GREEN ANGEL TOWER (1993) by Michael Whelan, cover art for the book by Tad Williams

Michael knows I’m a huge fan of the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. I’ve asked him a number of times for the paintings of the original swords that decorate the spines only to be disappointed time and again.

After my first dive through the studio recently, Michael subtlely inquired whether I’d found anything from the series in storage. It wasn’t until my second day that I found what he was hinting at.

I had no idea the swords were part of the jacket art. I always figured they were separate paintings. It was quite a surprise when I stumbled across these designs. (I also found the jacket art for The Dragonbone Chair which I’ll feature soon).

As you can see from the scan of the dustjacket, DAW offered a couple different versions of the cover. Mine is flopped with the Sithi on the front and Simon and Miriamele on the back.

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TANGLED UP IN BLUE (2000) by Michael Whelan, cover for the book by Joan Vinge.

I remember fondly poring over dozens of preliminary concepts when Michael was painting this cover. The book is set on Tiamat during the time of The Snow Queen. Naturally his imagination was pushing overdrive and my interest was piqued.

As always, his sense of SF fashion is inspired, and it’s his use of a simplified palette that makes the constrast of textures in the costuming and environment pop.

Not surprisingly, his covers for Joan Vinge are among my favorites.

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CENTAUR AISLE (1981) by Michael Whelan, cover for the book by Piers Anthony.

Michael is probably better known for his Incarnations of Immortality covers for Piers Anthony, but he also illustrated a couple of Xanth novels. The other, of course, was the first book in the series, A SPELL FOR CHAMELEON.

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MEATLOAF ASCENDANT (1997) by Michael Whelan

Along with the science fiction and fantasy cover art I was sorting through in the studio, I stumbled on album artwork as well. Here’s Michael’s original painting for The Very Best of Meatloaf.

Thematically, the painting follows Michael’s iconic cover for Back Into Hell. You can see an echo of that cover in the clouds above the bat demon.

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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.

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ROYAL ASSASSIN (1997) by Michael Whelan, cover for the second book in the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb.

We’ve gotten a number of requests for this piece over the years. And we get just as many questions about why Michael only illustrated two covers in this popular series. You’ll see clues to that in the accompanying photos.

Even though Fitz wields an axe in the book, the sales department wanted a sword on the cover. The change was based solely on marketability, and for an artist who has always prided himself on accuracy to the author’s words, that created an artistic dilemma.

In the end, Michael made the requested change but opted not to return for the last installment of the trilogy. It’s a shame because these are excellent books.

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SWORDS & ICE MAGIC (1977) by Michael Whelan, cover for a collection of stories by Fritz Leiber.

Early in Michael’s career, he displayed a singular ability to pluck characters off the page to present them fully realized on the cover.

We take realism for granted in fantasy today, but back then this was a bold shift that stood out on the shelf. A Whelan cover translated directly to book sales, and that’s why publishers kept Michael so busy in the early decades of his career.

For fans, these are the portraits that stuck through the years. Roland of Gilead. Elric of Melnibone. And, of course, the classic pair of rogues Fafhrd and Grey Mouser that we see here.

I was ecstatic to find the original in my dive through the studio. I’ve always loved the illustration and I wanted to update our gallery on the website with a crisper photo.

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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.

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When I was in Connecticut last week visiting the Whelans, IN A WORLD OF HER OWN was hanging in their atrium. It’s a big piece (36" x 48") that features their granddaughter Seren. You could say the painting commands attention in a lot of...
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When I was in Connecticut last week visiting the Whelans, IN A WORLD OF HER OWN was hanging in their atrium. It’s a big piece (36" x 48") that features their granddaughter Seren. You could say the painting commands attention in a lot of ways.

Throughout the week, I kept noticing light playing across the canvas, a prismatic effect from the glass surrounding the doors. But late one day when the sun was almost down, the painting took on a whole different mood. The background darkened and the yellows came forward.

This wasn’t some chance occurrence. I’ve noticed the same day/night transformation in other paintings.

Toward the end of the week, I was working in studio cataloguing older paintings. The overhead lighting was casting a glare so I decided to switch off the fluorescents to snap a shot of VALLAND’S SONG in natural lighting. The roomed dimmed more than expected but the low lighting provided a “wow” moment as the highlights of the figure lit by campfire popped against the dark background.

When Michael talks about color, he speaks in terms of technique, how layers of paint interact with light to give his work a luminescent quality.

Personally I think there’s magic in it, like he’s channeling color from another dimension. If you’ve seen his work in person, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

(via theartofmichaelwhelan)

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