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Peter Elson: Science Fiction Illustrator
- zeristor 6y agoNice to see this boosted after several days. Of course there’s the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Elson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Elson Which credits him with being the inspiration for the Homeworld series of games.
- hermitcrab 6y agoAmazing images. On the other hand I was duped into reading some pretty dreadful sci fi books as a kid because on the amazing cover art created by people like Peter Elson and Chris Foss (E E Doc Smith springs to mind).
- zeristor 6y agoYou can’t judge a book by its cover...
- hermitcrab 6y agoI learnt the hard way. ;0)
- Animats 6y agoOh, he died in 1998. I thought this was an obituary.
- femto113 6y agoWas given this book as a present when I was a kid, its images still occupy a big chunk of my imagination and the Elsons were definitely my favorites. Kind of illustration in reverse--it's a loosely related collection of stories inspired by the images (I think mostly or all originally painted to illustrate other stories). https://www.amazon.com/Great-Space-Battles-Stewart-Cowley/dp/0890092605 https://www.amazon.com/Great-Space-Battles-Stewart-Cowley/dp...
- zxcvbn4038 6y agoI was going to say these reminded me of that Space Wreck book series - wish they would go back into publication, they were really popular during their run but unfortunately the kind of books that got passed around a lot and acquired a lot of wear, so it’s hard to find them in good condition. One of the things I really enjoyed about the Riddick movies was the alien planets actually looking alien instead of like Canadian forestland. (Or gravel pits if you remember ‘70s Dr Who episodes).
- pavlov 6y agoHis paintings feel extremely nostalgic to me because they remind me of Amiga graphics in the 1987-1993 era. It's probably due to three factors: 1) Elson's bright colors with limited color blending evokes the Amiga's limited 32-color palette; 2) the texture detail is often similar in granularity to a low-resolution hand-pixelated image; 3) scifi and fantasy paintings were often recreated by young Amiga artists.
- Ralfp 6y agoHomeworld from 1999 was heavily inspired by Elson's work: http://www.peterelson.co.uk/images/gallery/large/PebbleInTheSky.jpg http://www.peterelson.co.uk/images/gallery/large/PebbleInThe... vs https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/3936-homeworld-game-of-the-year-edition-windows-front-cover.jpg https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/3936-homeworld-gam... There is even character named "Group Captain Elson" as tribute to Peter.
- notaspecialist 6y agoI loved seeing his pictures when I was younger. So inspirational.