Here are some of the references I've looked at preparing this. They can be followed up for more info on spaceship designs:
Art
- Sci-Fi-O-Rama - SF/F oriented art blog run by UK Designer/Illustrator Kieran Kelly
- Golden Age of Pulp Covers - note site in French, but browsable without it. Follow links on the bottom (for instance livres means "books", vers means "toward")
- Desktop Starships - A huge collection of SF/F art for your desktop wallpaper. Galleries broken up by major popular subjects such as Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.
- An artist's alphabet at Tor.com
Some Artists
Spaceship Design:
- Perhaps the ultimate reference for hard sf spaceship design - Atomic Rocket
- Doug Drexler's blog, the Drex Files
- Starship Modeler's builder galleries, specifically look for kitbash and scratchbuilt entries for original designs or designs inspired by traditional artwork, franchises, and stories (as well as humor).
- David Mueller's "So you want to be a speculative spaceship designer" article. Browse around the site for more material.
- Starship Schematics' site which collects designs for Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Babylon 5, and Star Blazers (Yamato) universes; both cannon and fan based.
- Alas, Martin Bowers' website appears to be defunct which is a shame. He is a professional model maker who worked with the production of Space 1999, Flash Gordon, Outland, Alien as well as other projects. He has also created some amazing studio scale replicas of other ships. (In case it comes back, the link was http://www.martinbowersmodelworld.co.uk/)
- Fantastic Plastic is a collection of plastic kits that documents our fascination for far out designs, real and fictional.
- A definite lost gem was The Modeler's Reference Vault which had a ton of production stills as well as good quality captures from various movies (for more reference lost links see post on lost web pages).
Other Flights of Fancy:
- Smithsonian Libraries Voyages Exhibition Focus on air journeys: A short page with some interesting images and notes of some early works about space and air travel.
- Shuttle development: a small lost item of illustrated articles on heavy lift vehicles proposed as either the next big thing after the Saturn V or the Space Shuttle.
- Forgotten Trek: Blogsite to things almost Trek
- The Terran Trade Authority which "published" the guide to space travel in the 22nd-23rd century.
Hard copy:
Books on hand (I can only comment on stuff I already had in my bookshelf).
- The Art of Star Wars by Carol Titelman, Ballentine Books, 1979. The first of the "Art of..." books that started to be released with both this series and others. It's really great as a collection of concept art before Star Wars had a really established look. The "sketchbook" series that also goes along with the movies also provide some nice outlines for proposed designs for the film.
- The Art of Star Trek by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Pocket Books Inc., 1995 (1997ed). One of many art of Star Trek books out there (along with fan art books). This one is nice in that it was rather comprehensive at the time of publication allowing the reader to see how styles changed for the ST universe over the years and across series.
- Starliners by Stewart Cowley (Steven Caldwell pseudn.), Hamlyn Publishing, 1980. One of a set of books for the Terran Trade Authority universe which basically contains some of the better sf hardware cover art of the 70s with artists like Peter Elson and Chris Moore.
- Visions of Spaceflight by Frederick Ordway III, Four Walls Eight Windows, NY, 2001. Really great collection of SF artwork, particularly preceding the Space Age, including much of the artwork for the Collier "Man in Space" series.
- Imagining Space by R. Launius and H. McCurdy, Chronicle Books, 2001. Collection of fact based artwork expanding on the perceived future of man in space as well as the still possible one.
- Out of the Cradle, W. Harman, R. Miller, P. Lee, Workman Publishing Co., 1984 (1st ed). A really great collection of speculative artwork used in conjunction with essays on the future of man in space in the pre-Challenger era. Given that it's still available as new I would suspect that much like Harman's and Miller's "Grand Tour" book it's been edited for new content.
- Alternate Worlds: the Illustrated History of Science Fiction by James Gunn, Prentice Hall Inc., 1975. I've had this book forever since I saw it at Korvette's. Full of speculative art and cover art dating back to Verne. The text is somewhat dry and scholarly (reads like a thesis), but great for early sf history.
- 2001: Filming the Future by Piers Bizony, Aurum Press. The book to have for fans of 2001. It goes into great detail of the technical design of the film and it is lavishly illustrated.
- Rocketship by R. Malone (with J. C. Suares), Harper Row, NY, 1977. Interesting collection of hardware ideas and reality with many sequences of comparison and contrast.
- Out of Time by Norman Brosterman, Harry N. Abrams Inc., NY, 2000. Odd little book which was the first one I saw that really seemed to address the idea of future past. Covers quickly what the future looked like at different times and with respect to different topics (cities, cars, airplanes, etc.)
- Packing for Mars by Mary Roach. While not actually on my bookshelf, I'm currently listening to a library copy and have found its content full of nice little tidbits (such as VRI) that one needs to keep in mind if you are really going to put people in space for a long long time.
...and of course a long lost collection of notebooks and marginal sketches done when I should have been doing my homework.
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