From our in the studio feature from last summer

Tons of Hokas by Michael Whelan…

The large Hoka drawing was one of the real surprises I dug up in my time in the studio. Michael talked about his Hoka obsession—err, I mean collaboration—with David Wenzel in The Art of Michael Whelan, and here we see an actual example of it.

Of course, I also found various Hoka studies around the house. Please forgive amateur photography. Many of these were taken in tight quarters and odd angles. I should have just pulled the frames down and shot them more deliberately…but y'know, kid in a candy store. There was a lot to take in and a lot of other “work” to do.

(via theartofmichaelwhelan)

Source: michaelwhelan.com

MORIARTY HOKA (1983), SHERLOCK HOKA (1983), and NAPOLEON HOKA (1982) by Michael Whelan

The “Hoka” books, by Gordon R. Dickson and Poul Anderson, have been favorites among SF fans for many years. The Hokas are an intelligent teddy bear-like race of extraterrestrials who possess an outrageous propensity for imitating the fads and icons of popular Earth culture. So in the pages of the Hoka stories, one can find a Hoka Sherlock, a Hoka Napoleon, a Hoka… well, you name it. The surreal juxtaposition of characters from wildly different times and sources is at the heart of these satires.

I was invited to contribute the preliminary conceptualizations for a Hoka movie project, and with the popularity of both science fiction movies and teddy bears, it seemed a great idea. I enlisted David Wenzel to help with realizing some of the characters and scenes. Not only did David offer valuable advice regarding period details and atmosphere, but his preparatory drawings and watercolors for paintings such as these were right on the mark.

Despite all the effort, and some eye-boggling work by Rick Baker (an Academy Award-winning makeup artist), the movie was never made.

(via theartofmichaelwhelan)

Source: michaelwhelan.com

Tons of Hokas by Michael Whelan…

The large Hoka drawing was one of the real surprises I dug up in my time in the studio. Michael talked about his Hoka obsession—err, I mean collaboration—with David Wenzel in The Art of Michael Whelan, and here we see an actual example of it.

Of course, I also found various Hoka studies around the house. Please forgive amateur photography. Many of these were taken in tight quarters and odd angles. I should have just pulled the frames down and shot them more deliberately…but y'know, kid in a candy store. There was a lot to take in and a lot of other “work” to do.

Source: michaelwhelan.com

PEREGRINE (1977) by Michael Whelan

At first glance the book Peregrine looked like an original publication from 1978 but that didn’t track with the fact that Michael’s early ACE covers for Poul Anderson were all reissues.

Sure enough with a little research on ISFDB and Wikipedia, it appears this was a repackaged version of Star Ways from 1957, book 6 in Anderson’s Psychotechnic League.

Source: michaelwhelan.com

VALLAND’S SONG (1977) by Michael Whelan, cover for a mass market reissue of World Without Stars by Poul Anderson for ACE.

I had a smaller image of this in my digital archive so I was glad to stumble upon the original while cataloguing paintings stored away in Michael’s studio. The photo was a quick snap from my phone edited later in Photoshop. You can also see where I shot the painting on a large shipping table.

When viewed from overhead, the varnish on the painting cast too much of a glare. There’s a small window to the right of shipping table so I turned off the overhead fluorescents hoping that natural lighting would be enough to capture a good photo. To my surprise, the blacks in the background darkened in the dimmer lighting and the orange highlights cast from the campfire intensified.

Yesterday I posted about observing a similar effect with IN A WORLD OF HER OWN. I’m not sure how prominently you can see it here, but to the naked eye there was a dramatic shift in the mood of the painting when the lights went down.

Source: michaelwhelan.com

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