Astronomical Effect

Illustration done for Astrophysicist client who wanted dark matter filaments over a cosmic microwave background, with stars appearing in various intersections of the filaments.
This was to be done in a way that showed the CMB map and the Dark Matter patterns in a way that was recognizable to every astronomer.
The client wanted to have that instant impact when they see the image.

The proposed art would depict the dark matter filaments as more stylized or even cloud-like rather than filaments (with reasoning that in the early universe, the dark matter is transitioning from clouds/blobs into the filament pattern, so it would still be defensible from a scientific accuracy viewpoint.)

after various iterations and refinements these were the two chosen to bring to completion.