As much as we all love “Also sprach Zarathustra,” the only soundtrack to space travel is probably going to be the low hum of your spaceship’s engines. And Dan McPharlin fully captures the silence of otherworldly exploration in his haunting illustrations of astronauts and spaceships moving through alien landscapes. His work evokes an unsettling and surreal sense of a first, quiet encounter with the unknown.

McPharlin is better known for his miniature models of analog sound equipment, but his digital drawings demonstrate his capacity for visual scene setting. Aside from birds and flowers, alien life is never encountered, but often hinted at in the unfamiliar architecture of the worlds, while suit-wearing explorers look on in wonderment.

[Dan McPharlin on Flickr via Design You Trust]