THE PLANET SAVERS (1976) by Michael Whelan, commissioned by ACE for a reissue of the Darkover novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The artwork can be found in Wonderworks, Michael’s first art collection, but the book just doesn’t capture the life of the piece.

When you see a Whelan painting in person, the colors jump out at you. It’s an experience you just can’t simulate on the page or computer screen.

Sure his sense of composition is exquisite, and his devotion to anatomy and texture grounds his work in realism. But man, the color…you just have to see that up close to appreciate his mastery.

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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