David,
Just a quick note in reply.
I'm uncertain about the ship in the foreground as regards its size and position. While I do agree that allowing it to run "right to the bottom of the image, and maybe a little off-screen" would make the image somewhat more dynamic, the unfortunate trade-off for this would be that we actually would see a bit less of the ship than we do. I was trying to angle the ship to give the best view of those sensors and front jump emitters while not having its locking tower push up against the cargo frame (and smaller ship) in the background. It is all a balancing act of course. As is we've already lost a view of the those main engine thruster cones on the rear of the vessel. Truthfully, I'm sort of sorry that we cannot really present the whole ship, but that makes it just that much smaller in the field of view... and that much less like your layout.
The issue playing in my mind is that the first-time viewer of this graphic will have absolutely no idea what he/she is looking at. Very often when we see items in an illustration or photo that is in some way cut off, either by other objects within view or the edge of the page we do a mental 'fill in the missing bits' of any items whose presentation is so broken to our eyes. This is not an issue troubling either you or me as we already 'know' what we are looking at, but everyone else will have no pre-knowledge of said items so that the less they see, the more the confusion about what exactly the size, shape and purpose of same. To that end, I've also tried to avoid any overlapping of the images so that each 'object' on screen is rather more obvious for what it is... or as much as possible. Admittedly this makes for a less dynamic image (do I mean 'dull'?). Could also go in the other direction and say, "viewer be damned, let's go for some powerful overlap even if nobody understands it". I dunno.
About the title font (the one in color, I assume)... I chose for a more angular than the font you used in your sketch (which appears to be in the 'Courier' family), but Its all changeable, of course. I'll include a sample of the graphic using one more like in your sketch.
Let's both ruminate on this for a day...
Cheers,
- Ignatz