Been a loooong time, since I did those. I maintain my design aesthetic and visual articulation, but I'd need to get back into practice, to do that stuff again.
Overall this series is a triumph of art direction. The various cover paintings were made by different artists, but they blend into a unified series that reflects the sensibility of the original designer — “Magritte in Memphis, California” would be my summary of the associations.
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[ 35.6 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] threadhttps://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads....
UPDATE: That link that another commenter posted, has it: https://talkingcovers.com/2012/09/12/vintage-contemporaries/
When I was a young man, I wanted to be a SciFi book cover artist. I wasn't half bad, but I wasn't a master, either.
I figured out that even a mediocre programmer could do better than even a really well-known commercial artist (which I was not really assured of).
Here's a couple of examples of the kind of stuff I was doing in the 1980s:
https://littlegreenviper.com/art/Cavalier.png
https://littlegreenviper.com/art/Sentinels.png
Also, are they both digitally drawn? I'm quite sure the first one is, but the second one looks like it was inked.
All in all, very well done.
My inspirations were Michael Whelan, Frank Frazetta, Boris Vallejo, Roger Dean, and Rodney Matthews. These were all popular artists, at the time.
These were Acrylic, and I used airbrush, for the sky gradients, in the Sentinels one.
https://talkingcovers.com/2012/09/12/vintage-contemporaries/
The “Ransom” cover is really wonderful.
Overall this series is a triumph of art direction. The various cover paintings were made by different artists, but they blend into a unified series that reflects the sensibility of the original designer — “Magritte in Memphis, California” would be my summary of the associations.