Fantasy & Science Fiction Art — A Dribble of Ink

Posts Categorized: Art

Cover Art | KING OF THORNS by Mark Lawrence

By Aidan Moher October 17th, 20112 Responses

Another Fantasy cover, another hooded figure.

So, why do I like this one when so many others have frustrated and left me feeling hollow? There’s panache, it’s got chutzpah, character, personality. Seemingly influenced by Michael Komarck’s famous portrait of Jaime Lannister, the main character of Lawrence’s trilogy just oozes charisma. He looks like an absolute jackass, but somehow you want to know more about him and the situation that led to him lounging confidently on a throne atop a pile of dead bodies. What’s he holding. Who is he?

It also helps that the cover is entirely illustrated, instead of a photo manipulation featuring Mark Charan Newton in a hood with a photoshopped sword of fireball super-imposed over his white knuckles.

Art | The kitschy castles of George R.R. Martin’s A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE by Kevin Cook

By Aidan Moher October 12th, 20111 Response

From Cook’s kickstarter campaign:

Taking my love for these books (and recent HBO television series), I set out to harness this inspiration and produce artwork in my preferred medium. My goal was to produce tasteful and minimalistic pieces that conveyed the emotions of their respective settings without sacrificing the spirit of the series. I also wanted to create something I could display in the house without my wife hiding it every time friends came over (she’s not too in to fantasy art).

And I’d like to share these with you – the Kickstarter community. When you pledge, you’ll be part of the premiere printing of these digital paintings. To make these unique originals, each piece will be numbered and hand signed.

I’ve set the project goal to meet minimum printing costs for a 500 print run, and cover continental US shipping costs. The prints are high quality, ready for framing, hanging, and displaying your Ice and Fire love.

So, what are you getting? I’ve created four digital paintings, each featuring a different castle: Stoic Winterfell, majestic King’s Landing, the vertigo-inducing Eyrie, and one in-progress piece. The last one is a surprise, but it will be a piece that burns against the cold*.

If funding is successful, all prints will be mailed within one week of the project closing. All artwork should be received late November, and well before the December holidays.

Everyone here knows of my love for fine art and nerd culture clashing together with beautiful results. Like these Middle Earth travel posters, these are a wonderful melding of a classic art style with Martin’s creations. Few fantasy series have such iconic set pieces as A Song of Ice and Fire, and The Red Keep, The Eyrie and Winterfell are immediately recognizable, even in their stylized form. Cook also promise (somewhat slyly, that Castle Black is also in the pipeline and will be available/included for those who fund his kickstarter campaign.

So, what’re you waiting for? Love this art as much as I do? All it takes is ten bucks and you’ll get a signed print of the four castles. Tell me that wouldn’t look great hanging above your computer desk. More Cook’s art can be found on his blog.

Cover Art | THE DREAMBLOOD DUOLOGY by N.K. Jemisin

By Aidan Moher October 7th, 20112 Responses

Since the release of her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin’s been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, Nebula and World Fantasy awards. It’s a tremendous novel (see my REVIEW), but I also think a lot of its success can be attributed to some of the early excitement and speculation created by the release of the gorgeous cover. Of course, cover art is never used as a metric when nominating for or judging these awards, but the novel gained some significant buzz among the blogosphere that likely wouldn’t have existed (especially for a debut novelist without much in the way of published short fiction) if not for the striking work of designer Lauren Panepinto and artist Cliff Nielsen.

I like these covers for much the same reason as Jemisin’s previous colour: impactful use of colour. As they stand (and this could very well change between now and the final polished versions), I feel that the typeface seems a little out of place, though I like that it’s been kept simple (instead of something like this, for instance). It could also be solved by using a foil-technique (as Orbit used on the paperback of Brent Weeks’ The Black Prism, also seen on the recent paperback release of Towers of Midnight by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan), which generally looks sharp. In all, it’s a niggling complaint and I can’t wait to see the final copies in hand. Just as with The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, I’m bloody excited for these novels based on the covers alone without even knowing what they’re about. I can’t think of higher praise for the designer/artist.

An Aside | Family builds Hobbit house, earns my respect

By Aidan Moher October 3rd, 20114 Responses

Snagged from Metro News:

Man builds Hobbit house, earns my respect

Let me pose you a question:

If you could live in one Fantasy world, where you woud pick?

It’s a common question – one asked in comicbook shops/dimly-lit basements and on schoolgrounds around the world. My answer is always quick, always assured.

“‘The Shire’ in Middle-Earth” It’s easy. Tolkien’s seminal setting might be a cliche, and some of his more magical towns (the magic of Rivendell) and cities (the grandeur of pre-catastrophe Osgiliath) might be a more obvious or romantic choices, but The Shire, and Hobbiton in particular, have always held a special place in my heart. From the moment I first cracked open The Hobbit and was introduced to Bilbo’s home, I was in love.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

Who doesn’t want to live in such a home?

It looks like such a delightful place in which to curl up beside a fire, good book in one hand, glass of wine in the other and a quiet evening ahead. (I do have to admit, though, they dropped the ball by not including a round door.)

Even the floorplan for the house is cute:

This Welsh homestead reminiscent of ‘Bag End’, the underground home famously inhabited by Frodo and Bilbo Baggins in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, was constructed in just four mouths, for an astounding £3,000 (€3,430; $4,700), using chopped-down wood for floors and layers of earth for a roof.

All for under five thousand bucks? Sign me up. I had a treefort as a kid. My parents poured all their love and affection for me and my brothers into that fort, it’s at the centre of countless fond memories of the adventures I had as a child… but I’d take a hobbit house any day of the week. It’s wonderful what can happen when elbow grease and inspiration collide.

Cover Art & Synopsis | CALIBAN’S WAR by James S.A. Corey (Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck)

By Aidan Moher September 30th, 20117 Responses

Cover Not Final — Art by Daniel Dociu

We are not alone.

The alien protomolecule is clear evidence of an intelligence beyond human reckoning. No one knows what exactly is being built on Venus, but whatever it is, it is vast, powerful, and terrifying.

When a creature of unknown origin and seemingly impossible physiology attacks soldiers on Ganymede, the fragile balance of power in the Solar System shatters. Now, the race is on to discover if the protomolecule has escaped Venus, or if someone is building an army of super-soldiers.

Jim Holden is the center of it all. In spite of everything, he’s still the best man for the job to find out what happened on Ganymede. Either way, the protomolecule is loose and Holden must find a way to stop it before war engulfs the entire system.

CALIBAN’S WAR is an action-packed space adventure following in the footsteps of the critically acclaimed Leviathan Wakes.

Yesterday we had the cover for Abraham’s Fantasy offering, The King’s Blood and today we’ve got his collaborative Science Fiction (alongside the awesomely fun Ty Franck), Caliban’s War, the sequel to Leviathan Wakes (which rules, REVIEW), the second volume of The Expanse trilogy.

I’ve been informed by Orbit that this is an early, unfinished look at the cover, so expect a nice layer of polish to be added to the final copy. I loved the cover for Leviathan Wakes and this one looks like it’ll be just as great (if not quite so impressionistic and soothing). Burning Coruscant certainly promises that the action will gain scope in the second volume. That said, I don’t think the typeface works so well with this title. My excitement for the novel continues to be sky-high.

A Dribble of Ink

Of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Aidan Moher