Protoss Carrier Soaring Through the Stars — Print & Oil Painting

There is not a straight line anywhere on this hull. Every plate curves, tapers and ends in a point; the prow is a blade, the fins are blades, and the vessel has been drawn the way a leaf or a beetle's wing case is drawn rather than the way a warship usually is. The terran ships in this collection are welded boxes. This one looks grown.

Colour does the rest. Gold, brass and cream run the length of the ship with dark inlays flowing between them like grain in wood, and small blue-green lights are set into the recesses along the flank. Against the black of space that gold reads warm, almost organic.

The ship lies on a long diagonal from the lower left to the upper right and is cropped by the frame at both ends, which is the oldest trick there is for making an object look bigger than the canvas holding it. Below the hull hangs a tapering keel with a single teal crystal at its tip.

Space behind has been painted rather than dusted in. A blue nebula bleeds through the right half, a paler cloud sits at the upper left with a small disc showing faintly through it, and the stars vary in size and in warmth instead of being scattered at one brightness.

Two smaller craft in the same gold and white hold station off the lower right flank, close and tiny, and they supply the scale the picture needs: a carrier is the protoss ship that goes into battle carrying its own fighters. From our Starcraft collection, alongside the immortals colliding in a blaze of energy for the ground half of the same fleet.