Hey everyone! I haven't posted in a while and it's great to be back.

This is a photoshop illustration that I did a while back. I tried to capture the drama of a grand armada taking off to fight a desperate war.

I always try to add a human twist to these dated sci-fi concepts, so rather than showing the ships locked in combat, I focused on a group of soldiers kneeling in prayer before boarding their dropship. I thought that this added much more emotion; perhaps their faces are afraid beneath those intimidating helmets...

I tried to avoid any specific religious iconography.

This is quite a stylistic departure for me. I'm usually very meticulous about my rendering and here I tried to losen up the brushstrokes. I'm very curious to see if everyone likes this style better than my past submissions. The colors are also a bit more wild than I'd usually venture to use.

I hope you like this one, it was a lot of fun and great exercise in stretching out stylistically.

Thanks for looking everyone!

Photoshop CS, ~30hrs