3D - 2

Humans/technology, billions of years in the future -- Any artist renderings/drawings?

I'm trying to see if anyone has made any artist sketches, renderings or anything like that of what life and people might be like millions or billions of years in the future. I've seen one or two places that have some human pics and some pics of the sun's death, but that's about it. I guess it's all pretty hard to imagine, no wonder I can't find a lot of links lol. Are there any pics showing more humans, how cities will look, technology, spacecraft, perhaps the end of the universe? Any help would be great, thanks :)

Public Comments

1. Science Fiction pulps, like most pulps were lavishly illustrated. Having grown up in the sixties (the post-pulp era) I can't remember all the relevant names. Frank R. Paul sometimes seems naive to modern eyes. He worked from the 1920s in pulp and illustrated everything and everyone it sometimes seems. The more you look at him the more sophisticated he becomes. These are definitely timeless stage sets from which we get everything from Buck Rogers (the comic strip) to the Shape of Things to come which are both less cosmic but he's always worth a second look. Among the pulp stories which dealt with these themes were Don Stuart's (John W. Campbell Jr.'s) Twilight and Night, a couple of Van Vogt short stories, Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories, among the pulp era stories were Eric Temple Bell's The Time Stream and anything by Olaf Stapledon. Look for these stories and you should find suitable artwork. From my era I can name illustrators. Jack Gaughan, Kelly Freas, Paul Lehr and Richard Powers brought a heavy design esthetic into their work. Freas was heavily influenced by traditional cartooning/illustration. Gaughan sometimes sacrificed texture (which his cover for Alpha Yes Terra No shows he was quite capable of showing, but his range as an illustrator was truly awesome. Among other things he did two classic series of covers for E. E. Doc Smith's Lensman novels. Paul Lehr simply did fairly surreal landscapes for the genre, some of which are suggestive, while Powers was full of abstraction, though his Tarzan, while unique was straightforward. There was also Podwil whose covers included detailed renderings of machines. From that era most of this work was appearing on Ace Books and other paperback covers. I suggest you type Ace Double into a search engine because there are galleries of them out there, and you are definitely sure to find what you are looking for in that 50's-70's period. John Schoenherr was a wildlife artist who sometimes illustrated stories with animals which were either aliens or products of genetic engineering. Like Kelly Freas he worked a lot for Analog Magazine in the sixties and seventies, and you will find that magazine full of illustrations which may or may not be helpful. During and after the seventies SF/Fantasy illustration became more about the stories and less about the ideas (space ships, for example). To some of us comparisons of the early Perry Rhodan covers by Gray Morrow with the better written but similar in concept Mutineer's Moon novels by David Weber tend towards Morrow's work as more attractive. The best genre work being done is being done by convention artists. You might come to different conclusions but there is this large body of work some of which is quite serious no matter what angle you approach it from.