Inspiration for Sci-Fi

Inspiration for 2012 Lunar Contact

The other day, while slurping up spaghetti in Southlake, my brother asked me where I got my inspiration for all the weird creatures and exotic space ships that I put in my science fiction stories. It's a good question. Some are obviously from my biology and aviation  backgrounds and some just appear out of thin air, usually while in the shower or trying to get to sleep. They often just pop into my head, like the creature described in 2012 Lunar Contact, as part of the warrior race. The creature was an amalgamation of many Earthly animals. A round mouth surrounded by teeth is reminiscent of a starfish's mouth. The bony head ornamentation is like that found on many dinosaur skeletons and the antlers of many mammals. The only truly unique feature of the warrior alien is his set of four eyes. One pair set close together in the front for focusing on prey and the other set widely spaced to provide good peripheral vision in defense from other predators.

 

Other times I get stuck and have to search for ideas and inspiration. I often turn to old sci-fi movies, but more and more often I fuel my imagination with postings from CGHUB. On CGHUB professional artists post their work in search of clients. The above black and white image is from  a creature modeled by DellTree. I was amazed at how closely it resembled the creature in my imagination. The color painting of the space ship above is The Drag by Sparth. When I saw it I immediately began to wonder about the large circular portions of the ship. The torus, doughnut, would be needed if a ship used a large particle accelerator. My imagination jumped to the possibilities of using charged particles from the accelerator as weapons, particle beams to assault other space ships. Charged particle beams would be very effective against a robotic army's electronics. 

I had already described my hero as designing his own simple graphene armor with double colt .45s stuck in his belt, when I stumbled across this image from adonihs titled Gabriel. It helped me fill in the details in my own mind of how everything would look and function. It also inspired me to have the hero design heavier armor for more protection. Half the fun in writing is day dreaming and even the frustrating days, when nothing seems to come to you or you get stuck on a character, can turn out fine if you look at other artists and their work. Even if nothing clicks, its great to enjoy the art of others. 

I hope you will take the time to read my new book and let your imagination wander in a new world filled with possibilities. Possibilities that don't violate physics, but might seem like magic.

2012 Lunar Contact available on Kindle

 Amazon