Every time I see this next piece I want to read the Dragon Riders of Pern!
And of course there is John Carter
Popular Culture, Movies, History, Games, Castles and Crusades. The musings of the Brothers Chenault. Troll Lord Games
Out trip to Gencon took us up through the Arkansas Delta country, and into the boot of Missouri, across the Big Muddy and on into the spra...
4 comments:
Those John Carter books with Whelan covers were also my introduction to his amazing sense of color and composition. Back then I associated Frazetta with Conan, Whelan with Barsoom and Robert Gould with all things Melnibone (although Whelan also did some rip-snorters for Moorcock's books.
Book covers today are lousy by comparison. All photoshop and no artistry.
I think your on to something, the digital medium has really hampered style and composition. It looses something, though I'm not sure what (not being an artist), but when you look at these old covers, they are alive and fire the imagination.
The wife is a printmaker, and she says the problem with a lot of digital artists is that they've never drawn from life. They build stuff in programs that looks like a picture of what they want, but it doesn't look real. Some of 'em learn to draw, and learn anatomy and then can construct bodies and structures digitally that have the proper weight and heft. Many of them just go right to the computer, though.
Guys like Whelan and Frazetta and your pal Peter Bradley know what they're doing, and it shows in the final product.
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