World Fantasy Nominations

Congrats to all the World Fantasy "Best Artists" nominees. All five of these artists do fantastic work and are a dream to work with. Good luck to all of you!
Kinuko Y. Craft
James Jean
Dave McKean
Edward Miller/Les Edwards
John "Get a Website*" Palencar

* John, I only chide because I love you

Hugo Talk

Lots of discussion on the Art Hugo on Kevin Standlee's LiveJournal.

I would like to encourage artists to chime in. Whether you are for or against the proposal, we'll all be better off for the debate.

Shelley Eshkar's Android's Dream

Someone asked why me why John Scalzi's new book, The Androids Dream, looks so different than his Old Man's War and Ghost Brigade books. Simply, Android is not part of that series so we did not want people to buy it thinking that it continued the story of Ghost Brigade. (For that, we have a lovely John Harris painting waiting to be designed.) Since this book starts off with a fart joke and involves sheep stealing, I immediately thought of my friend Shelley Eshkar and his rather subversive sense of humor. His thoughts on creating the cover:

"The Android's Dream was a chance to play 'hot potato' with a truly iconic visual metaphor: from its shepherd origins, to cartoon insomnia, to Philip K. Dick's brilliant recasting of it as philosophical riddle. I wanted the cover to be almost rebus-like in its presentation of icons and phrases. I also liked the idea of the android automatron in vulnerable sleep, like an errant boy shepherd in the fields of Aesop.

John Scalzi has made a small step forward for the role of sheep in science fiction, which are possibly overlooked. I am glad to have furthered the presence of sheep in science fiction cover art."

I feel privildeged that Shelley continues to design book covers for us at Tor, including Eastern Standard Tribe, The Tooth Fairy, and many others. More typically, Shelley spends his days and nights creating digital artworks with his partners Mark Downie and Paul Kaiser. Currently they have a piece on display at Lincoln Center, celebrating the 40th Aniversy of the Mostly Mozart festival. Other works include Biped, in collaboration with Merc Cunningham, and Pedestrian. (Both pictured below.) Anyone visiting their website should take the time to watch the many quicktime movies that show their works in motion.

Comic Con Finds

I saw a lot of great portfolios at Comic Com. Here are just two of the many that I remember. Both of these are from recent Ringling and Illustration Academy grads. It will be a pleasure to watch these two young careers grow.

Edward Kinsella


Brooke Olivares

Hugos, continued

I made a post about the Hugos a while back. It turns out that Donato Giancola has a very elegant and simple proposal to amend the Hugo rules that may address those issues.

Again, this is not to discredit the few people that have won the award in the past, it is just an acknowledgment that there have been others that have deserved it and have gone overlooked. Donato's proposal is simply a means to have voters take a little extra time when they consider who they are voting for.

(As an aside: About a month and half ago I wrote the World Fantasy Committee and proposed that they create a separate jury for their artist award -- a jury that consists of artists and art directors rather than authors and editors. As of yet I have not heard back from them. I'll report back once I do.)

Either Donato or I (since Donato may not be able to attend this year's World Con) will present the following at this year's business meeting.

--------------

(Updated with final wording..)

Short Title: Artist Hugo

Moved, To amend the WSFS Constitution to require that nominations for the Best Artist Hugo Award include one citation of a specific work created by the nominee during the year of eligibility, by adding additional wording as follows:

Add to Section 3.7: Nominations

3.7.4: Nominations for the categories of Best Professional Artist or Best Fan Artist must include, in addition to the nominated artist's name, the title of a specific work by the nominated artist or the name of a publication within which the nominated artist's work appeared, either of which must have first appeared in the year for which the artist is being nominated.

Add to Section 3.8: Tallying of Nominations

3.8.8: Nominations for the categories of Best Professional Artist or Best Fan Artist shall be tallied only by the artist’s name and not by the title of any specific cited work or publication within which the nominated artist's work appeared. Nominations for these categories that do not include the information required in section 3.7.4 shall not be counted.

Submitted by: Donato Giancola, Irene Gallo

Makers' Argument:
While no single work is voted upon for the final Artist Hugo balloting, the inclusion of naming works from an eligible year in the nomination process will insure that only eligible works are those which the nominator is considering the artist for, rather than relying upon name and reputation recognition. This will help clarify and enforce the rules as per the World Science Fiction Society Constitution, specifically Section 3.2: General, and 3.2.1: "Unless otherwise specified, Hugo Awards are given for work in the field of science fiction or fantasy appearing for the first time during the previous calendar year."

In the past, sheer name recognition has propelled nominations forward without any verifiable check that those artists had contributed any new work to the field of Science Fiction in the eligible, and required, years. I believe these amendments will bring an end to the ‘blind’ nomination process and restore credibility to the Award.

Harold Von Schmidt

Today at lunch I ran over to Illustration House to see their Harold Von Schmidt exhibit. (This is why I live in New York!) What some of you may not realize is that science fiction and fantasy is actually only half of what we publish at Tor, more properly Tom Doherty Associates. Our other imprint is Forge Books. Forge is where we publish our westerns, thrillers, historicals, non-fiction, basically anything that isn’t science fiction. It is rare that we can use illustration on those non-sf books — current trends dictate that we use a montage of stock photographs. A good designer can make a good looking cover that way...but, after viewing a collection of Von Schmidt's work and seeing how vibrant and alive he could make our history feel, I regret that there isn’t more room for this kind of work in today’s marketplace.

Thumbnails: Bruce Jensen

Thumbnails: 30 Second Interviews

Bruce Jensen has been creating covers for science fiction books since the mid 80s. Even though he came into the field during an age of hyper-realistic "scene" illustration, Bruce's work was more abstract and conceptual. His current work harkens back to the great illustrators of the 60s -- Paul Lehr, Richard Powers, etc -- while maintaining a fresh and contemporary sensibility. Bruce has also worked as an artist for 60 Minutes, creating the backdrop graphics for news stories.

What is your favorite painting within the last year?
Neal Asher’s Brass Man. Or perhaps this (below) which is really a study for a series of paintings I hope to get started on soon, an alien menagerie.

A career highlight?
The cover assignment for Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep. I’m a huge fan of Philip K. Dick’s work, and Bladerunner is a favorite film of mine, despite it’s loose adaptation of Do Andriods Dream. Getting the chance to offer up my own interpretation when Del Rey Books decided to drop the film related artwork was a dream assignment. It just so happened that it was due on my birthday too.

Dream assignment?
Does anyone want to repackage all the P. K. Dick books?

What are you working on now?
Slan Hunter, the now completed (by Kevin J. Anderson) sequel to A. E. van Vogt’s landmark novel Slan.

Cover Talk

Interesting cover conversation going on at Lou Ander’s blog, Bowing To the Future.

John Jude Palencar

John Jude Palencar has another calendar coming up. Yeah! John will be the Guest of Honor at this year's World Fantasy Convention in Austin, Texas. For anyone that has not seen John's work in person, this will be a real treat.

Art Out Loud: Painting Demos

Daniel Dos Santos and I have been hosting as series of painting demos held at the Society of Illustrators called Art Out Loud. Or next two events are scheduled for this Fall.


Two fantasy/science fiction artists with similar sensibilities yet very different mediums. Oil painter Donato Giancola and digital painter Todd Lockwood
Saturday, October 7th • Noon - 4:00
$25.00 students & SoI Members • $35.00 non-members


Three Hamilton King Award-winners, each with a very distinctive style from one another. Jame Bennett, Gary Kelley, Greg Manchess
Saturday, November 11th • Noon - 4:00
$25.00 students & SoI Members • $35.00 non-members

Both events will be held at:
Society of Illustrators
128 East 63rd Street, New York, NY 10021

For tickets contact: 212.838.2560 • info@societyillustrators.org
Space is limited - past events have sold out!

Scott Fischer Never Grows Up

Scott M. Fischer created over 40 beautiful ink drawings for the US edition of the only authorized sequel to J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan, Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean. Why silhouettes? Scott said, "They were the perfect solution. They have a timeless look that will not be out of place with the first books and, more importantly, they leave a lot up to the imagination of the reader -- with an icon like Peter Pan, that's a great thing. Silhouettes are also a nod to Arthur Rackham, the coolest Pan illustrator of all! His Cinderella book was a true inspiration to me."

The book is due out October 5th from Simon and Schuster. I'm looking forward to posting more images once the book is released.

Comic Con: Sunday

The final day of Comic Con was full of a lot of last minute shopping and the sudden realization that, despite having spent five days there, you still hadn’t seen everything.

All in all, it was a great convention. It is always inspiring to be around people that are so passionate about what they do. It was wonderful to meet up with friends and colleagues that I only see once a year and to meet new artists coming into the field. I definitely came away with a few names that I’ll be keeping my eye on.

A number of us spent the final evening playing the most intense game of Pictionary. I must say, it was a little intimidating to be the only non-artist playing with the likes of George Pratt, Donato Giancola, Stephan Martiniere, Greg Manchess, and others. Luckily, thirty second drawings done with your wrong hand and eyes closed look pretty much the same no matter who draws them.
Martiniere’s “Speaking with Forked Tongue”


A little off-topic: I decided to take off Monday to decompress a bit before returning home and diving straight back into work. The San Diego Zoo is as amazing as its reputation claims. I’ve never seen a creature as graceful as this 6,000 pound hippo in water.

Comic Con: Saturday

Saturday! I made the mistake of trying to cross the floor...it took about an hour. But...

I learned that Stephan Martiniere has a 2007 calendar out, Futurescapes. I’m proud to say that six of the twelve months are Tor book covers.

Brom told me that he is hard at work on a new novel. He was not at liberty to reveal the title but, like The Plucker, it will be lavishly illustrated.


Dan Dos Santos' painting demo.

Comic Con: Friday

Greg Manchess did a well attended demo. Greg is exhibiting his Conan paintings from the Wandering Star/Del Rey edition of The Conquering Sword of Conan. The book features over 60 paintings. The Art Department will show an in depth step-by-step of one of Greg’s paintings in a few weeks.




More people spotting: James Jean talking to Arnie Fenner.

Comic Con: Thursday continued

The artists seem to be doing well. I see lots of “sold” signs on paintings. The crowds have been steady...but promise to be better (or worse, depending on your point of view) on Friday and Saturday.


It was a pleasure to meet David Apatoff. David runs one of my favorite illustration blogs, Illustration Art. He seems to be as gracious as his site implies he would be. We talked a bit with Charles Vess and Greg Manchess. Charles seems very excited about the upcoming film version of Stardust. He seems pleased that the film makers have remained true to the spirit of the book. Greg will be doing a demo on Friday -- more on that latter.


I ran into Theo Black, Holly Black, and Tony Diterlizzi, of Spiderwick fame.


ConceptArt freinds: Arkady “AmishCommy” Roytman and Tiffany “poise” Prothero.


What convetionis complete without Elvis Trooper.

Comic Con: Thursday

Jason Chan drawing in front of Dan Dos Santos’ booth. You may not know Jason’s name now, but you will soon. He’s just out of school and already doing amazing work...including some covers for Starscape. (I’ll get those posted soon.)


Razorbill was giving away advance copies of Black Tattoo. It’s sporting a beautiful John Jude Palencar painting. The marketing info on the back says that the final jacket will fold out into a poster. I’m very much looking forward to seeing that.


Dave Palumbo (in white) showing his portfolio to collectors.


Illustration House has a great collection of work on display, including this nice Jeff Jones painting.

Comic Con: Wednesday

Today went as expected -- a lot of rushing around and last minute set-up...and a lot of tired and travel weary artists. I spent most of the time just saying quick hellos to everyone.


The best news I heard was that Stephan Martiniere will have an art book out in December, Quantumscapes. He says that this one will cover his movie, gaming, and book cover art. (Quantum Dreams, his first book, is a beautiful collection of cover work.) I’ve often stated that Stephan is one of the most exciting artist working in the field today.


Kinuko Craft drawing in a fan’s sketchbook.

Comic Con: Prologue

Here’s the “before” shot. I spent most of the day traveling across the country but I was able to poke my head in and watch a few early birds setting up. I’m sure tomorrow’s set-up will be bedlam. The preview night is tomorrow. It’s well worth getting in early for that. Within a day, this place will be jammed packed, elbow to elbow!

"How do I get my work in front of an art director?"

In an earlier post, I was asked, "What's the best way to get your work in front of an art director?" This is a question that I get at just about every convention and school lecture. I wish I had a concise answer but I’m afraid that the truth is annoyingly vague.

Much of my time at work and after hours is spent thinking about who should do what covers. If I make the right match between artist and book, then the months ahead of me are smooth sailing. If I make the wrong match...it can be months of wrestling with the artist, killing a budget on a book by having to create a second cover, or, worst of all, letting a book go out into the world to limp along with an inappropriate cover.

Note, inappropriate does not mean that the cover is bad...it just means that it is not the right cover for that particular book. There are plenty of covers that are not my favorites but they are right for that book, just as there are plenty of beautiful covers that may not suit a particular book.

ANNUALS
These are hugely important to me -- mostly Spectrum and the Society of Illustrators. I keep stacks of them at my feet, within arm’s reach. I flip through them all the time -- to find new artists, to remind me of artists that I've wanted to work with but haven't yet, and to remind myself to look up new work from people I already know. (Keep website updated!) Annuals are juried, cleanly designed, neatly bound, and have all the contact information I need. Can't beat all that. The trouble for the artist is that they do not have control over whether they get into them or not.

BOOKSTORES & MAGAZINES
I spend tons of time in bookstores. I flip open every book if I can’t tell artist by their style. I'm always curious who’s out there and who’s new. I also subscribe to Realms of Fantasy and Communication Arts. "Realms" not only uses lots of illustration throughout but they also have a feature on an artist in each issue.

NETWORKING
I go to four or five conventions a year. Sometimes I'll find new talent there or I get to watch a young artist’s abilities grow throughout the years. I find it really helps the process when you actually get to meet the people you work with. Not essential by any means, but it's nice when there is some kind of connection. For the same reason, I go to all the Society of Illustrators openings.

PROMOCARDS
I get tons of these every day. To be honest, most do end up in the garbage — they are either inappropriate for what we publish or they are not of the quality that we need. I do, however, keep files on the ones that I like.

PORTFOLIO DROP-OFFS
Since websites and good quality home printers have taken over, I don't see many portfolios delivered to our office. However, we still get them from time to time, and we still look through them. Be sure include promo cards that the AD can keep. (Do not include original paintings.)

RECOMMENDATIONS
Talking to other artists or art directors will tip me off to people I have not worked with. Illustrators are a great lot, they always seem quick to point out other artists that they admire without feeling threatened.

AGENTS
They can help get your foot in the door but they are, by no means, necessary. There are a number of agents that I very much enjoy working with. Whenever they call, I'll look at what they have to show. But then easily half the people I work with don't have agents. Here you are better off talking to other artists to see if this is something you want to pursue.

SOUCRE BOOKS
These are costly and I'm not sure how effective they are for book cover
work. I do enjoy going through them but I tend to clip out the pages I like
and then trash the rest. (The annuals stay in tact.) However, I've heard that source books are good for getting some higher paying advertising jobs.

ONLINE COMMUNITIES
Increasingly, online communities have been a great place to discover artists. I most enjoy Drawn! and Concept Art.

Unfortunately, none of the above will work by itself. I usually come across someone's work and think, "interesting." Maybe six months later I'll see that artist in Spectrum....six months later I might see them at ComicCon...and six months after that I get a book that I haven't a clue what to do with and then suddenly I remember, "Wasn't there some new artist whose work looked rather interesting?" Then I go dig through all my resources and and decide whether it's a good match or not.

I picked a few random artists and tried to remember how I heard of them. (Hopefully they wont mind me sharing.) Some are new to me, others I've worked with for years. This is all very simplified. In all cases I looked up a ton of work once I thought I had a particular project that they might be right for.

Jon Foster: I met at a World Fantasy Convention and then saw his work in Spectrum and at the Society.

Dan Dos Santos: I met at Society of Illustrators and then he sent me a collection of promo cards.

Eric Fortune: I was following in Spectrum and received promo cards.

Donato Giancola: Donato had been working with Tor before I came along. I know he credits his agent for helping in the early years. (He has long since moved on from the agent.) His great work will keep him working for Tor as long as he's willing, but meeting him at conventions and at the Society has made it all the more fun to work with each other.

David Grove: Recommended by Greg Manchess. Then I looked up his work on the web.

Jason Chan: I saw him on ConceptArt. I was also reminded to keep looking at his stuff by Dos Santos. His new website helped a lot too.....I was able to pass that on to our editor.

David Bowers: Was following through Society annuals and then received promo card.

Stephan Martiniere: Met through an agent, although he quickly left that firm. It's fun to hang out with Stephan at ComicCon, but, of course, it's his mazing work that keeps me coming back for more.

Greg Manchess: Spectrum and the Society. Greg has also lead me to many other great artists.

Jon Foster Art Book!

I spent some time this weekend writing a closing statement for Jon Foster's new art book, Revolution. Jon and his artwork amaze me. I'm very honored to be part of this publication. The book should hit the stands in October. If I ask nicely, the Fenner's might allow me to post some interior spreads just as the book is released.