Portals can be incredibly fun. They condense the journey from start to finish into a single moment, and so you can have extremely different environments moments away from each other.
What can a portal look like in science fiction? Below is what I've found that inspires me.
The Path Less Travelled--To the Survivable Future by BruceWang王升平
Here we have not only the portals, but the portal generators. It's a duo that we don't often see in this list. I'm also a fan of the Noah's Ark vibe with the focus on large groups of animals.
LEVIATHAN by moonxels
How about a HUGE portal? A lot of the time with portals you also have a story around energy constraints. Something this large would either need to exist in a universe where portals were a standard phenomenon, or made by a civilization that had no trouble using entire stars for their fleet transportation.
teleport by JC Jongwon Park
S.C.A.R Portal Concept Art
I appreciate that this set of concepts is exploring the various shapes that we think of with portals. Circles, rectangles, squares, and 3d cylinders.
Transdimensional Gateway by Evan Rhodes
As you can see, with a lot of portal art, you'll simply see an environmental difference on the other side, or some sort of energy barrier. What if you could see what was on the other side, but it didn't make much sense to you? Are you heading to some alternate dimensional space?
Intersellar Highway by Evan Rhodes
ESCAPING REALITY by Max Hay
Stargate
This is the type of portal most know to me. Ahhh… the adventures of SG-1.
Portal Sword by Vsevolod Slavutych
A bit more of a fun one. A combination of weapons and monsters. Personally, this makes me think of sending one end of a portal into a sun, and having the other on the end of a hilt; and now you have your infinite plasma sword!
Lux aeterna by Chromi - Estevao Chromiec
It's a simple piece of art overall, but the impossible shape is a really neat way to add personality to a portal.
PORTAL by Christian Steve Scampini
WRONG ENERGY by huleeb
Spaceship Album Covers by Jonathan Guzi
I like both of the ideas that this image conveys to me.
- Finding a phenomenon in space, and building a structure around it in order to use it.
- A structure that creates a black hole in space.
Gate to Paradise by wing wai sze
Warp Gate Concept by Jonathan Blessin
Highway entrance by Subin You
Titan's Portal by Pierre Santamaria
Despite the size of the actual portal - which is obviously huge since we see quite a few ships coming out of it - this portal feels very mobile. The artist, Pierre, seems like they are leaving a fair amount to our own interpretation by cutting off the rest of what this portal is attached to. I envision it as a massive but sleek ship.
StarBound by Josh Foster
Between Nowhere by Flooko
Gateway by Alex Konstad
