Colonyship Aurelius

I've been reading a lot of space opera sci-fi stuff lately. Most notably the expanse series as well as Becky Chambers wayfarer series. Two incredibly different IP's but they've got me thinking a lot about spaceships. I've also been really inspired by 70's and 80's sci fi art like Berkey, Harris, and Foss. So wanted to do something that captured that spirit but from a bit more of a contemporary concept art perspective. This took about 5 days, but a lot of that was building kitbash parts that work at this scale. The next one will hopefully go faster!

The idea here is a deep space exploration colony ship that's transporting everything needed to build a home on a new planet. I was thinking of a train with lots of box cars and shipping container style cargo areas. The engine would be in the back and just be a massive set of rockets. Then at the front there's a detachable dropship that's actually designed for atmospheric flight. It wouldn't really land as much as ferry supplies back and forth from the main ship.

Rough sketch working out color and composition

Rough sketch working out color and composition