[Warewolf]

My favorite artist, by far (I mean, no one even comes close to touching him), is Michael Whelan. Just look at some of the amazing stuff he's done: Coldfire Trilogy, all of Melanie Rawn's stuff, Tad Williams' books, and even special editions of the Gunslinger and Elric books. Beautiful stuff.

My other favorites include Keith Parkinson, Larry Elmore, and Jeff Easley (and whoever did the covers to Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy).

Oh, and Janny Wurts has painted all the covers to her Wars of Light and Shadow books and has done an outstanding job.

Who stands out for everybody else?

[This message has been edited by Warewolf (edited January 03, 2002).]

[Mithfânion]

John Howe did the Farseer cover art and a lot of Tolkien stuff. I like him, and Whelan (with his cool Coldfire stuff), as well as Stephen Youll who's done a lot of cool stuff, including the US edition of Fool's errand.

[estranghero]

Michael Whelan is alright in my book.

Also:

1) Donato, who did a lot of really great covers (one for Drake's Queen of the Isles, several for the Deathstalker series)
2) Mel Odom (who did several of the US publication books of Guy Gavriel Kay)

Oh yeah, Keith Parkinson is also good.

[JohnH]

Tom Canty is one of my favorites. Not because of his depictions of the characters (usually all too pretty and the faces are a bit bizarre in the blurred way his draws), but rather of his use of color and tones.

The shadings, blendings and combinations he uses are very pleasing to my eye. Basically he does a hell of a job from the neck down.

[JohnH]

Tom Canty is one of my favorites. Not because of his depictions of the characters (usually all too pretty and the faces are a bit bizarre in the blurred way his draws), but rather of his use of color and tones.

The shadings, blendings and combinations he uses are very pleasing to my eye. Basically he does a hell of a job from the neck down.

[AikenDrum]

John Howe, he does the covers to my editions of LOTR , all Robin Hobb, and that recent Eric Van Lustbladder book. He also done many sketches for the Lotr movies.

[Nimea]

I enjoy the works of Larry Elmore, Janny Wurts and Ciruelo. Oh, not to forget Royo.

Those are my favourites. http://www.sffworld.com/ubb/smile.gif)

[Elessar]

I think I don't even know any ;-)
I used to read a lot of translated books (into german), they do awful stuff to the titles of the books (especially King books) and to the covers :-/
So I guess I don't really know any cover artist; never cared much for them, either.

I go by "never judge a book by it's cover" ;-)
(yes, I know that is not necessarily related to the topic ... )


-- Elessar

[Warewolf]

Elessar,

Y'know, to me, the book covers are one of the most important aspects. I mean, when you're at a bookstore, what catches your eye first, the cover or the blurb on the back? If a book has a nice looking cover, I'll be more likely to pick the book up than I would one with an ugly cover. For example, I never would have picked up any of Guy Gavriel Kay's books unless someone had recommended them to me because their covers are so ugly.

JohnH, whose books has Canty covered? I've never heard of him.

[Llama]

I often judge a book by its cover.

You'd be surprised; it's a remarkably effective method.