Red Moon

I'm delighted to present my latest illustration for the latest issue of Space International, which has just hit the newsstands, and is soberly entitled “Red Moon”! Here, no Soviet LK lander during the Cold War, but rather the Chinese Lanuye lunar lander landed somewhere on the Moon, in front of which the red flag has been hoisted. A certain anticipation of the future, then, as the Chinese are making great strides on their lunar mission projects, to the point of outstripping even the Americans in this second race to the Moon. We should see them land there by 2030, maybe even 2028.

I took great pleasure in imagining, thinking about, working on and producing this illustration, surrounded throughout most of the process by several large-format reference books on Apollo photography, in order to retranscribe the atmosphere and the raw, shooting light on the lunar horizon. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Philippe Coué, who very kindly advised me on how to achieve a composition that best recalls a certain moon landing on July 21, 1969!

The tragedy of the illustration, for there is one, is that this painting was accepted by the customer two days before the official presentation of the brand-new Chinese lunar suits: as a result, our taikonaut is still wearing an old-generation Feitian suit, which will be replaced by a much lighter and more durable model.

I hope you like it!