WELCOME TO BLABBERDOCK
(From the book's introduction)
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We’re about to undertake a journey across space and time to far flung vistas of the universe. As warp engine propulsion is still decades away, our transportation will have to be via artistic visions and stories. My desire for this book is to share with you my “discoveries” on this journey— captivating tales and arresting visuals that are new and exciting, yet still grounded in what we know and love, hopefully broadening and deepening the Star Trek Universe in an exciting and inspirational way.
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My own journey to making Star Trek artwork and short-stories was an accidental one. It began one day when I dusted off some old Star Trek ship toys from my childhood and started photographing them. The next thing I knew, I was making complex collages in PowerPoint that developed into full-fledged action sequences. Subconsciously, I think I was rediscovering the old tracing paper “collages” I did as a child—tracing the Enterprise, Klingon D-7s, Romulan Warbirds, and shuttles from my copy of “The Art of Star Trek,” making space scenes and battles with them.
In a similar fashion, my artwork can be thought of as a collage of photographic elements that are masked, combined, and overlaid painstakingly to produce the final image. There can be upwards of a hundred individual elements per finished piece. Most of the background photography is my own, but occasionally, if a space scene was needed, I reached out to NASA’s public domain photo collection—or other public domain imagery.
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As such, my art style is an homage to traditional, pre-3D animation special effects that relied on models and real film footage to produce photographic composites, which are to still some of the most iconic images in cinematic history.
Slowly, I opened the door into this world, trying to visualize the scenes that had played in my own imagination as a child, watching the TOS movies, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager. I wanted to see a refitted Galaxy class Saucer landing on a mysterious planet on the edge of the Federation frontier, a Romulan Bird of Prey arriving back at Romulus after a successful campaign against the Klingon Empire, the Borg excavating a “sample” of a Federation colony for analysis and assimilation, and Defiant class starships messing around in atmosphere—all images that fueled my imagination.
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Before I knew it, I had produced a large collection of art that went no further than my own computer screen. My brother saw a few samples on day and suggested other Trekkers might enjoy them. So, I began sharing my art weekly on a dozen or so Star Trek Facebook groups and that is when the stories started. I found I couldn’t post the art without sharing the klaxons, smoke, phaser fire, and feats of daring-do that the images had inspired in my mind.
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My desire with this artwork is that it will also fire your imaginations as you pass from ship to ship, jumping from location to location like a Q being – disguised as a “fly-on-the-wall”, observing the actions and adventures of starships and their crews on the edge of the final frontier.
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I am not an “artist” in the official sense of the word—just a kindred soul who longs to travel the vast unmeasured sea of stars and share these dreams that inspire me.
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I hope they inspire you also, and that you enjoy the journey as much as I have had making it.
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- Blabberdock out
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