Playbook · Sci-Fi / Space
Sci-Fi / Space Steam capsule art: four directions from your own assets
Space, mechs, cyberpunk, colony, exploration.
Make my sci-fi / space sheet
First sheet free. Paste a Steam link on the home page instead.
The four directions every sci-fi / space sheet gets
One panel each, in this order, so the four are built to disagree: commercial, atmospheric, poster, and one swing.
Direction 1
Vessel or Pilot Commercial Key Art
Ship, mech, or suited protagonist as the hero object.
- ·Hero object large with clear material readability
- ·Strong single key light with rim from a planet or sun
- ·Logo bold and geometric
- ·Background is depth, not detail
Direction 2
Vast Scale Vista
Megastructure, planet, or fleet with a tiny human element.
- ·Enormous negative space
- ·Atmospheric haze and scale cues
- ·Minimal thin title
- ·Awe over action
Direction 3
Minimal Typographic Poster
Alien-style restraint: one shape, one line, huge black.
- ·Almost empty composition with a single graphic element
- ·Precise geometric or monospaced type
- ·One accent color
- ·Feels like a design-forward film poster
Direction 4
Concept-Driven Angle
The wildcard.
- ·Pick ONE: helmet visor reflection, cryo pod frost, cockpit HUD POV, data-glitch portrait, airlock window, scanner or radar view, a lone footprint on a new world, hand on a control panel
What the art director is told
The playbook below is the actual guidance the model receives for sci-fi / space games, minus your brief and assets.
Compositions that work
- Hero object left, logo right
- Horizon line low with structure above
- Centered symmetrical minimal
- POV through visor
- Diagonal ship trajectory
Lighting
- Single hard sun with black shadows
- Planet glow rim light
- Cold interior fluorescents
- Neon practical lights
- Volumetric fog beams
Palettes, one per panel
- Deep Vacuum: black, midnight blue, white highlights, one amber accent
- Neon Rain: black, magenta, cyan, wet asphalt
- Clinical: white, pale gray, cold blue, safety orange accent
- Rust Frontier: rust, dust orange, steel, pale sky
Typography
- Geometric sans
- Monospaced technical type
- Extended wide grotesque
- Thin tracked uppercase
- Stencil for industrial tone
Typography to avoid
- Chrome
- Tron-style neon tubes
- Overdone glow
- Generic 'space font' clichés
Texture that helps
- Fine grain
- Lens smear
- Scan lines on HUD concept
- Frost
- Dust motes
Texture that hurts
- Random hex grids
- Lens flare spam
- Fake hologram clutter
Never
- Blue-and-orange overdose
- Hologram clutter
- Every panel with lens flares
- Generic starfield background
- Chrome logos
Your sci-fi / space game, four ways, in about a minute.
Built from your own screenshots and logo. Sizes Steam actually uses. No key, no account for the first sheet.