Martian city on terraformed Mars

Martian city on terraformed Mars – a gameplay art from Terraformers – Mars colonization turn based strategy game released in early access on April 2022 and developed by indie game developer Asteroid Lab. In about a week the game will get a major update, including the ability to continue your game after achieving a victory condition, thus further expanding your civilization on Mars.

SpaceX Mars Base Alpha by Caspar Stanley

Picture of the Day 26/11/2022 - SpaceX's Starman looking at Mars Base Alpha from the observation deck of a Starship by Danish freelance 3D artist Caspar Stanley.

Eco-futuristic settlement in a Martian canyon by Lukas Yosi Filip

Czech architectural CG artist Lukas Yosi Filip has created a set of images of what could be an eco-futuristic settlement in a terraformed Martian canyon for his Desert Ark concept (the last sanctuaries of human knowledge, culture and research in a dystopian post-climate change world where deserts has taken over the Earth).

Desolate life at a homestead on Mars in Settlers (2021) movie

Settlers (2021) is a British science fiction thriller set in a Martian frontier. A small family of early settlers live alone at a homestead in a valley protected by a force field bubble that keeps breathable air inside, but soon their lonely existence is disturbed by a group of intruders. I won't spoil the plot twists of the thriller, but it has major Wild West vibes there. Here is a collection of HD screens from the movie:

SpaceX Starship at spaceport on Mars by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 16/10/2022 - Painting of SpaceX Starship preparing for launch from Mars Base Alpha's spaceport by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here.

Mars Base Alpha in a crater by Anastasia Volyk & Vladyslav Lysenko

Ukrainian 3D artists Anastasia Volyk and Vladyslav Lysenko have created a concept for SpaceX's Mars Base Alpha in a small Martian crater. The individual habitats scattered on the inner slope of the crater wall are connected with the center of the colony via partially underground hyperloop lines. In the further future hyperloop lines could connect Mars Base Alpha with other human colonies on Mars. I would place Starship launch pads outside the crater.

Mars colony in Moonshot (2022) movie

Moonshot is recently released (March 2022) science fiction teen comedy set in 2049 when trips to Mars has become routine for skilled or wealthy people. A rich, skilled girl (Lana Condor) and a poor, "mediocre" boy (Cole Sprouse) travel together to Mars, each for their own reasons, and after arrival they both discover those reasons were wrong. Although the movie by itself is quite silly with childish dialogues and cheap interior sets, the CGI for Mars colony exteriors is really good. Here are some HD images from the movie:

Painting of a human base on Mars by Dmytro Ivashchenko

Picture of the Day 30/06/2022 - Sunset on Mars - oil painting of a human base on Mars by Ukrainian freelance artist Dmytro Ivashchenko. More of his art here.

How we will travel beyond Mars - shortfilm by Erik Wernquist

Swedish digital artist Erik Wernquist, the author of the stunning shortfilm "Wanderers" which depicts a vision of humanity's expansion into the Solar System, has created another inspirational shortfilm "Go Incredibly Fast" "to identify a few propulsion approaches we might utilize to send humans to the worlds in our Solar System beyond Mars and reach out across the vast distances between stars."

Here you can watch the shortfilm and see some Mars-related images from it:

Astronaut in front of Mars colony:

Space station orbiting Mars:

SpaceX Starships at Mars Base Alpha by TijnM

YouTuber TijnM has created an animation of SpaceX's Starship traveling to Mars and landing at Mars Base Alpha. Here are two renders of the base made for the animation:

Here is the full animation:

Militech colony on Mars in Cyberpunk 2077

Militech is a megacorporation specializing in weapons manufacturing and private military contracting in the alternate universe of the futuristic dystopian Cyberpunk franchise. It dominates much of the New United States of America's (NUSA) economy and politics, with the last few NUSA Presidents being ex-Militech executives.

We gave a brief insight of the space travel in Cyberpunk world when speculating about possible space-related content in Cyberpunk 2077 - a recent first-person open world role playing video game set in the universe of Cyberpunk. When playing the game we came across a short news segment announcing Militech's plans to construct a new colony on Mars and beginning selling (expensive) residential modules in the residential area of the colony:

Full news segment about Militech's new colony on Mars:

Mars Base Alpha by Colin Doublier

Picture of the Day 19/02/2022 - Painting of several SpaceX Starship launch towers equipped with Mechazilla catch system in front of Mars Base Alpha by French urban artist Colin Doublier. More of his art here.

Elon's latest vision for Mars Base Alpha

During Starship update presentation on Thursday SpaceX CEO and lead designer Elon Musk shared to us SpaceX's latest vision for Mars Base Alpha. Here are some images from the animation.

Part of Mars Base Alpha is covered with a large, transparent dome:

Starships are landing on landing pads some distance away from the base:

Settlers arriving at Mars Base Alpha:

Animation of Starship landing at Mars Base Alpha shared by Elon:

Spaceship landing on Mars by Evgeny Kazantsev

A large spaceship with the design similar to Star Trek's USS Enterprise landing on Mars by Russian sci-fi artist Evgeny Kazantsev from his "Ural Airlines Fantastic Fleet" series. More of his art here.

Mars Base Alpha animation by Slave Popovski

A short animation with SpaceX's Starship & 6x6 Cybertruck at Mars Base Alpha by former avionics engineer, now CGI artist Slave Popovski (known as pslavi) from Australia.

New settlers arriving on Mars

New settlers arriving at Martian spaceport – a concept artwork by Canadian illustrator Alexandra Hodgson for upcoming computer game Terraformers. It's a Mars colonization strategy game to be released in Q1 2022 and developed by indie game developer Asteroid Lab. Since October 2021 you can play free prologue of the game.

Design of the spaceship is clearly inspired by the initial design of SpaceX's Starship when it was first presented in 2016 and called Interplanetary Transport System. As we have observed – that first 12m diameter Starship design is quite popular with artists and game developers depicting colonization of Mars.

Mars base by Tetsuya Mizuno

Picture of the Day 01/01/2022 - a small shuttle landing at human base on Mars by Japanese illustrator Tetsuya Mizuno (Watermark).

Closeup of illustration's right side:

Domed Martian city by Indranil Saha

Picture of the Day 20/11/2021 - an early human base on Mars in front of a domed city (Gaia-1) by graphic designer Indranil Saha (known as encreate) from India. More of his art here.

SpaceX Starship at Mars Base Alpha by Caspar Stanley

SpaceX's Starship standing in front of a geodesic dome at Mars Base Alpha by Danish freelance 3D artist Caspar Stanley. It's quite likely the first crewed Starships sent to Mars and acting as temporary habitats for the first settlers will stay on Mars forever, forming the basis of Mars Base Alpha built around them, as can be seen in SpaceX's own renderings.

Mars outpost by Robert McCall

Picture of the Day 02/11/2021 - An early human outpost on Mars consisting of several landers and rovers by classical space artist Robert McCall.