Weird Kitties: Best Professional Artist Open Thread
So I admit, this is a category I know basically nothing about. I mean, I assume it doesn’t generally go to comic artists, and so my instinct to nominate J.H. Williams III and Jamie McKelvie, though not unreasonable from any aesthetic perspective, is still out of keeping with social norms. Still, here’s the second most mindblowing moment of one of the best comics of the year, and a fantastic costume design to boot, and people can tell me what’s normal to nominate here.
Looking at the people listed in the 2016 Hugo Wikia, I see Stephanie Hans, who’s doing the next issue of WicDiv, is there, so I can’t be too wrong-headed. Stephan Martinière’s work on the Three-Body Problem trilogy is pretty impressive too. Scanning quickly through the others, though, I’m finding this is a hard category for me. So yes, please someone have useful opinions.
Speaking of useful opinions, we could still use one or two more reviews for tomorrow. snowspinner at gmail.
September 26, 2015 @ 5:44 am
It’s a category I’ve often not paid much attention to before. One problem I have is being 100% sure which are 2015 from their porfolios. Anyway, my personal choices are:
http://victo-ngai.com/
Has done a lot of the artwork for Tor online and they are beautiful e.g.:
http://www.tor.com/2015/03/18/the-museum-and-the-music-box-noah-keller/
http://beautiful-lands.com/posts/illustrations-of-victo-ngai
Galen Dara:
Another great short story illustrator with great style. e.g.
http://www.firesidefiction.com/blog/2015/07/13/and-now-a-word-from-our-artist-by-galen-dara/
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/shall-know-trail-dead/
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/time-bomb-time/
Donato Giancola:
Some of my bias for this may be the big Tolkein work they did recently but his technique manages to make the most fantastic scenes look like classical art:
e.g.
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/open-studio-donato-arts.html
http://www.donatoart.com/gallery.html
Julie Dillon:
Yes, a perpetual winner but there is a good reason for this:
e.g. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/juliedillon/imagined-realms-book-2-a-scifi-art-book-by-julie-d
http://juliedillon.deviantart.com/gallery/
http://www.juliedillonart.com/project-view/disciple/
Kinuko Y Craft:
One of the best illustrators of women working now, with a great romantic style:
e.g. http://www.amberlotus.com/women-of-myth-magic-2016/
http://www.kycraft.com/mahlon_f_craft.html
Apologies for the poor descriptions, my ability to describe why I like artwork is not the best on a Saturday morning.
September 26, 2015 @ 6:48 am
I’d have to say Peter Dennis. He’s the main artist at the Discworld Emporium, which means he’s responsible for the map in the upcoming Compleat Discworld Atlas. And if it’s half as detailed as the Compleat Ankh-Morpork City Guide map from 2012, it’ll be the most detailed fantasy world map I’ve ever seen. This year, he also did the artwork for the Discworld Diary 2016: A Practical Manual for the Young Witch, and lots of stamps. Like most Discworld artists he’s got a lovely sense for quirky details and an understanding that you have to take how the Disc works seriously in order for it to be funny.
September 27, 2015 @ 4:20 pm
Oh, a link would have been nice, wouldn’t it?
http://www.discworldemporium.com/Compleat-Discworld-AtlasGHWI
September 27, 2015 @ 4:22 pm
Um, remove the letters from the end, somehow put the Captcha there.
http://www.discworldemporium.com/Compleat-Discworld-Atlas
September 26, 2015 @ 7:04 am
Does the artist need to have done a book cover / comic, or is it acceptable to be an independent SF-themed artist? If the latter, I totally want to point people to Poxodd (full disclosure: she’s a friend of mine, but but hot damn her stuff is great). And if not the latter, I still want to point people towards her.
Some paintings: http://www.contagiouslyweird.com/#!soldpaintings/c5it
Etsy shop: http://poxodd.etsy.com/
Here’s a music video she made for Ostrich Von Nipple a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-ss6lAYDlk
I don’t drink adult beverages, but if I did it would probably be Mabinogion Mead because they hired her to do all their artwork: https://twitter.com/mabinogionmead
September 26, 2015 @ 7:23 am
Didn’t Grimes do a Wicked + Divine cover? I’d love to see Grimes win a Hugo
September 26, 2015 @ 10:17 am
Geidi Primes would have been a good contender for Best Related Work 2010
September 26, 2015 @ 7:53 am
Must admit that I’m at a lose about this category, in the 2015 awards I no awarded both art categories because they just weren’t any good.
As I said in the first Weird Kitties post, Roger Strunk, the cover artist on Ellis’s Elektrograd & Cunning Plans
website is http://www.rogerstrunk.com/ (No idea about formating on the new website so don’t know if that comes up as a clickable link) his work demostrates that simplicity is not the same as easy.
September 26, 2015 @ 11:32 am
Ok, off the top of my head:
-Hamish Steele who writes and draws the indie comic “Deadendia” and did the cover for the latest Iris Wyldthyme audio set.
-Stjepan Šeji? who, as I mentioned last week, draws way too many comics. Like, good god he just won’t stop.
-Esad Ribi? whose art I have always had a fondness for ever since reading Silver Surfer: Requiem.
-Chris Burnham who is just killing it on Nameless. Also what I’ve seen of Nixon’s Pals looks nice.
-Grace Kraft whose artwork in the Steven Universe comic is just gorgeous.
-Marc Ellerby whose back up strips in the 11th Doctor comic always put a smile on my face and I’m rather miffed they aren’t included in the actual trades.
-Babs Tar, the art in Batgirl is amazing.
September 26, 2015 @ 1:30 pm
As far as I can determine, the only two comic artists who have been nominated are Fiona Staples and Phil Foglio (artist of the perennially nominated Girl Genius.)
McKelvie actually has done book covers in the past, not sure if he’s done any this year.
September 28, 2015 @ 4:34 am
It’s quite spoilery that image isn’t it? Not quite as much as the page or two afterwards, but still…