The Art of William Black

William Black is a professional digital artist specializing in science fiction, space travel, and the future. He has done commission artwork for unspecified clients. However he profiles and sells personal copies of his work at his webpage. According to his Patreon page, he describes himself as an artist who puts art informed with realism based on hard science. The artist has had a lifelong interest in space travel and colonization. Mr. Black firmly believes that humanity will colonize outer space in the future starting with our solar system then off to the stars.

Atomic Rockets

William Black's artwork carries with it the Winchell Chung's Atomic Rockets Seal of Approval. Atomic Rockets is a blog site devoted to promoting hard science into science fiction. The site can be used as a reference for both artist and writers depicting future space travel in the most accurate way possible. More on Atomic Rockets is here at their site.

Orion's Arm Future History

In this painting form the Orion's Arms Future History, a command module is retrieving a payload from a carrier. The capsule and carrier are digital models the background is a real picture of the Earth courtesy of NASA/JPL. Here is a link to the image.

Calisto Production Field

This work is about a mining operation on the Jupiter moon Calisto. This painting is a part of the artist Orion's Future Arm history. The image depicts a nuclear power drilling derrick along with a tanker transport. The purpose of the mining operation is to obtain water which is later processed into hydrogen and oxygen via electrolysis. Also ammonia is extracted to produce green house gases for terraforming. Here is a link to this image.

Diagrams

This image shows an orbital facility designed to hold rocket propellant. This work is a part of the Orion's Future Arm History series. This class of spacecraft would be used for colonization of Mars and asteroid mining. The depot is nuclear powered and has a crew of about 3 or four persons working in zero gravity. You can find more on this artwork at this link.

Reconnaissance Mission

This image shows reconnaissance ships that are designated for Earth Return for Martian colonists. These ships are Nuclear pulse propulsion types and are a part of the artist Orion’s Arm future history setting. See more about this spaceship here.

The Martian Settlement

This image shows a Mars lander ascending into the Martian atmosphere as seen in the Valles Marineris. The re-entry is seen from the vantage point of some 1,500 miles down range of the target area. This image is a part of his Martian Settlement series. Find more at this link.

What I Like About His Art

I love the art work from this artist for many reasons. First, the artist strives for realism based upon true science and engineering. For each work he has done detailed research into the science of the painted subject. Second, I love the settings he has chosen and their backgrounds. The planet settings are very colorful and have a good contrast; the ships and other machines are very detailed as well. Finally I think his art work could easily be used for matte paintings for movies.