: Yes, it’s great to see that they did another
launch in such a short time! I didn’t notice big
changes overall, but I’m sure they are
constantly working on improving things both
for the astronauts and the people here on
Earth.
DAL: Given what you’ve learned from this UI,
would you consider doing speculative work on
other projects from Elon, or his spin-off give-
away ideas such as the Hyperloop? Which by
the way, readers, also had a successful
passenger test a few weeks ago out in the
Nevada desert.
US: Yes, that’s something I’ve considered! It’s
always a good ‘thought experiment’ to do stuff
like this. You’re not bound by traditional
constraints or budget limitations. It’s also a
nice way to ‘exercise your design chops’. If you
learn about a time-sensitive event like this one
and put out some relevant work, you never
know where things can end up. I encourage
everyone else to give it a shot too!
DAL: Great idea. Right, yes… and then there’s
Elon’s Boring Company, also seeing great
success with pioneering test projects. A giant
tunnel-digging machine sounds like it should
have a fab UI if it needs a driver. I want to see
the UI for the version of the giant tunneler
that’s made for Mars...
US: Haha yes, that’d be awesome! Now I’m
wondering what should we change when we
reach the consumer version of the Dragon
Crew. A really interesting challenge!
DAL: The space tourism, yes. Who else do you
admire in futuristic UI design these days?
52not, maybe someone should start one!
Either people making for actual shipped
products or more speculative designers?
US: One designer I really like is Gleb
Kuznetsov. You can find him as @glebich on
Dribbble.com. His UI and Visual design are
amazing, he does really bold things that I
haven’t seen on a consumer product yet, but
hope to see some of that soon! He worked at
Fantasy, an agency that does some amazing
work and has some speculative projects too.
Another designer I really admire is Luke
Wroblewski. He’s Product Director at Google
and has written a lot about design in general,
from how to design a good form, to analyzing
AR and VR and how those technologies could
blend with our lives as we know them now.
DAL: Super, thanks. Actually, can I ask…
what’s the best magazine where people can
keep track of the new UIs and related designs
that are coming out? Is there one? Or does it
just get tucked into more general graphic
design magazines?
US: To be honest, I’m not aware of any
magazines exclusively about UIs. I read the
online Smashing Magazine and you can find
lots of different things there, everything related
to tech. There are also other Web publications
like UX Collective but again, not specific to UI
Design. I haven’t thought about this, but it
looks like it’s more associated with Web
development and UX. Probably there’s a UI
magazine and I don’t know about it though. If
DAL: Thanks. Yes, a good opportunity then for
someone there, perhaps with sponsorship from
some of the key software and hardware
makers. OK, moving on now. Tell us about your
own work, please? How did you first become
interested in design, and were there any people
who helped you when starting out?
US: I’ve done graphic design since high school.
I designed posters for my friends’ music shows
and that kind of thing. Then I moved to another
city to study Computer Science. I studied for
one year and decided to change to Design.
The program was really focused on print and
editorial design, not then a booming industry
by any means. Everyone I knew up to that
point was working at print shops and doing a
little freelance logo gig here and there.
Honestly, the professional future for that
sounded a bit hopeless.
DAL: Yes, legacy mass-media will increasingly
only have niche hobbyist and luxury magazines
in print form, I suspect. If even WebUser, a
flagship mass-market magazine in the UK, can’t
survive on the UK racks — it’s just folded, and
will be missed — it doesn’t bode well for other
print titles. Anyway, so you switched courses...
US: Yes, then, in my last year there, I learned
about UX Design. I did a couple of workshops
and met lots of people who were already
working in the industry. And before I knew it, I
had landed my first freelance job as a UX
Designer. They also really inspired me to start
connecting with like-minded people. So I and a
couple of friends started a local meetup. Then
we hosted the Global Service Jam’s local
chapter and now we have a thriving Discord
community, a podcast, and host online events.
DAL: Brilliant. What’s been your most pleasing
personal or client work, to date?
US: Recently I started a new job at an agency
and I’m working with a really great client. His
name is Dennis. He and the team had an
amazing dynamic, as I’ve never seen before.
We have weekly meetings and turns out they
have this thing called “recommendation of the 53
week”: every week someone from the team or
Dennis is chosen and they have to think about
something they would like to recommend to the
rest of us. In my first week, they chose me and
I recommended a site called Every Noise at
Once. It’s a map of over 5,000 different music
genres distributed according to whether they
are more organic, more mechanical or
electronic, more atmospheric, or bouncier.
DAL: Sounds very useful. I’ve often thought we
need something similar for software, showing
how each major software interconnects with its
plugins, bridges and content import options.
Where can people best see your portfolio of
work?
US: You can find me as @usiriczman pretty
much everywhere. My portfolio is at
usiriczman.com and I just renewed the domain,
so it will stay there for a while.
DAL: What are you currently working on?
US: I recently joined an agency called Optic
Power as a Product Designer. I’m doing a bit of
everything, mostly UI Design right now, using
Figma. I also co-host the Service Design Club,
a design community. You can find us at
servicedesignclub.com. We also have a podcast
called Live Design Radio on Spotify and
everywhere else where you listen to your
podcasts. And I’m interested in writing more,
so I’m planning to start a blog sooner rather
than later.
DAL: Super, we wish you well with that. Ulises,
many thanks for this in-depth interview.
US: Thanks to Digital Art Live for the
opportunity and for allowing me to share the
SpaceX interface with your readers.
Ulises Siriczman is online at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/
usiriczman/
https://www.usiriczman.com/
Italian science-fiction artist Luca
Oleastri uses Poser and Bryce, and
overpaints his renders to create sci-fi
book covers in the tradition of the
classic paperback artists.

DAL: Luca, welcome to the Digital Art Live
magazine interview. We have had our eye on
you for a while now, and we’re pleased to have
at last found a suitable edition of the magazine
to run a long interview with you. We feel the
selection of your pictures that we’re showing
here fit ‘the spirit of Elon Musk’. Bold and
optimistic and adventurous.
LO: Thanks! Yes, you are correct, my ‘artistic
poetics’ — as we Italians would say here — in
sci-fi is as you describe it, bold and optimistic.
DAL: How did your creative talents emerge?
LO: Technically I might be seen by some as a
‘has been’. I have been many things: In the
1980s I founded Newcinemagica, a special
effects company for cinema and television with
which I worked for ten years. Then in the
1990s I became a journalist, conducted radio
broadcasts on cinema. I also wrote and
managed film reviews, and worked on the
Italian edition of the Fangoria and Gorezone
magazines of U.S. fantastic cinema.
54

DAL: Ah, yes, they are still well-remembered.
LO: I also edited Kaos, an RPG role-playing
magazine. At the end of the 1990s I founded
the Planetario publishing house, publishing the
monthly magazine Soft Air Adventures. At
Planetario I also supervise the realization of
several series volumes and other book editions.
DAL: Ah, I like the Soft Air title. An inversion of
Heavy Metal… Soft for Heavy and Air for Metal.
Clever.
55
Picture: Detail from “SYD 1”.
LUCA OLEASTRI
ITALY
POSER | BRYCE |
PHOTOSHOP
WEB
LO: Since 2000 I have worked as a graphic, 3D
animator and product designer at Nextia, a
company controlled by the multinational
Qubica. Since 2005 I have been involved in
illustration, creating many fantastic and sci-fi
genre works, especially for the foreign
publishing market, but also for the videogames
market. Since 2008, together with the writer
Giorgio Sangiorgi, I have developed the
editorial initiative Edizioni Scudo — which in
2018 celebrated ten years of activity.
Having said all that, the word that distinguishes happily dip into fantasy and horror, if I get a
me the most is certainly “eclectic”. Being suggestion or if I am commissioned, but my
eclectic can be an advantage or a strong point is definitely science fiction.
disadvantage, it depends on what you do in
life. In my case, the word carries with it both
values, with a stress on the ‘advantage’.
Although I have worked for a long time with my
hands, at the same time I was interested in
computers ever since their consumer debut, so
much so that in the early 1980s I learned to
program the first personal computer in the
world: the Apple 2E. Since then I have owned
dozens of computers of every operating system
and power, going from the ZX Spectum to the
Amiga, to the Apple up to the latest Windows
PCs. The thing that interested me most from
the beginning was the possibility of creating
synthetic images with those machines, both in
2D and in 3D. I don’t know how to draw
freehand, a practice which even to this day I
view in others as ‘a strange miracle’. It's like
they inserted ‘a block in my brain’ for that.
Even so, today my business is that of full time
illustrator and I will always thank all the
gentlemen who invented the machines that let
me ‘draw’.
DAL: Great. And are you mostly self taught?
LO: I am totally self-taught. I liked the sci-fi
aesthetic from an early age. I strongly love
science fiction design, very much an all-
encompassing love — for both ‘vintage’ and the DAL: Wonderful. Yes, your mention of horror
contemporary. Despite having been an leads me to your Lovecraftian work. Italy has a
assiduous reader of the genre — though in good reputation for such things, and in the
recent years I have pared down my reading — scholarship of the fantastic as well as the
what really satisfies my aesthetic taste is the stories. The H.P. Lovecraft scholars of Italy are
visual imagery of science fiction. I've always excellent, for instance. The Italian book design
imagined scenes similar to those I now produce and other forms of design is also very fine.
as an illustrator. But not knowing how to draw,
LO: Yes, it’s a mystery why we have such good
I couldn't show them to others. For many
Italian scholars of H.P. Lovecraft and
years I made physical models and dioramas of
Lovecraftian writers, since the man certainly
the things I imagined — since I have a certain
did not write fiction that is part of our classical
manual ability — but over time this form of
Italian culture. But he attracts many ‘artisans’,
creativity seemed limited to me, even if I could
self-taught people interested both in the past
film and “make real” my physical creations. So
and the future. More widely, our nation has
when I discovered 3D computer graphics, I
many such people who, despite having no
found it the right medium to express myself.
qualification or any school specialization, carry
Finally, I could materialize all the spaceships,
out their work with an ingenuity, an art and a
aliens, technologies and worlds as I wanted and
skill rarely detectable by the rest of the world.
let others enjoy them. Every now and then I 56
 Picture: used as the key
cover illustration for a
WISO conference in
2018 on learning, from
automobile disasters,
how to make safer cars.
Opposite: cover for
Future #2, March 2019.

57
“I think we need a
[screen] show about how
Mars is like the Wild West,
and you’ve got the
gunslingers and like… cool
cowboys and that kind of
thing.” — Elon Musk.

58
These are totally self-taught people and ‘shop
boys’ who have ‘worked their way up’ from the
shop-floor and learned to work excellently in
one field. The great artists of the Renaissance
such as Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo are
first and foremost great craftsmen, and they
stand as exemplars.
DAL: Indeed. Turning now to your own science-
fiction artworks, you are obviously strongly
influenced by the best of the British and
American science-fiction artists of the 1960s
and 70s — such as Syd Mead and Chris Foss.
You may recall that our magazine was lucky
enough to be given a very generous long
interview with Syd Mead before he passed
away. (Also… if any reader knows Chris Foss
personally, please let him know that we’re
interested in interviewing him too). But how did
you first encounter such artists, in Italy? What
was the context, and what were your first
thoughts about their works?
LO: Becoming a genre illustrator was always
one of my dreams, ever since I was young. As I
said, I am an avid science fiction reader. Most
of the science fiction books that fill the shelves
in my home library were purchased firstly for
their cover art! I am also a collector of science
fiction and fantasy illustration books. I have
nearly all the picture books that have been
published around the world! Over the years I
have spent a lot of time studying and admiring
them.
DAL: Wow, that’s incredible. I hope there will
be away to keep them together for the future,
as a Special Collection in a university library…
eventually. And talking of books, you have
been a professional SF author. What sort of
tales have you told? Have you been translated?
LO: I would like to write longer fiction,
obviously science fiction but not only. But
during my life I have written some short
stories, which were published in Italy and
France. Unfortunately I don’t have the
constancy and dedication of the full-time writer
of novels. If you want to be a writer you have
to write at least a few pages every day, every
day. I put that commitment into my art and…
there is not much time left for the rest.
59
DAL: Ah, I see. So when you discovered digital
art, you decided to create works in a similar
style to Mead and Foss and some others? Or
was there an even more formative stage first,
where you experimented with new digital
styles?
LO: When as a boy I saw the book Spacecraft,
2000-2100 A.D. in a library window. That was
one of the Terran Trade Authority handbooks
by Stewart Cowley.
DAL: Ah yes, we tried to get an interview with
him for the “Spacewreck” issue, but had no
reply.
LO: I was blown away and went to a bookstore
and bought it immediately. All the illustrations
in that book were great, but my favorite ones
were those of Peter Elson. The work of Peter
Elson — who unfortunately passed away
prematurely — was one of the reasons why I
developed my career in the field of science
fiction illustration. I believe his artistic influence
is clearly visible in my digital works. Many
years ago I tried to approach learning the
airbrush technique, but after several months of
experiments I gave up. The airbrush does not
allow for mistakes and requires perfect
planning of the artwork, and I make a lot of
mistakes and plan very little, so digital art is
perfect for me. You can go back, and with
Photoshop’s layers you can always fix
everything.
My second artistic love and one of my teachers
was Syd Mead, also because I bought his book
Sentinel immediately after Spacecraft, 2000-
2100 A.D. I have leafed through that book so
many times that I have consumed it. What I
love about Mead is how he managed to
compose simple geometric primitives and turn
them into design masterpieces.
DAL: And you have obviously become a prolific
talent yourself, with many fine pictures. Can
you now tell us more about your planning
process and workflow, please? You render and
then do partial over-painting, I believe? And
perhaps use some other tools? I’d say that the
Poser-Vue combination, which is very seamless,
might be a natural fit with your style? Poser 11
still exports scenes nicely to the new Vue.
LO: It may seem strange to some of your
readers but my main tools are still Bryce, Poser
and Photoshop. Although I also use the latest
versions of the Adobe package when needed, I
still mainly use Photoshop CS6, because having
fewer tools speeds up my work a lot.
I don't use DAZ Studio, simply because I've
been using Poser since its very early versions
and my whole set-up is set to Poser, and it
would be hard for me to switch to DAZ Studio.
DAL: Bryce and Poser, interesting. I thought
you were a DAZ Studio guy. Well, it goes to
show, sticking with what you know and learning
it thoroughly can pay off.
LO: I know that using Bryce will sounds like
blasphemy to some 21st century ears. But I’ve
been using it since its first version, know it very
well, and make Bryce do things he shouldn’t
theoretically do. After all, a winning team does
60
not change, and limitations can often sharpen
ingenuity and creativity. The important thing in
my work and for the client is the final result,
don't you think?
DAL: Yes. Your work is very suited to science-
fiction book covers, of perhaps the more galaxy
spanning and optimistic variety. Which is
actually something that is coming back into
fashion, with the SF aspects of the neo-pulp
revival in the English speaking world. You
certainly have a large and wonderful range of
these potential covers. I would imagine that
you are also open to commissions, in 2020 and
21? Do you only accept commission for work
that is ‘in tune’ with your own view of what
science-fiction is?
LO: Virtually all of my works, when not
commissioned, are always thought of as book
covers. I can only imagine them like this.
I don't know if my works are really ‘optimistic’.
My style is certainly influenced by the
illustrators of the 1980s, perhaps for this
reason they have an optimistic feel.
Yes, I am definitely open to commissions for
2020 and 21, depending on my workload. This
work has its ups and downs and there are
tremendously busy periods. At other times my
schedule is… empty. As you can see from my
website rotwangstudio.com I accept
commissions in general for illustrations in
fantastic genres, from fantasy to sc-fi, from
UFOlogy to horror, even if I do better with
expressing science fiction themes. For four
years now the talented artist Paola Giari has
been with Rotwangstudio, and he is very good
in the styles in which I perform less well.
Sometimes we also do four-handed jobs, and in
this way we can cover any request.
Pictures: across spread, “Space Ranger”; “Head Clearance”;
61
DAL: Super. What was the commercial book
cover you were most pleased with?
LO: That book is Surviving Tomorrow, which
should be in bookstores in the United States
around now. Surviving Tomorrow contains
twenty-nine stories from America’s leading
science fiction authors about ‘survivors’, more
than half of which are original and first
published. Struck by the desire to help people
as the pandemic develops, publisher Bryan
Thomas Schmidt decided to try to use his
curatorial skills to raise money for COVID-19
support, creating an anthology with two
purposes: to collect funds and provide readers
with stories that speak to them as they handle
the stress of our changing social landscape.
All of the Surviving Tomorrow book profits will
go to providing COVID-19 testing — i.e. directly
to help the front lines of this ongoing crisis.
“SYD 1”; and “Spaceport”.
Of if the buyer of the book wishes your share
may — if you so choose — go to one of the
charities of your choice the donor can choose
over at the book’s website at
www.survivingtomorrowanthology.com
DAL: Ah, congratulations. That sounds very
timely. Let’s have a look. Yes, there is the
book’s website — ah, look, there are big names
in this… major authors like Neil Gaiman, Robert
Silverberg, Orson Scott Card, Alan Dean Foster,
and about 20 others. Impressive. And with your
sci-fi artwork right there on the front cover.
Congratulations.
Talking of staying inside during the lockdowns…
what is your work studio like, and also what is
your PC specification like in 2020?
LO: My working studio set-up here is very
simple: for convenience I work on a rather
powerful Windows laptop, have some external
hard drives, a very good external monitor, and
a rather large and simple mouse. In this way I
can theoretically also work on Mount Everest if
there is an Internet connection there.
DAL: Nice, yes... and I imagine that in the
summer that sort of mobile setup means you
can move easily to the shadier side of the
house. Important in the hot nations, I would
imagine. Here in the UK, mosture sealant
tends to be more important... Laughter.
Can we go back for a moment to your
mentioned your mention of your special effects
company and physical model making? That
sounds fascinating, can I ask more about that
please. Does that, for instance, carry over to
your digital work today, in terms of making
digital 3D models and spaceships?
LO: Yes, I worked in special effects for cinema
commercials between about 1980 and 1990,
when computers were not used in productions.
We were three partners with overlapping skills
but each with their own specializations. I was
specialized in the construction of miniatures.
With my digital works I use all my experience
and passion, and bring the same approach I
had with making the physical miniatures. In the
early 1980s I completely built a three-meter-
long spaceship in 1:72 scale from scratch.
62
That was made for a promotional film,
consisting of thousands of pieces — and with a
quality level equal to the models built in the
same period for Star Wars.
Yes, today I mostly make digital spaceships,
but I’m a bad 3D modeller. To remedy this, I
use the same scratch-building — some call it
‘kit-bashing’ — technique I used for physical
models, using pieces from other 3D models,
modified geometric primitives, and lots of
greebles in 3D. After all, a lot of the final effect
of a 3D model is in the textures, and I work a
lot on those. In any case, even if I were a very
good 3D modeller, I wouldn't be able to
obsessively model a 3D object for days and
days. Otherwise my illustrations would cost
more than ten times as much!
DAL: Indeed. What are you working on at
present?
LO: I continue to complete the commissioned
works that often come to me and in my down-
time I make illustrations of my own pleasure.
These allow me to do stylistic experiments, that
I can often then sell on my site with Stock
Images or as ‘Premade Covers’. I am also
finishing up a personal project that I have been
doing for a long time with some friends. This is
the rule book of a sci-fi role-playing game
called Galactic Frontier, fully illustrated by me.
DAL: Sounds good. What would you like to
work on, if someone called you up and offered
you “a dream job”?
LO: I already have a “dream job”! I have no
bosses, I work as often as I like, when and
where I like, doing the things I like best. I am
free and this is priceless.
DAL: Wonderful. Ok, Luca, many thanks for this
interview. We wish you all the best.
LO: Thanks to you and good luck to Digital Art
Live!
Luca Oleastri is online at:
https://innovari.artstation.com/
63
Pictures: “Sky Patrol”; and “1-0215” and
“1-0225” (over) by Luca Oleastri. 64
65
We present pictures which seem, in some way, to fit with our ‘Elon’ theme.

66
 Picture: “Distant Rainbow” by Alexandreev (Alex V. Andreev) of Russia.

As well as a vision of a future, this picture is also an
outstanding exercise in ambiguity — and as such
demands interpretation. The way we read it, amidst
beauty there is great urgency. A team leader is
saying a swift goodbye to his wife, and his team
race to join him in boarding his newly-arrived craft.
In the background other men run from the beach,
presumably to launch similar craft, or to man control
stations. The floating panels are then presumably
defensive in nature, as are the defensive craft seen
rocketing skyward. The remaining question is: what
is being defended against? A rogue A.I. in orbit?

67
Pictures: “Populus”
by TheBakaArts of
Germany; “I’m in
MarsPort” by
Adrian Mark
Gillespie of the UK.

68
Picture: “Sci-fi jet 2” by Silberius (Edouard Noisette) of France.

69
Pictures: “Somewhere” by Itiseyemeeszark; “Okula III” and “Wake
up dear sister, in this undiscovered dream”. both by Agura Nata.

70
71
72
Pictures: “Sector 5” by TheBakaArts of Germany; “The Spider” and “Caribbean Structure III” by
Jean-François Liesenborghs of Belgium. Readers can find in-depth interviews with both artists in
previous issues of our free magazine — issues #31 and #3 respectively.

73
Picture: “Cargo” by GabrielGajdos of Slovakia.

74
75
Picture: “Blender Scifi” by Brawnyink of Italy, after a YouTube tutorial on the style by Ducky 3D.
76
77
GEAR: OCULUS QUEST 2
Want to teleport anywhere on the planet, look around and then
wander around? For £299? Then the new Oculus Quest 2 may
be the lightweight wireless VR headset you’ve been waiting for.
Nothing is going to be perfect at this low price, but the Quest 2
offers 1920px per-eye — giving a crisper and less pixelated
view than the first Quest model. While most will use a Quest 2
for short VR games, the specs now seem ideal for Google
Street View — which here exists as a slick £8 app branded as
‘Wander’. This unique app has been less than perfect, but has
recently updated to fix most of the annoying niggles. Also,
note that the Quest 2 needs a Facebook account to run, and
most likely also a smartphone for the activation app.
If you’re instead happy with PC-tethered VR, the older Oculus
Rift S should enable you to run the full and free Google Earth
VR with Street View, provided your PC is can run VR and has
the right sockets. Note that the ‘S’ is set to be discontinued —
we’re hoping to see it in the January 2021 sales at £299.
The Quest 2 is widely available now from many retail outlets.

Our pick of the most inspirational art and products. Make your imagination LIVE!

78
IPD distance adjusts of 58mm, 63mm, 68mm. Glasses spacer.
Single split LCD screen with 1832 x 1920 per eye, thus almost
no ‘screen door effect’, and a reduced ‘smearing’ effect.
The move from OLED to LCD means no deep blacks — this
may not suit those readers who venture into deep space!
Can run at 90Hz refresh rate, but all games are 72Hz.
Faster Snapdragon XR2 processor, ‘made for VR’.
3.5mm audio jack for your own audio.
64Gb storage, 6Gb RAM.
Affordable!

79 Pictures: With thanks to Oculus and Facebook.

Graphic Novel: Leonardo
In Leonardo da Vinci: The Renaissance of
the World (2020) the famous Leonardo’s life,
greatest artworks and accomplishments has
been crafted into a glittering revolving
mechanical ‘pop-up box’ of flashbacks and
vignettes. The form of the story, from the
screenwriter Marwan Kahil, is worthy of
Leonardo himself — evoking the ways a
medieval man of great talents and free-
thought was ‘boxed in’ between poisonous
politicans, scheming rivals and a smothering
theological concensus. The art by Ariel
Vittori is vivid in a rough painterly way and
should attract teenage readers, while the
depictions of the clothes, architecture and
manners of the time have all met with the
approval of historians. Sadly the book only
has 106 pages of actual comic, reflecting its
origins as a French ‘BD’ album. One feels it
could have been twice as long, but perhaps
the length is the most suitable one for those
in the 14-18 age group.
Book: Automobile Concept Art
Imagine: Automobile Concept Art from the
1930s to the 1980s celebrates the innovative car
designer/artists of America, who were working
at a time of surging optimism for the future.
The book is a lavish production, a fine tribute
that presents 235 images from 87 key artists
drawn from The Kelley Collection. Beautifully
printed as a $90 colour hardback, the book
mostly focusses on the Detroit-based car
companies, and on designs that evoked a sleek
beauty and futuristic novelty for adventurous car
buyers. Unlike many such futuristic concept
designs, some concepts were actually put into
production and driven out of the showrooms.
Such art is rare and the Kelley Collection was
painstakinging gathered over 15 years, built by
rescuing concept art from the attics of old
industrial artists, unearthing forgotten caches
lost in the ruins of Detroit, tracking down
reclusive traders for purchases and swops, and
also by discovering trade-magazine photos
depicting the artists and art-studios at work.
80
 Picture: Detail from a
B&W press still. The
actual movie is in colour.
Bio-pic: The Winds of Kitty Hawk
Amazingly, The Winds of Kitty Hawk (1978)
is the only surviving serious feature-length
drama of the Wright Brothers and their flying
machine. You might have thought there
would be several big-budget cinema movies
by now, and a few lesser bio-pics from the
1950s... but no. It’s another of those
inspiring moments in history that big-budget
movie producers are curiously uninterested
in. Yet we do at least have one watchable
movie about the Wright Brothers. Winds was
lavishly made for TV, and with actual flying
recreations of the early aircraft. The script is
rather mundane and the acting merely
workmanlike, but it is at least free of a love-
story sub-plot and it doesn’t distort the facts
too much. Winds was nominated for several
Emmy awards (Outstanding Film Editing,
Outstanding Sound, Outstanding
Cinematography). Available for streaming in
the USA on Amazon for just $4, but others
must import it as an expensive £20 Region 1
DVD (beware ‘Region 0’ fraud on eBay).
Book: How Innovation Works
Why and where does innovation happen? What
hampers its progress? Can it really be
accelerated by throwing money at it? What,
exactly, is it? Such are the questions leading
science writer and commentator Matt Ridley
(The Rational Optimist) seeks to answer in his
acclaimed new book. Along the way he also
debunks common myths about innovation.
Broadly, innovation is the process by which
discoveries are rather improbably made into
practical material things that are useable,
servicable and affordable for mankind. Sure, the
basic discoveries and inventors need to be
around first, but these alone are not enough.
Once underway, practical bottom-up innovation
then gradually ‘evolves’ — if plugged into mass
production and if free from state interference,
over-regulation and media alarmism.
The book is a fun read, with lots of short
examples tied to deep thinking, and the writing
is as crystal-clear as you would expect from the
81 former Science Editor of The Economist.
Reinventing Space
28th-30th June 2021 / UK
The British Interplanetary Society’s flagship
conference, ‘Reinventing Space’, will bring
together leaders in space exploration
industries — via a peer-reviewed
conference, a trade exhibition, an art show,
and the annual Gala Dinner. There will also
be the option to “attend virtually” if needed.
https://www.bis-space.com/
Pictures, from left, across double-page:
Visualisation of the British Interplanetary
Society’s “Project Daedelus” — a technically
feasible and buildable interstellar starship — en
route to Barnard’s Star in just 50 years of travel
time. Picture: Adrian Mann.
The “Kodomoroid”, the world’s first robot
newscaster. Silicone skin and special artificial
muscles lend a realistic appearance.
Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde, from the
online Index exhibit at Google, titled “The
humble heroes disrupting old industries”.
A curious visitor experiences an exhibit in the
SIGGRAPH Art Gallery.
82
Robots
Until 14th April 2021 / Hong Kong
The London Science Museum’s giant touring
‘Robots’ show is currently being hosted by
the Hong Kong Science Museum, until April
2021. Billed there as “Robots: The 500-Year
Quest to Make Machines Human”, this large
show features a unique collection of over 100
robots, many working, from the earliest
‘automatons’ to robots from science fiction
and modern-day research labs. From the
16th century, artisans gradually invented
marvelous ‘automatons’ that emulated the
anatomy of the human body. Set in five
different time periods, the Hong Kong staging
of the “Robots” exhibition shows how such
‘automata’ developed into robots, being first
been shaped by our understanding of the
natural universe, then the needs of the great
Industrial Revolution, then the entertainment
stories of 20th century popular culture, and
today by our informed envisioning of likely
future technologies. There will also be locally
specific art demonstrations, such as classic
Asian silk brush-painting done by a robot arm
under A.I. control.
https://hk.science.museum/
Once Upon a Try
Online exhibits portal / Google A&C
Google Arts & Culture’s “Once Upon a Try” is
a new Web page linking into over 500
substantial online exhibits — which together
document many significant advances in
science and technology. Each exhibit is
usefully presented in a uniform manner,
hosted by Google and with the standard
Google Arts & Culture user interface. Some
exhibits are a long Web page with text and hi-
res ‘zoomable’ photos, others are larger and
more complex in their interactivity. With 500
of these to choose from, any number of self-
guided paths can be taken, for instance by
diving deep into aspects of hard science, by
dipping into the health advances, or by easing
back with quirky links to online exhibits on
topics such as Pinball Tables, Valentine Cards,
Perfumes or Heinz Pickles! The large selection
on offer also means it is easy to avoid the
more obviously tendentious topics, or those
less suited to children. Unfortunately there is
currently no ability to re-sort the jumble of
exhibits by era, along a timeline.
https://artsandculture.google.com/
83
SIGGRAPH 2021: Art Gallery
Summer 2021 / Online
The SIGGRAPH 2021 Art Gallery will showcase
innovative and original digital artworks that use
computer graphics and interactivity. The works
selected for the annual show will be at the
cutting-edge of 3D rendering and generative
content or simulation, often mixing a sense of
fun with a serious drive to push forward the
possibilities of a particular technology. Due to
the lockdowns, in 2021 the Art Gallery is likely
to be online and the curators are aiming to
explore ways to show digital creativity in a way
that is accessible in online or in hybrid formats.
This should, potentially, open up the show to
large new audiences that would not otherwise
have access to it. Though be warned that
tickets may still be expensive.
The Art Gallery section of this vast event is a
juried exhibition, and they welcome
submissions from both emerging and
established artists from all nations. The
submission form deadline date is 19th January
2021, with decisions to be given by the end of
March 2021.
https://s2021.siggraph.org/program/art-
gallery/
 Are you interested in
being interviewed in
a future issue of the
magazine? Or
presenting a webinar
for our series?
Please send the Web
address of your
gallery or store, and
we’ll visit!

paul@digitalartlive.com

Picture: “Blumen”
by TheBakaArts.
84