The Caldera is the premier stone breaker currently seeing action in the northern territories.

The Caldera acts as the spearhead for the navy's enforcement detachment. Capable of smashing through into coastal and tidal basins traditionally considered unassailable this breaker can clear a path at speed allowing for a dozen support vessels to follow in its cleared wake.

All cannons are elevated and loaded via mechanical assistance and can fire a variety of projectiles ranging from standard penetrators to explosive rounds that can be lobbed ahead to break up stonepack.

The ship is powered by a captive steam system for primary functions and arrays of sterling engines for auxiliary systems. A large central turbine around the collar of the superstructure also harnesses the strong convection current passed from the hull via heat pipes and acts to force air through the ship at high speeds.

The outer plating is created with an alchemic forging process that creates durable, insulated and most importantly, low reaction steel that molten rock cannot bind to.

This started out as a sketch on the iPad Pro using Procreate. At around the halfway point, the limitations of Procreate for compositing and effects were becoming insurmountable so I transitioned to Photoshop for the remainder which helped the workflow but hurt my time given.

This piece started off in the daytime because I felt like night + lava was a bit overdone on my end. But with the coaxing from some friends, I decided that the more dynamic lighting would be the better decision. All of these changes just added to the time spent waffling around without clear final vision.

Be careful turning first-draft sketches into final pieces.
The iPad Pro is great, but working on a large piece in 15-minute chunks every few days for over a month is a fast way to lose your vision and perspective on a piece.