Alexi Sokolov: The Ether Fleets

As so often happens to protagonists in these stories, they get much more than they thought they were "signing up for." 

As a member of his world's armed forces, Mr. Sokolov is literally on the front lines of power and politics as big changes come rolling through people's lives.

Page One                                                                                      Page Two                                              Page Three                                         Page Four

                                                                                                                            BIBLIOFANCY                                                                       

                           Detail from ...Emergent.  This was an ever so slightly different version of the art I was working over.

The 12th Fleet Emergent utilizes something a bit out-of-the-ordinary for my work: "rotoscoping."  I'm not using that term exactly correctly I think, as rotoscoping was coined for an animation style, and this is clearly not animated.  However, at the level of the single frame it's similar I believe.  For the image of the dying dreadnought on the right, I began with a photograph of the same model as all the other ships seen on this site; but, to smooth out or reinforce the detail - to get the picture as far away from model as I could - I painted over the photo, using that photo as the "map."  The shadows and highlights have not changed, but the "plastic-y" look was (hopefully) eliminated, and some details not present on the model could be added, like the barrels of the main battery guns appearing tubular, instead of tiny little solid rods.