Starting point: Sketching out the world
This is one of several sketches Ward did of his world. It traces the same elements he roughed out in a 2-minute table-napkin sketch he did when he met with the studio bosses.
It is a monastic world in space with a forgery, a glass factory, a library, a lift shaft, water wheels, and an interior lake on the shore of a great cathedral.
‘A world of wood and water’ he writes.
Aware that the studio bosses are shifting uneasily at the burgeoning bottom line he adds ‘Don’t panic: mainly models’.
Artist: Ward
This is a monastic community in outer space.
Here Ward draws in more detail the way the monks have clad their world to make it look archaic and reminiscent of a monastry or gothic cathedral.
The Brotherhood cling to a way of life whereby they use only the simplest of means knowing that the core allows them to breathe, and work, and survive (air, gravity, warmth, and on the surface a narrow protective atmosphere hems their world).
Artist: Ward
A Cathedral within a cathedral
After being towed from earth the water for the exterior lake was added by an industrial tanker and replenished from time to time.
Later the monks added exterior gantries and waterwheels to the surface lake but this did not happen until sometime after they had been towed into outer space and they found they had to adapt to their current needs.
Artist: Ward
The structure of the satellite and its sophisticated core are from a prebuilt conventional orbiter that was prepared and waiting on earth to be towed into outer space for use.
The satellite is made of steel, and a fireproof coated construction. Deep within it is a central engineering core or hub that sustains them all.
Artist: Ward
The monks chose to clad parts of the interior in wood before it left earth.
They hoped to make it reminiscent of some of their ancient monasteries, in both look and practice.
Artist: Ward
III-16AD-WORLD-Drawing-WM
There are a variety guilds so that each group of men contributes to the running of the community as a whole, according to their natural talents.
Artist: Ward
On the top deck of this strange ‘ant farm,’ in the midst of a cavernous hall with gothic vaulting, looms the great spire of the monastery. It extends to the ceiling and erupts like a volcano through to the exterior surface lake.
Artist: Ward
Below it lie floors and floors of rustic medieval engine rooms; waterwheels, windmills, glass factories, libraries and even looms and beehives.
Artist: Ward
A Cathedral within a cathedral
A vast cathedralesque space at the heart of which a church towers.
Artist: Woods, Concept: Ward
Cross section of wooden world (early drawing).
Artist: Woods, Photoshop: Mortimer, Concept: Ward
Cross section of space satellite (early drawing).
Artist: Woods, Photoshop: Mortimer, Concept: Ward
Ants Nest
Within this environment – a huge, round satellite about a mile in diameter – you have maybe 16 floors, each one about 100 metres high.
Artist: Ellis, Concept: Ward
Inside it is layered like an ant’s nest or beehive and each layer has been clad with huge areas of sculpted wood that these guys have been working on for eons.
Artist: Ellis, Concept: Ward
Click button for Part IV
