The First Stars

Here's my latest cover illustration for BBC Science Focus on the theme of the hunt for the First Stars and how they are Lost in Space. The brief was to depict these mysterious first stars based on descriptions from the article so I worked through various interpretations, posted here, to send over and get the process started. As can often be the case the first 'first star' visualisation was chosen to develop as it conveyed more of a sense of a consuming gas ball rather than an emitter. I refined the digital illustration, made with Cinema 4d/Redshift and lots of Photoshop texture compositing, and ended up with the chosen final plus a more wispy alternate version, also above. Thanks to Joe Eden for another great commission. See further Focus work on the site here.