THE INTEGRAL TREES

Cover illustration for Larry Niven

Mar 17, 2025

A woman with short blonde hair floats weightless in front of clumps of cloud shaped vegetation dotted with flowers. The figure looks very Peter Pan-esque posed with one knee raised wearing green capri-style pants and a vest with no shirt beneath. A harpoon rests across her shoulders with a rope line dangling loose. She holds a coil of it with her toes. An enormous tree trunk with a chrome engine firing off the side arcs past, diminishing back into the blue sky where it intersects clump. A diagonal line of light serves as a tilted horizon of sorts but there is no land, just sky occupied by clouds and clumps. — THE INTEGRAL TREES (1984), Acrylic on Illustration Board - 28" x 38"

Being suspended in space, floating unencumbered yet in control of one's flight, is as close to pure freedom as I can imagine. I knew I would enjoy reading Larry Niven's manuscript and attempting to visualize a credible alien environment based on that weightless feeling experienced by the people of his Smoke Ring world.

Tonal preliminary concept for THE INTEGRAL TREES featuring a man from the bust up gripping a dagger with both hands gripping as he's ready to drive it downward. The blade is serrated on one side. The man wears a vest with a feathered collar. His hair is cut in a flat top, and his ears protrude sharply from the sides of his head. The thick trunk of a tree. As it recedes in the distance, the tree intersects a tear shaped mass sitting just above the golden line of the horizon. Three stars sit along that horizon line, and a semi-circle of light connects the outside stars in an arc, framing the man's upraised arms. — caption...

As an artist, I was also intrigued by the physics of the lighting created by 2 suns. There is a sharp cool light source orbiting a diffuse warm light source; a constantly shifting color balance and intensity when sometimes there are both kinds of light and other times one eclipses the other.

Share The Art of Michael Whelan