The Hugo trophy is the science fiction community's equivalent of the Oscar award, given annually at the World Science Fiction Convention in a variety of categories including Best Novel, Best Short Story, Best Artist, Best Dramatic Presentation, etc.

This year, the World Science Fiction Convention was held in Anaheim, California, and was called LAcon V. (There have now been seven Worldcons in the LA / Anaheim area, but two of them had different names.)

I had the honor of designing and creating the base to go with the rocket portion of this year's Hugo trophy. Every year, the chrome-plated rocket is the same but the base is a different design.

My design for the 2026 Hugo base started with the idea of the Hugo rocket being perched on a very small moon. That moon became a section of a moon, just enough of it to tell the story. Then that section was tilted to give it more visual interest and to establish a front and back to the design, to work better with having a flat front surface for mounting the plaque.

The rest of the base was fabricated out of maple, since I wanted a durable wood with a light color to contrast with the dark dome. The sides of the base include laser engraving of the LAcon V compass rose design. The base includes the features needed to attach the rocket.

Once I’d figured out the shape and details of the base, the next challenge was deciding what material to make the moon out of. I settled on cast epoxy resin, the same sort of material that most gaming dice are made from. The particular epoxy resin that I used was chosen for extreme hardness and relatively fast curing. The next step was looking at colors and effects. I realized that by making the dome blue-black and putting star-like sparkles in it, the dome could be both a moon and a representation of the night sky.