MILESHIPS is a Kickstarter funded narrative art book by English illustrator Ian McQue, a well established name in the games/film/animation industry whose credits including concept art work for several Starwars films, Mortal Engines, the Spiderverse animated films and more.

The Kickstarter funding started quite a while back in spring of 2024, and the book was only released and shipped to me in late 2025. I was unable to review it before the year ended, but it certainly would have been in my list of favorite art books for the year because the art work is just spectacular from cover to cover.

I’m very seldom a backer for Kickstarter programs because of the generally higher cost of the books ( most likely due to a smaller print count ) and very expensive shipping, but I was willing to do it for MILESHIPS because I had complete confidence that it would be worth the extra money, and I’m happy to report that I was not wrong.

Book synopsis – The time of the Mileships is coming to an end. Their glorious history trails behind them, an archipelago of weightless debris in a storm-whorled sky. Those skyborn magnates who still control the fleets believe they can plot a course for the future, but it is the people who live and die each day in the sky — the sailors, merchants, cartographers, salters, and limitmen — who will truly decide what happens at the end of their journey.

Ever since Ian McQue began his solo work, his image of a time-weathered trawler floating in the startling blue of a summer sky has demanded that tales be told. Now, after a decade of painting, we will deliver that telling.

Over those ten years McQue’s extraordinary and idiosyncratic paintings of flying ships have become an iconic staple of concept art and science-fiction design. In this new narrative art book, MILESHIPS, the artist takes his vision a further step into that world with a richly-detailed and ambitious fiction that explores the life of the people who build, pilot, and inhabit the vessels which sweep through his breathtaking skies.

Co-written with game designer and author Jim Rossignol, MILESHIPS is a product of many years of work and insight, through which McQue has explored his science fiction concept with meticulous intensity and real-world inspiration. Sketches from docklands and fishing towns, highlands and marshlands, paintings and studies of people, ships, and places, have all found recombination in McQue’s complex and contemplative work.

My score ? 11/10, if I could give it that. Both the sheer brilliance of the art work as well as the physical and print quality of the book are just top-notch. Very highly recommended.

Availability – This was a Kickstarter funded project so it is not widely available, however the artist Ian McQue has noted in this Bluesky post ( dated 7th Jan 2026 ) that “It’ll be available from my big cartel store in a month or two”, so that’s great news for all who still want to get their hands on a copy but missed out on the Kickstarter campaign.

“MILESHIPS – Ian McQue Art Book” details :

– Dimensions – 300x250mm
– Hard cover, 190 pages
– Full color

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