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I had to look him up, but it looks like he's the guy who made a ton of old fantasy novel covers. I think that I have a great quote explaining why he's so popular. Unfortunately it's from the band Creed. Yuck. "Sex sells and the whole world is buying."
Attractive people in peril. Seems like a pretty basic recipe to success!
The name seemed so familiar so I Googled John Norman's Gor books which I used to once have a collection of in my young goody two shoes girly secretly craving horny male domination only in fantasy days!
in reality I was the dead opposite!!
lo and behold he did indeed do most the cover art!
I loved those meaty bodies depicted!
I always used to speculate how long I would survive in a world like Gor with my very feminist attitude and tendency to argue with male reasoning particulary bosses, which I have since learnt over time is best dealt with by " yes dear you are right of course" stroking the ego then go and do what you intended any way!
I think in Gor I would be whipped to a bloody pulp and disposed of pretty damned quick!!!
LOL I remember the Gor books, my brother was big on reading them. Found out how hard it was to get them and started searching for them for him. Out of curiosity I read a couple (soooooooooooooooooo repetitive) Wendy, I one upped you, I actually role played it for about 3 months, that's all I'm willing to say about that...lol Basically Gor is a sci fi version of the Vikings with raping, pillaging, plundering, where all the men are Adonis and all the women make Aphrodite look like a hag. All that just so John Norman could take pot shots at his sister who was a feminist.
Oh and Wendy, you would be beaten and while being beaten still want to have sex. In fact, in Gor, all women always want sex all the time...that's why it's such a hit in role playing, well that in the whole Master/slave thing.
What is it about men wanting women who will obey their every word without question and ready to hop into bed at the drop of a dime...that is so boring...lol
Misty Whisky...LMAO yes
I am not a fan of the overly muscled, Mr Universe makes me gag. Sorry but pumped up does not mean strong and I prefer my men strong the old fashioned way, normal, everyday, honest labor, that is earned. It also looks more natural, most of the men in that type of art or over muscled in the gym, it looks unreal to me.
For fantasy and illustration, I still go back to Howard Pyle and John Howe. I suspect Pyle (with his Brandywine School ;) ) influenced J.R.R. Tolkien, and of course, the best Tolkien artist yet is John Howe. (It's a pity he got pulled into the Peter Jackson orbit.) Nobody did Arthur or Robin Hood like Howard Pyle.
Of course, the Biceps, Blades, and Bosoms category is exactly the thing for illustrating Robert Howard's Conan stories.
tee hee - Brutus Demonicus http://www.daz3d.com/brutus-demonicus
i dunno about the 'sex sells'. most seem to want it free on the internet :lol:
The covers to the Gor books were definitely the best thing about them, and to be honest I preferred the Boris who did those dark, moody covers over the stuff he does today, where every single character seems to be on steroids.
A name I haven't seen dropped here yet is one of the true greats, James Bama. Along with Frazetta's Conan and E.R.Burroughs covers, Bama's Doc Savage and Western art pretty much set the template for the modern action cover.
My 2 cents. Back maybe 20 years ago when I was about 15 to 18 I collected books and trading cards from Boris and a lot of others (I still have them I'm a big fan of all Fantasy Sci-Fi art). Boris I remember reading even admitted to not using realistic skin tones on his art, using less blue hues and more red I think. But if you look at Greek and Roman art and sculptures you have much of the same kind of thing going on there. Not really looking for realism but more for what "might" be appealing for the eye. But Really on the subject of shape, look at most art out there and how many people do you see in the art that look heavy set, or, lol, like I do in the mirror? Not much. I do intend to give myself a gut but at the same time I just change a dial and its gone.....what to do.....lol. You know as I've gotten older I tend to like cartoonist realism that Characters like "The Girl" and "Croft" represent, but, in my own art I try to push how far do I feel a real human could look cartoonish. I could reverse that style though and make a heavy set figure and have just as much fun. Humanity has many fun shapes and many people to enjoy all of them. That's my opinion anyway for what its worth. I tend to like all artist for influencing my imagining of the human form.
The covers to the Gor books were definitely the best thing about them, and to be honest I preferred the Boris who did those dark, moody covers over the stuff he does today, where every single character seems to be on steroids.
A name I haven't seen dropped here yet is one of the true greats, James Bama. Along with Frazetta's Conan and E.R.Burroughs covers, Bama's Doc Savage and Western art pretty much set the template for the modern action cover.
Doc Savage seemed to really be hard on shirts. :)
First of all, before I get into what I do and don't like about Boris, I have to give him credit for being a sound technician, with firm grasp of his technique and materials.
I tend to like his earlier work better, it's looser and more fluid. Over his career, he seemed to become more and more interested in photorealism and super-saturated colors. Which, while I can admire the fidelity and technique that go into that, I feel that fantasy can benefit from a looser style. This may be personal bias, as someone who like illustration, but nothing looks cheaper than a fantasy or sci-fi book with a photograph as a cover, so paintings that get close to that kind of turn me off. Also, when going as strictly from photo-reference as he does, things can feel way too "posed", which he is hardly alone in, I feel the same way about a lot of Alex Ross' posed figures. Someone like Frazetta gave a better sense of life and motion.
I'll take this space to recommend a wonderful fantasy artist that not nearly as many people know about, J. Allen St. John. If you haven't checked out his stuff, by all means do so, he predates Frazetta a bit and Frank admired him greatly. He's one of my favorites.
Not nearly the worst, though: a couple of years back I saw a Baen SF book on the library's shelf with the cover done in straight Michael3s and MilleniumDragons, default shapes and skins (in the case of the human figures, none!) just as they loaded. At least the illustrator was kind enough not to zero-pose nudes! :snake:
Not nearly the worst, though: a couple of years back I saw a Baen SF book on the library's shelf with the cover done in straight Michael3s and MilleniumDragons, default shapes and skins (in the case of the human figures, none!) just as they loaded. At least the illustrator was kind enough not to zero-pose nudes! :snake:
Really? Ugh.
I don't remember the title or the author: the scene was supposed to be in space, so I don't know how the dragons fit in. My reaction was a laugh between "I see what they did there" and "I can't believe they just did that!"
This looks like the mil dragon head, can't decide about the other details http://www.starrigger.net/riggerbooks.htm
Sounds like one of John Ringo's books... he knocks them out so fast that the artists probably have to scramble to keep up, and I know that East Of The Sun's cover was a particularly icky rendering of the Daz Troll.
Really? Ugh.
at least publishers allow imagess of royalty free models for 2D render!
try telling youtube ADSense monetization scheme, I have quite the battle on my hands
ironically all my blogs on the matter using the SAME content and music passed unquestioned!!!
my videos will be very long in future
I am considering including credits with the full Daz, Reallusion and other software content used end user license agreements, my entire DIM csv listing, all my order invoices for other content used!!
Well, I don't really keep track of artists and their work; merely that which I stumble upon and also happen to like.
I first came into contact Vallejo's work during my teens (14 - 16), I was running a BBS as well as a huge fan of fantasy stories and artwork. For me Vallejo's pictures were the first which combined fantasy with a bit of a more 'mature' approach than all the rest, and that's what heavily appealed to me from the getgo.
Another good thing was when it turned out that I was allowed to put certain pictures up for download I also noticed my visitor and download rates go up, that was pretty cool too.
But for me the fantasy theme in combination with a sometimes more mature approach still heavily manages to appeal to me. What I enjoy about his artwork in particular is that in general it's never "over the top" so to speak. Some of his work can be daunting but it's never taking it too far, at least in my opinion.
And since many people also bring up other artists I'd like to mention Larry Elmore, I got into his work during my AD&D Dragonlance experiences and I think he really managed to set the tone for those stories in his art. In case you never heard of him I'd like to share two examples which heavily impressed me (actually they still do).
The Companions of the Lance. I really admire the lighting effect he uses and basically the facial expressions of everyone. The combination of those details and the pose in general really tells a lot of the story in general, even though you may now be seeing Dragonlance art for the first time.
The second one, which I deeply admire because it shows a complete different kind of emotion than what you'd usually get, is The death of Sturm Brightblade.
And that's basically my take on it.
Vallejo's and Bell's art have a very dated mid 1980's look and feel to them, whereas Frazetta's art with classic painting style remains timeless.
The more detailed a painting gets, the more clinical it seems to become... rough strokes often evoke more emotion as if you're looking at a memory - Frazetta struck a perfect balance between the two, enough detail with maximum emotion.
Don't get me wrong, I love Vallejo/Bell art just as much for their forensic detail - but if I could only choose one for inspiration, Frazetta would be the one that would tug more at my emotional side, which cuts to where my inspiration usually comes from.
To me Frazetta's Conan works are some of my favorites...(although didn't they get used for book covers because they looked like Conan, instead of Frazetta actually making them for the covers?)
And some of my favorite Boris works were the Star Trek covers he did...his style seemed very appropriate for them as opposed to some of the straight fantasy stuff.
For me, the difference is that Boris and Julie's art are more about posing and slick results. Great for pinups, but that's about it. Frazetta, however, delivers on atmosphere and action. He captures motion so well without making it look silly. Even Frazetta's four color art is a thing of beauty.
I really miss Keith Parkinson, his people were serviceable, but his creature work was where his real strength was. His dragons and other critters were absolutely outstanding and the man could paint some serious rocks. Not to mention he was a great guy, a heck of a gentleman, everything you would want someone you admire to be like.
He was getting better and better as the years went by, and he died way too soon.
Your right Richard, that does look like the MilDragon. I haven't made a side by side comparison, but I would swear it was the model.
I had no idea he had passed away. Thanks for the info. So sad and your right, his dragons were some of the best out there, along with Michael Whelan!
Many years ago I wrote to Boris asking if he would do a cover for my avenging angel novel, as he did a cover for someone else and I really liked it. However he wanted to charge me 1000s of dollars and I couldn't afford it, so then I really got into poser.
I had no idea he had passed away. Thanks for the info. So sad and your right, his dragons were some of the best out there, along with Michael Whelan!
Yes, he passed in October 26, 2005, due to leukemia. Geez it doesn't seem that long. Time flies when you hit middle age.
:lol: omg :lol: ++++1
where it comes to render art, i'm enjoying HellboySoto's da gallery.
Boris Vallejo has always been my favorite and main source of inspiration. He's just so awesome.
Here's Joe Jusko and me :)
Joe's also one of my influences (along with Ross, Bolland, Frazetta, Brom, Bisley, to name a few). I keep trying to get that Jusko feel and style in my stuff. :coolsmile:
Nice to see I'm not completely outnumbered here in thinking Boris is the best, Hellboy. :) Congratulations on meeting Joe Jusko too, he's another of the all-time greats!
Didn't Jusko work on some Dr. Strange stuff at one point?
Oops, thinking of Frank Brunner..... Another brilliant artist.
http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2013/05/making-splash-frank-brunners-dr-strange.html