This is an illustration I made for the Scifi/Fantasy Illustration class I took at RISD during wintersession. The assignment was to depict either a Science Fiction or a Fantasy short story. That week I chose the Science Fiction story which was titled, "A Gift From the Culture". In this short story, there is a scene where the protagonist shoots down a massive spaceship with a gun given to him by two individuals that he owes overdue debt to. That is the scene I have chosen to illustrate above. I looked up images of futuristic settings and cities to get an idea of how to depict the scenery. Then, I took a photo of myself in the same position as you see the protagonist here to get an idea of how to draw such a pose realistically. I put emphasis on the explosion and gave a sense of scale as to how massive and widespread the impact was by adding shockwaves, clouds being pushed away, other ships around falling apart, etc.