ANDY Bigwood, senior technician in Mouchel's Trowbridge office, has won the Best Artwork accolade at this year's British Science Fiction Association Awards ceremony.

Titled Cracked World, Andy's artwork appeared on the cover of disLocations - a collection of nine stories written by some of the UK's best new and established science fiction authors - and depicts a "curved landscape, distorting energies and a damaged planet."

Although Cracked World was designed using photo-editing skills, in his day job at Mouchel, Andy uses illustration software to develop bridge and highways improvement schemes for Wiltshire County Council.

He received his award from British author Charles Stross in front of 1,300 fellow sci-fi fans at a presentation in London's Radisson Edwardian Hotel.

Andy's passion for illustrating science fiction stories first kicked off a couple of years ago when author and publisher Storm Constantine saw some artwork of his that was based on one of her novels.

He said: "We later met up in an online virtual reality game in an environment which makes traditional video conferencing look tame, and she offered me the opportunity to illustrate the cover of her book.

"I met the editor of the disLocations anthology, Ian Whates, at a subsequent party organised by Storm and he offered me the book cover opportunity there and then."

Andy added: "The book itself is a signed limited edition and features some of the top names in UK science fiction. It was quite an honour to be signing the same page as those guys."

Andy originally trained as a technical illustrator back in 1980s, but saw his career move into the drawing side of civil engineering.

He has worked on the design and maintenance of Wiltshire's bridges since 1983, transferring to Mouchel in 1999.

On the back of his recent success, Andy has been carrying out artist's impressions for Mouchel schemes in Wiltshire.

One canvas - Tannery Bridge - currently hangs in the conference suite of Mouchel's Trowbridge office.