Greetings Citizens,

As promised on Monday, we’re proud to be able to show you the very first rendered body that will be part of Star Citizen! You saw his face, now see the rest: Artist Mark Skelton crafted the body this week. It’s a good indication of how the character will look in CryEngine in the finished game! We will use this man as a base for other characters, adapting his clothing and physical features to fit others. You will learn more about this model and the process next week when we introduce you to Mark and talk to him on Wingman’s Hangar!

Chris at SXSW

Chris Roberts is in town this week for the South By Southwest (SXSW) media festival. Chris’ first panel was tonight, but he will be hosting a second on Sunday which is free and open to the public as part of SXSW Interactive. He appeared tonight with the Oculus Rift team on “Virtual Reality: The Holy Grail of Gaming“ (details.) On Sunday he will host “Breathing New Life into PC Games & Space Sims” (details.) We’ll have coverage of these events and anything new he might reveal next week!

New Forum Live

We are excited to announce that we’re rolling out a new way for fans to interact with Cloud Imperium developers. Our forums now feature question and answer threads for every employee! Developers will be spending an hour a week on the chatroll and replying to forum questions posed to them… so if you have a burning question, head over and pose it!

Lord British Presents

Richard Garriott, founder of Origin Systems and creator of Ultima, has a brand new Kickstarter which is very much in the vein of Star Citizen: a return to his CRPG roots, building a PC game based on his classic single player Ultimas. The team at Cloud Imperium is very excited and we’re hoping you are too. We’ll have more coverage of Shroud of the Avatar next week… but for now, you can pledge your support here.