Cover Artists we love
So, a couple of weeks ago I posted two different covers I love, and the history of that. And I realized today while looking back at that, that I never mentioned the artist’s name, just the artist who had influenced me before. Well, I need to remedy that. It’s Cliff Nielsen, and you can find his portfolio here, where I’m sure fans of sf/f, urban fantasy, and paranormal romance will recognize a few images (and Nalini also just ran a fantastic interview with the artist for her cover, Tony Mauro.)
So I started thinking about other cover artists. The look of Ilona’s Kate Daniel’s series was established by Chad Michael Ward — who has also done the fantastic Rogue Angel books, and many more (website here, but not all images are safe for work or weak stomachs.)
Any book with a Chris McGrath cover will make me look twice. So will Dan Dos Santos. I first looked up Larry Rostant because he’d illustrated the redesigned Anne Bishop covers, and saw that he’d also done The Drowning City (a recent favorite) and several others that I recognized and thought were gorgeous.
So, let’s give our favorite cover artists some love. Find your favorite book, and see if they are mentioned in the copyright page. Or look through a few other pages (mostly SF/F/UF) to see if there are any that catch your eyes, and let us know here in the comments. And I don’t know who did Patrice’s covers (those eyes in Scions: Revelation!) and Jill’s (rawr!), but if you ladies know…?
You can never judge the quality of a book by its cover … but that doesn’t mean those covers can’t be fantastic quality, and worth a shout out to the designers who put the pretty around our pages.
My latest pretty? There will be a few changes in the font, but other than that…
I <3 Cliff Nielsen
I’ve never really thought about who does the covers I adore, only that I adore them. I have to say, this one is definitely gorgeous.
I didn’t realize it until today, but I <3 Cliff Nielson too.
I don’t always look to see who the artist is, but if a cover just knocks my socks off, I’ve gotten in the habit of checking out his/her other work.
Part of it is professional — if something just jumps out at me, I put it in a file so that when my editor asks me for cover input, I can send her images that I love and that I think would fit my work.
Part of it is just LOVE loving the images.
I LOVE it!!!!!
I am pretty sure your pretty image in that avatar has started a trend
Wow! The cover rocks.
Thank you! It’s perfect for the book — I couldn’t have asked for better.
Oh awesome!
Yay for the shout out to the cover artists and designers!
Nay that the beautiful art has to be covered by marketing jargon though. 
I managed to find a print of my sis’ fave fantasy cover, once. Wish such were more commonly available, as there are some cover artwork I’d gladly shell out for a print of!
=A
O_O You want me to just pick one?
Chris McGrath does awesome covers-does the covers for Rob Thurman’s Cal Leandros books and they are awesome.
Tony Mauro has done some of mine and he’s awesome-I LOVE the cover he did for FRAGILE.
Love the cover SL Carpenter did on my Grimm book, too. And the cover on Hunter’s Need by Dan O’Leary.
Your new cover is awesome. Seriously awesome.
lol, I know! It’s impossible to pick one.
I think the first cover artist I really noticed was the artist for Anne McCaffrey’s ROWAN series … I loved those covers like mad, and the signature was right there, so it was easy to pick out other works by the same artist (Romas Kukalis, http://www.romas.biz/illustration_site/home_illustration.html, but I also fell in love with Rowena Morrill through McCaffrey’s work, http://www.rowenaart.com/)
Of course, that meant scouring the fantasy shelves. Thank god for the internet and search engines now.
Wow! I *HEART* your latest cover…truly awesome, Meljean! It’s interesting how different cover artists have such distinctive styles. I love all the cover artists you’ve mentioned. Don Dos Santos’ Mercy Thompson covers just blow me away. You can help but admire the rich layering of colors. Did you ever see the 5 minute You Tube video of Don painting a cover! So very impressive.
I WISH I knew who did Scions:Revelation’s cover. Emma’s eyes really pop, especially in the 300 dpi version.
Oh, here’s the link to the 5 minute video. So cool!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqjWP18hPHE&feature=player_embedded
This is so freaking cool.
That video was amazing…. So freaking awesome!!!
I love Dan Dos Santos (the covers for the Mercy books were so gorgeous) and I’ve always liked Luis Royo (the cover of Rhapsody by Elizabeth Haydon comes to mind). Two covers by Michael Whelan that I thought were stunning the first time I laid eyes on them were both from Melanie Rawn books, the Ruins of Ambrai and Dragon Prince.
Ruins of Ambrai & Dragon Prince are two of my favorite covers of all time. Michael Whelan is AWESOME!
Whelan is incredible.
Oh, the Mercy Thompson covers! Bone Crossed is up there as one of my favorite covers ever. It’s just so, so beautiful.
Luis Royo has painted so many images that I’ve used for my inspiration pictures … it’s incredible. Strong, sexy women, but lots of violence
You gotta love that.
Wow. Your covers keep getting better and better!
I think Berkley really hit on the right look for the series, and the art is just amazing.
SO PRETTY. SO, SO PRETTY.
Precioussss….
Love that cover!
Tony Mauro is one of my faves.
I really love Mauro, too. I wasn’t at all surprised when Nalini said that he’d illustrated her Archangel’s Kiss cover (one of my favorite covers of all time.) He’s an amazing talent.
I think he also does Yasmine Galenorn’s OW series.
There are some gorgeous covers out there. My most recent favorite is Raphael LaCoste’s cover for The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi, which you can see here: http://windupstories.com/2009/07/03/cover-art-for-the-windup-girl/
Thanks to this post, I took the time to find LaCoste’s web site and look at some of his other work. Wow. Check out the gallery of images here: http://www.raphael-lacoste.com/acceuil.html
Some of my favourite covers are on Roc titles especially Rachel Caine’s Weatherwarden series and Karen Chance’s Cassie Palmer series. I checked and the artist isn’t mentioned unfortunately.
Your cover is BEAUTIFUL!!! I love it!
Awesome cover! (Can’t wait for the book!)
And thank you for all the great links. I love fantasy art, especially book covers. Oh, to be able to create something like that. *sigh*
wonderful cover, looking forward to the book
One of my favorite cover artists is in the world of ebooks from publishers like Samhain and Loose Id. Anne Cain is brilliant and creates awesome covers, both fully illustrated and manilulated from photos. She has a gallery at DeviantArt. Great stuff! She writes, too.
[...] Meljean Brook has a very pretty new cover… [...]
there are many pretty covers out there…. they don’t make me buy a book, since I only order online and a rec and the synopsis have much more influence on my decision than the cover…. but I really have to say that I adore Don Dos Santos covers for patricia briggs’ books. they are really awesome.
That is a gorgeous cover! I am adoring the wings. Those are fantastic. I’ve just found Agnieszka Szuba, the artist behind Richelle Mead’s German covers for her succubus series. She has some amazing work.
Cover IS important when you don’t know a writer, it’s the thing that usually catch your attention!! Personally I love as a cover artist a guy called Paolo Barbieri his covers are more “fantasy” and less sexy than most but in my opinion they are beautiful! You can see some of those here: http://www.liciatroisi.it/arts/
[...] Brook had an interesting piece over at the Oddshots this past weekend. She’s talking about the various cover artists out [...]