The reference image chosen was from Star Citizen's "Aegis Dynamics Retaliator", a wallpaper he created for others to use. When looking at it for the first time, nothing about to screamed 'quick' or 'easy'.
With such a busy schedule, the projected completion date was counted in months, not days. To start, I wanted to make the process manageable. I separated out each section and sketched the layout on each canvas. Then, I worked on the background - stars, particle clouds, and planets. Then I painted in a base for the ship's silhouette. Many decisions had to be made along the way. One was whether to incorporate the rings, which was a tough call. It was decided to eliminate them as it would make the final piece look too busy, detracting from the centerpiece.
As the months progressed, the painting was coming together.
The project took ten months to complete, totaling about 172 hours. I didn't touch it every day, and sometimes more than a week would go by before continuing. I would say now that it was worth the slow grind for the learning experience and becoming a personal achievement.
I learned a ton from taking on an epic commission and would recommend all artists to at least attempt one grand project during their career. What I garnered and stuck - the care for details must always be considered even when working on a large canvas, line-work is not as complex a task as it first appears, and always rotate the canvas to insure you don't lose perspective.
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