Hello and welcome to the 204th Fan Art Forum Challenge! The Concept For ages artists from all kinds of disciplines have looked for inspiration in everyday objects from their life. That's even and especially true for all the various artists working on Star Trek over the last half century: Mundane objects like salt shakers, for example, famously got turned into the futuristic medical instruments of Dr. McCoy, while on TNG an egg-shaped pantyhose packaging and a shampoo bottle were cobbled together by artist Dan Curry to form alien probes. Longtime concept illustrator John Eaves tells the story of how a three-legged salsa bowl stand inspired the design of the Cardassian weapons platforms, while makeup artist Michael Westmore remembered an abstract painting of a woman with a spoon on her forehead when he came up with the design for the new Trek aliens. And then there's elements like the barcode scanners in Star Trek (2009) that are added to the set unchanged, in the hopes people would just see them as 23rd century devices. The Challenge So this month is all about looking for (and finding) inspiration in your surroundings. At home, at work, maybe even something that's lying next to you on your desk this very moment. Find that weird or interesting or beautiful or unique object in your life and turn it into a Trek prop, ship, set or alien makeup This might be inspirational to you as well … The Rules the artwork you submit should be created during the month of the challenge only one final image can be submitted (although it may contain multiple views) your final entry should be posted in this thread (although dedicated WIP threads are appreciated) You have until the end of the January, Saturday the 29th, to enter something. If you have any questions, suggestions or need more time, just let me know. Have fun!
By the way, what you're seeing in the image above is not actually the abstract painting Michael Westmore was inspired by for the Cardassian makeup. It's just something I quickly created with an AI generator online to illustrate the idea. Just want to make sure to not be responsible for any kind of fake news, haha. If you are aware what the actual painting looked like, please do let me know!
Oh, there was? I glanced at the list of past contest when thinking about the new theme, but didn't spot this very same idea. But I'm sure I could have missed it. And anyway, I think some of the contest ideas done over the last decade this has been going on are very worth doing again. I hope there are some takers for this idea.
I remembered participating in two similar–but–not–quite–the–same contests back in the day. (Looks at list) Inspiration in 2009 and Metamorphosis in 2010. Been a while since I had a go so maybe I'll do something this time.
Ah yes, thank you! The entries from the 2009 contest are still viewable here, but the links from the 2010 version are all broken. Well, if anything this shows that after 12+ years we can have another one of those. Would love for you to enter something again, @BK613!
Very possible! The quote I saw talked of a painting, but maybe that's what Westmore actually saw. Thanks for that find! Incidentally we just had “The Wounded” on today in our TNG rewatch. And man, those first Cardassian uniforms were so clunky! And those silly helmets! Marc Alaimo is brilliant though as Gul Macet. As is Time Winters as Glinn Darro, who's maybe one of the most sympathetic Cardassians we'll ever get to meet.
Here's my entry, the everyday objects being a rock i found on the beach and the antenna what snapped off the old transistor radio from my man cave..
Thanks for your entry, @Orac! I find it a really charming idea. I'm sorry I didn't get the contest moving along for a couple of days. One the one hand I was thinking that there might still pop up someone else to enter, and then on the other I didn't find time earlier to work on something myself. It looks like it will really be between the two of us this time around. For my entry I looked around our household for objects that have an interesting shape and I ended up combining part of a rounded corner puncher, a hand blender and a Copic marker into a starship design. I'm not sure which Trek era this belongs to; it's kind of a collection of some of my favorite design elements across all series. Plus my take on Discovery's floating warp nacelle design. Give me a minute and I'll post a voting thread real quick. EDIT: Voting thread is up here now!