Sam Weber’s Ender’s Game ebook cover

I am very excited to release Sam Weber’s ebook cover for Ender’s Game. This was a blast to work on.

For the whole skinny on the how the cover came about, Sam’s thoughts, and a some process pictures, check out the Tor.com article.

Jeffrey Jones documentary

Better Things: The Life and Choices of Jeffrey Jones

Maria Cabardo, of DC Comics, has been putting together a documentary of the amazing Jeffery Jones. (Like, really amazing — If you need one reason to be on Facebook, it’s to see Jones’ gallery.) Here’s a quick glimpse at the work in progress — an interview with the also amazing Michael Kaluta. I know the film crew has been traveling around and interviewing as many artists as they can. I’m very much looking forward to watching this develop.

Greg Manchess on the Wheel of Time Lord of Chaos ebook cover

The next of our Wheel of Time ebook covers is up! For Lord of Chaos we present a signature battle of the series, Dumai’s Wells, as portrayed by Greg Manchess.

As usual, all the details can be found in the Tor.com post, including our groovy “sliding” cover, Greg’s thoughts on composing the image, and a
super-cool time-lapse video of Greg working on the painting from beginning to end.

RELATED:
All Wheel of Time ebook posts are archived here.
Which include:
David Grove on The Eye of the World
Kekai Kotaki on The Great Hunt
Donato Giancola on The Dragon Reborn
Sam Weber on The Shadow Rising
Dan Dos Santos on The Fires of Heaven

Sam Weber on Sidebar

Sam Weber is interviewed on podcast site Sidebar Nation.

...keeping me up well past my bedtime ’cause I’m way too impatient to wait until tomorrow to listen in.

The art of Levathan, part two: An interview with Keith Thompson

We just posted the second half of our “Art of Leviathan” intreviews on Tor.com. Earlier we talked with Scott Westerfeld about what is was like to be the art director on his own book—the steampunk, young adult novel, Leviathan. Now we have artist Keith Thompson talking about the fifty illustrations that help flush out Scott’s world. Keith did a great job of mixing historical details with fantastical creatures (both mechanical and animal) creating a fun, action packed pace while maintaining the tone of a more formal era.

See the full interview on Tor.com.

What kind of research did you do for the book, either for artistic inspiration or for historical details?

It’s a bit dangerous for me when the setup is as interesting as WWI. I actually had to pull back a bit as my research was taking away time from the art at points and it was making me far too pedantic about my details. That might have been fine for a drier and harder type of alternate past story, but I knew that Leviathan was meant to be a rip-roaring type of adventure and that a fun and fantastical angle to the art was extremely important.

I also wanted to have the historical setting somewhat pliable, as it would be a very bad thing to plunk all these walkers and beasts and things in the middle of history without having ripples spread throughout the setting; changing little things from how a nation’s cavalry uniform looks to how a culture’s architecture has evolved.

I’m learning new interesting things all the time and compiling them into a pretty elaborate collection of research. I’ll be researching right up to the last illustration, and will probably have collected a monumental load of brilliant things I’ll wish I could have incorporated but couldn’t fit in.

The art of Leviathan, part 1: An interview with Scott Westerfeld

Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld’s highly anticipated and extensively illustrated young adult steampunk novel, releases today. Whenever I’d run into Scott over the past year or so he’d whip out his iPhone and excitedly show-off the latest drawings by Keith Thompson. After a few of these incidents it became clear that Keith wasn’t just adding a few embellishments to the book but, with fifty drawings throughout, was helping to create the world of Leviathan.

I took the opportunity to interview Scott and Keith about the project. Part 1 is the interview with Scott talking about his dual role as author/art director.

Check out the full interview on tor.com

Did working on the illustrations for Leviathan affect your writing for book two?
Because we have an illustration almost every chapter, I simply can’t have my characters sitting around and talking for very long—stuff has to happen. This is great for recreating the action-packed feel of the “boy’s own adventures” that I was inspired by, but I’ve learned a few subtler tricks to create visual interest. Sometimes, a really cool-looking thing can just show up, and thanks to Keith’s brilliance, that’s enough to fill the page. Also some very quiet illustrations—a pocket cameo, a pair of teacups—have turned out to be wonderful storytelling aids.

And, yes, certainly when a drawing of a machine or beastie comes out great, it will tend to stay in the story more. Some throwaway ideas have become pivotal parts of the plot, just because Keith made them look so damn cool.

Stay tuned for part two, talking with Keith Thompson, this Thursday.

Ross McDonald on illustrating Last Son of Tomorrow, wood type, and movie propmaking

Ross MacDonald is an illustrator, designer, letterpress artist, prop maker, and every art director’s dream to work with. Whenever we have worked together, Ross has attacked the assignment with excitement, often sending sketches along with all kinds of interesting and amusing backstories about the historical context of the type and images he is playing with.

When Greg van Eekhout’s Tor.com story “Last Son of Tomorrow” came in, it was a bit of a mixed blessing for me. I loved the story. It is easily among my favorites on the site. While every story is an opportunity to create a great image, I can’t help to feel doubly pressured to “get it right” when I feel close to the source material. After thinking about various artists, I kept going back to Ross. I’m glad I did. The image is simple and perfect. It works well before you’ve read the story and gains more depth afterward, as a good collaboration between pictures and words should.

Over on Tor.com, I asked Ross a few questions about his unusually varied career.

You had the potentially problematic task of illustrating one of my very favorite tor.com stories (so far). The image you came up with was so simple and perfect. Did you play around with other images or did you come to this pretty quickly?
It wasn't the first thing I thought of, actually. I started off convinced that the perfect way to illustrate this story was to do some kind of comic—5 or 6 wordless panels showing different scenes from his life. But something kept nagging at me—somehow it felt flat or pat. I learned the hard way that you have to listen to that feeling.

Read the rest of the interview on Tor.com. You'll be glad you did -- Ross is thoughtful and charming.

Brom on The Child Thief

Anyone reading The Art Department is likely to know Brom's dark and often disconcertingly beautiful paintings fairly well. Over the past few years Brom has turned his efforts to writing novels, with the highly illustrated Plucker and The Devil's Rose.

His third novel, The Child Thief, is just out from Eos. It is a beautiful over-sized book with a number of color and black and white illustrations and is a decidedly not-for-kids continuation of Peter Pan.

"In the dusk of that early autumn day the child thief peered out from the shadows and falling leaves to watch the children play. The children scaled the giant green turtle, slid down the bright yellow slide, laughed, yelled, teased and chased one another round and round. But the child thief wasn't interested in these happy faces. He wasn't looking to steal just any child. He was particular. He was looking for the sad face, the loner…a lost child. And the older the better, preferably a child of thirteen or fourteen, for older children were stronger, had better stamina, tended to stay alive longer."

When did you begin writing? Where you always thinking of stories to tell while developing as a painter?

I've always told stories, either with pictures or with words. As a child I loved making little books, y'know -- paper, words, drawings, stapler and pesto you have book! It's pretty much the same now -- paper, words, paintings, computer and presto you have book.

Is there a way in which you found writing and painting surprisingly similar?

I'm a very visual person, so the processes are similar in that they both come from the picture part of my brain. The difference is that writing is like watching a movie and I'm playing all the parts. Painting is taking a single frame from that movie and trying to make the strongest image I can imagine.

Was it difficult to convince a publisher that an artist could write well?

The ideas come easy to me, and I love the act of writing, but just like painting, I had to work very hard to develop my craft to a point where it was publishable. What was more difficult, at least in the beginning, was convincing a publisher that it was okay to put pictures and words together in an adult novel. The publishing market can be very conservative at times and in many publishing houses pictures books are for children only.

What is it about Peter Pan that drew you to this story?

Simply reading the original story (not the water-downed Disney version). I was amazed what a dark and disturbing tale it really is. Here's a quote from the original Peter Pan: “The boys on the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.”

Thins them out? Huh? What does that mean? Does Peter kill them, like culling a herd? Does he send them away somewhere? If so, where? Or does Peter just put them in such peril that the crop is in need of constant replenishing?

That one paragraph forever changed my perception of Peter Pan from that of a high-spirited rascal to something far more sinister. “Thins them out,” the words kept repeating in my head. How many children had Peter stolen, how many had died, how many had been thinned out? Peter himself said, “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” Once I pondered these unsettling elements I began to wonder what this children’s book would be like if the veil of Barrie’s lyrical prose were peeled back, if the violence and savagery were presented in grim stark reality. How would children really react to being kidnapped and thrust into such a situation? How hard would it be for them to fall under the spell of a charismatic sociopath, to shuck off the morality of civilization and become cold-blooded killers? And these thoughts were the seeds for The Child Thief.

The black and white drawings are (besides being drop-dead gorgeous) reminiscent of intaglio prints. Was this a style you developed for this story, and if so why? Or is this a natural outgrowth of you painting style?

Painting comes very naturally to me, line work does not. In painting it is all about losing the line, to work in tone, to have your shadows hold your image. So I am very pleased that you like the drawings because in many ways they were a lot more work than the paintings.

What’s next? Are you working on another book?

I'm finally getting around to putting together a new art book. This will be a collection of my early paintings as well as new work. Hopefully it will be ready in about a year.

Greg Manchess on Sidebar

I tweeted this but to make it formal:

Greg Manchess was interviewed on Sidebar. Check out the podcast here.

Brad Holland on Sidebar Nation

We at the Art Department are great fans of Brad Holland. And by "we", of course I mean me. The good folks of Sidebar Nation have posted a podcast with Brad.

RELATED: Tor.com interview with Brad Holland, which includes the strangest Slim Pickens story you;re bound to hear.

Francis Vallejo and Adam Hughes interviews

I'm getting yelled at for relying on Twitter for too much of this so...

Sidebar Nation always runs a great series of podcasts. Recently:

Francis Vallejo: A new (as in last week) Ringling illustration grad. Francis is more articulate on illustration than most pros. A great view from a young person just entering into his career -- well worth a listen.

And, a two part interview with comic books artist, and one of the best damn drawers around, Adam Hughes. Great info mixed with a lot of laughs. Part one and two.

Rick Berry talks about his latest for Tor.com.

Rick Berry on illustrating Terry Bisson's "TVA Baby" for Tor.com.

Shaun Tan (and other talented people) at a PEN panel on childrens books.

FLICKR SET HERE

So, this was supposed to be highlights from a panel discussion on children's books with Neil Gaiman, Mariken Jongman, and Shaun Tan. I knew it would be a bit Tan-centric, since I am most familiar with his work, but once I started writing it up, it quickly became all Tan.

The other panelists were charming and insightful and funny. (Like when Neil Gaiman remembered his school teachers telling him, "Neil, dear, before you can be eccentric, you really should know where the circle is.") But since this is the Art Department I have the perfect excuse to focus on the only illustrator on the panel.

On childhood:
Shaun Tan mentioned that he grew up in a suburban town that was the perfect blend of idyllic and boring to help foster a vivid imagination. And, that he used drawing as a way to compensate for being the shortest kid in the class.

Influential books:
Shaun mentioned Where the Wild Things Are, especially the forest growing in the bedroom scene. He talked about the "tipping point, where everything starts to change."

He was also read Animal Farm as a young kid -- his mother assumed it was a kid's book.

Throughout the evening he talked a lot about being most interested in stories that are left somewhat unresolved.

Career Path:
He started as a science fiction illustrator and moved into children's books as a means to broaden his client base.

He also mentioned creating the picture book The Lost Thing as a means of pulling himself out of the pigeon hole of doing a lot of horror work. (Self initiated projects)

He feels he's hit a "Twilight Zone" between making books that for both for kids and adults.

Style and work:
Shaun talked about stripping stories and images down. Getting a everything down to it's bare bones and letting the child inhabit the story and fill in the details.

He seems to have very vivid memories of being a child and attribute his surrealism to remembering what it's like to live in a world were you can only understand 50% of what is going on.

He said that he used himself and his wife for the models on The Arrival.

He talked about spending lot of time struggling with a project, only to have a divergent project take off without trouble.

On hobbies:

When asked what he does when not painting, he replied..."Painting." But instead of fantastical images, he'll paint large scale portraits and town scenes for fun. He said they were very meditative allowed him to take stock in the world around him and observe details.

Dave McKean interview on Seven Impossible Things

There is a great interview with Dave McKean on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, full of great questions and answers and full of great images -- go to read and/or look at the pictures, you wont be sorry.

[Via Neil Gaiman on Twitter.]

Brad Holland Video

Over on RichardSolomon.com, a peak inside Brad Holland's studio, interview/demo. Very cool.

Related: Brad Holland Interview

Fresh Paint: AG Ford

It's been a while since I've done a "Fresh Paint" interview, but it's still true that one of the most exciting parts of the job is watching artists just a few ears out of school turn-on.

I met AG Ford at the Society of Illustrators student exhibit. I recently ran across the above Dorothy painting in Spectrum and it prompted me to look him up. Clearly he is finding his way quite nicely.

AG Ford

Where did you go to school and how do you feel they prepared you for your career?
I attended the Columbus College of Art and Design (graduated May 2007) and studied heavily under C.F. Payne my Junior and Senior years of college as an illustration major. He was essential in guiding me on technique, craftsmanship, doing research, and gathering good reference materials. Also, he let me be my own artist and taught me about getting my name out there as far as promotions, making calls to art directors, and being aggressive once my art was to a level that it needed to be professionally.

What has been your biggest challenge post graduation?
My biggest challenge post graduation was just that, trying to get my art out and in front of people. It can be difficult being a new face because people are not sure what to expect from you not only from a visual stand point, but professionally. The little things like dependability to meet a deadline and your professionalism, just being easy to work with. But usually after working with some one once, you can remove those worries if you over achieve expectations.

Do you feel as though you've had your first break yet?
I actually have had my first break, I landed a full picture book deal with Harper Collins. It was a big sigh of relief when this happened. The book was written by Jonah Winter titled Barack
and actually hit the New York Times Bestseller list for children's books. This was a very exciting and an overwhelming experience.

Do you think you have a breakthrough painting in which you made a leap in your abilities?
I think my break though paintings were throughout my Dorothy series, it was something that I was passionate about and is when I really started to transfer into oils. But I think you get better with every painting if you are trying to better and challenge yourself in some way, maybe through under painting or texture experimentation.

Can you share with us a favorite painting that you have done in the last year?
Its hard to say which of my own paintings is my favorite, but if I had to say one, it would probably be my Dorothy and the Munchkins painting. I spent a lot of time with different models and costuming to achieve that piece, and was pretty happy with the end result. But I try not to look at my own paintings too much, its seems like that could make you stand still rather than getting better. I would rather look at the painters that blow me away, Phil Hale, Maxfield Parrish, Thomas Blackshear, those guys.

A favorite painting by another artist?
One of my favorite paintings by another artist would probably be...mmmmhhh dont make me choose, I am safe with saying Swansong by Thomas Blackshear, its definitely one of my favorite paintings, its very iconic, and stays in your memory.

What where some of your successful self-promotions?
My promotions were mainly through sending out packets and such, but I felt they were hit or miss, I had more success when meeting with people face to face.

Do you have a clear idea where you'd like to be in five years or are you taking each day as it comes?
In the next five years I hope to still be in children's publishing, projects are lengthy and I am comfortable with the projects that I have been chosen for. The subject matter fits my light personality. Publishers are keeping me very busy right now.

Any advice to younger artists still in school?
The best advice that I could give any student is to work five times harder than the people around you, and be aware of what is going on in the art world. Don't get so caught up in your own creative mind, and your own world. You want your artwork to be relevant enough for you to get work from clients. One last thing, at some point you have to focus your ideas visually so that art directors immediately know what they can use you for. From an artists perspective, its awesome to be versatile, but coming out of school and being new, editors and art directors want some consistency so that they can trust you, thats just from my experience, and my opinion.

Adam Rex Interviewed

Adam Rex is interviewed on Nebula Awards -- talking about his work as an illustrator, a writer, and in between.

Mark Schultz Podcast Interview

Check out Mark Schultz on Sidebar Nation.

Brad Holland Intreview

We just posted an interview with Brad Holland on Tor.com.

Excerpt:

In what way did Hawthorne influence you?
Well, I grew up in a period when literature was realistic and painting was abstract. Hawthorne’s stories appealed to me because they were more like folk tales, like Pecos Bill or Hogo Pogo, only more subtle. I imagine he’d been influenced by Pilgrim’s Progress—lots of writers were in those days—except that Hawthorne’s stories were harder to pin down. No Worldly Wise Man or Mr. Feeblemind. Hawthorne was a kind of Transcendental Kafka, a hundred years before Kafka. I could imagine doing the same kind of thing with pictures—and that seemed more up my alley than trying to be one more guy painting stripes on a canvas or exhibiting dead cows in plexiglass.

Besides being a remarkable artist, he's smart, funny, and has the best Slim Pickens/Salvador Dali story you'll ever read. Go check it out.

Paolo Rivera and Lou Anders interviews

A quick interview with Paolo Rivera on Tor.com.

And, Lou Anders' puts on his Art Director cap over at Erik Gist's blog.