Spock A Moiré

[einahpets]

"Spock A Moiré" was created for the Star Trek zine Ex Astris, Scientia. "A charity Star Trek zine, focused on celebrating both the Original and Alternate Original Series (TOS and AOS)."

Sadly, this zine fell through when the finance mod went and disappeared. Major bummer since the money to actually print the zine went with them too.

 

I submitted my application on a whim a couple days before submissions were to close. I had literally just posted my T'hy'la pieces and used those along with some much older paintings as samples of my work. When I found out I was accepted into the project, I was excited since I had never been in a zine before, but also unprepared because I didn't think I'd get in! I only had a vague idea of what I wanted to draw (a TOS piece). After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to draw Spock, since he is hands down the most iconic character from the franchise and I love the character. I threw out this description to the mods in hopes they'd approve it. "TOS era Spock watercolor portrait. A half portrait with the IDIC symbol in the background. I'm thinking of including a spider moiré pattern somewhere in there as a nod to his position as Chief Science Officer." It was approved!

 

After drawing a thumbnail to work out the composition, I managed to create an image that matched my text description. Satisfied with the thumbnail, I moved onto the good paper. Ended up having a lot of fun working on this portrait (minus some procrastination and throbbing tooth problems that led to 2 root canals. Though I finished well before the deadline). I love the overlapping moiré pattern on the IDIC symbol. It came out so well, and it added an extra dynamic I didn't think about during the initial idea. To me, the tension and movement from the moiré is also a visualization of the conflict Spock feels as a half Vulcan/Human.

 

Anyway, I finished this on 9/6/20. Even though the project fell through, so happy to finally share this piece publicly. The wait has been agonizing since I'm really proud of this portrait!!

Mediums: Watercolor with a touch of black colored pencil, drawn in graphite on an 11.69" X 16.53" sheet of Arches Rough Watercolor paper.

dA
Also on AO3

Comments

[yue_ix]

AAAAHH This is gorgeous, I've been staring for several minutes and won't be stopping yet. The moiré feels so alive and does bring such a strong dynamic to the piece. I love how you also included it into his shirt, so that it's part of him too, not just as background.

Sorry about your first zine experience not panning out. The finance mod leaving with the zine's money is just.. yikes. D: You did an amazing work here and I'm glad we get to see it!

[einahpets]

Thank you so much!! Painting the moiré was trippy, but I really love how everything tied together. Super glad to hear it works well visually!!

Fortunately I had positive experiences on the two other Trek zines I participated in ... I'm just really glad I finally got to share this one!