A World to Conquer

Michael Whelan is another wonder of the modern fantasy art world. One of the 7 wonders? We'll have to see, down the road aways.

A number of modern illustrators have delivered wondrous visions of the Edgar Rice Burroughs realms. But Whelan set the bar pretty high when he painted his set of Barsoomian covers for the Del Ray version of the John Carter series.

This wrap-around cover of A Princess of Mars is among my favorites of all time, if nothing more than for the sheer heroic posturing—but of course Deja Thoris might have something to do with it.

Above, the painting beautifully unencumbered with type elements.

Above, the painting beautifully encumbered with type elements.

Above, the gorgeous preliminary drawing.

Above, some preliminary designs.

Above, some character workups.

Flandry Redux

The graphic vision of Dominic Flandry, Agent of Imperial Terra, was revisited by Michael Whelan in 1979. While totally different from Kelly Freas' style, Whelan gave Flandry a young and adventurous flair.

Below is Whelan's preliminary sketch for the above cover:

Then the art director wrote comments over it:

Whelan then made a full size pencil drawing:

Below is the painting in progress:

Below, the completed painting (acrylics on illustration board):

Below, two more in the series by Michael Whelan:

Really, read these books. They're intelligent fun!