And this is no comment on your artistic skills, as the work is very nice, but I must admit I do miss the "old" days of hand-drawn space art, such as Raoul's example from the 1964 National Geographic.

Again, I have to emphasize that that illustration is solely Mark Maxwell's work. I provided him with a 3D mesh and some sketches of the vehicle to help out, but that was it.

I agree that there is nothing that will ever be the same as Bonestell's work and others, but the computer finally gives people like me a shot at doing some nice work.

I dabbled in SF painting and airbrush back in my college days, but never had or developed the skills to match SF cover artists like David Egge or Rick Sternbach, both of who I knew back then. Never mind Michael Whelan.

Even now, I'm getting behind the curve, using now-obsolete software.

There is still room for the paintbrush. The most recent issue of Planetary Report had an art contest to depict the landing on Titan. While there were some really good digital entries, paints and brushes were well represented, and won prizes.