Astrona is an online collection of artists resources and developers who specialize in space and astronomical art, science fiction art, visions of future worlds, design and visualization of technologies for living in space, space exploration, spaceships, starships, space colonies, etc. Take a journey through amazing images!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007

David Burroughs Mattingly is an illustrator and painter best known for his numerous book covers of science fiction and fantasy literature.

David Mattingly began drawing and painting as a small child, influenced by comic books, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and a wide array of artists from Jim Steranko, to N.C. Wyeth, to Jackson Pollock. After high school, he attended the Colorado Institute of Art at Colorado State University and later transferred to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. After school, he worked at Walt Disney Studios, ultimately becoming head of the matte department. He worked on The Black Hole, Tron, Dick Tracy, Stephen King's The Stand and most recently I, Robot for Weta Digital in New Zealand.

While at Disney Studios, David began doing freelance art. His first published piece was the album cover for "The Commodores Greatest Hits". His first sale of art for a book cover was for "A Wizard in Bedlam," by Christopher Stasheff, published by DAW Books. In 1983 he moved to New York City, and a year later across the Hudson River to Hoboken, New Jersey.

David Mattingly has produced over 500 covers for most major publishers of science fiction and fantasy, including Baen, Bantam, DAW, Del Rey, Dell, Marvel, Omni, Playboy, Signet, and Tor. For Scholastic Inc, David painted 54 covers for K.A. Applegate's "Animorphs" series, along with the last 5 covers for the "Everworld" series. He illustrated the popular "Honor Harrington" series for author David Weber. He painted the latest repackaging of Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Pellucidar" books for Ballantine Books. He is a two time winner of Magazine and Booksellers "Best Cover of the Year" award, and winner of the Association of Science Fiction Artists "Chesley" award. Other clients include Michael Jackson, Lucasfilm, Universal Studios, Totco Oil, Galloob Toys, R/Greenberg Associates, Click 3X and Spontaneous Combustion.

After 20 years of traditional painting, David bought a computer ten years ago and has mainly worked digitally since then, preferring the powerful new tools that working digitally offers the artist. Most of his work today combines digital painting, and elements generated in 3D programs. For more information check out the David Mattingly official website

Below is a limited selection of his work in science fiction, for more artworks please see the book The Art of David B. Mattingly: Alternate Views, Alternate Universes by David B. and Cathleen Cogswell Mattingly. The book contains over 100 color illustrations done by David Mattingly.

Note: All artwork and images copyright © David B. Mattingly. Please do not use images without the permission of the artist.

Website: David Mattingly Illustration

Art Book: The Art of David Mattingly

Saturday, September 22, 2007

John Harris is a British painter and illustrator, well known for his science fiction art and other work, such as landscapes and marine paintings. This is a classic style of sci-fi art like John Berkey.

John Harris was born in London in 1948, studied painting at Exeter College of Art and graduated from there in 1970. He has participated in numerous exhibitions both here and abroad, occassionallly showing with such groups as the Brotherhood of Ruralists. His first one-man show was at Double Vision Gallery in 1984. A preoccupation with scale and atmosphere is the hallmark of his work and which has led clients such as Shell, Phillips Electronics, George Lucas and many others to commission pieces from him. Sir Clive Sinclair has in his collection, many large-scale pieces of his work. In 1984 NASA invited him to witness a launch of the Space Shuttle and record the event in a painting, the first British Artist to be thus honoured. That work now hangs in the Kennedy Space Centre and is part of the Smithsonian Collection. Much of the work of this period may be found in the book Mass: The Art of John Harris by Ron Tiner, and The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon by John Harris. Since then, his work has broadened to cover other areas of painting, predominantly landscape and marine painting, and when not engaged in his own projects, still produces for the commercial sector.

Check out the official website of John Harris, there you will find his detailed biography and selection of paintings.

Art Books:

Mass: The Art of John Harris

John Harris’s grand vision and style have won international acclaim — and a NASA commission, never before given to a British artist. Yet, this is the first collection of his paintings in print. The work is truly colossal, featuring the innovative, ultramodern structures that brought him fame and conveying the sheer size that edifices built by future-fantastic technology might attain, and the awesomeness, even the terror, of their presence.

The Art of John Harris: Beyond the Horizon

World-renowned visionary artist John Harris' unique concept paintings capture the Universe on a massive scale, featuring everything from epic landscapes and towering cities to out-of-this-world science fiction vistas. This collection focuses on his wide variety of futuristic art, as well as his striking covers for a variety of esteemed Sci-Fi authors, including Arthur C. Clarke, John Scalzi, Ben Bova, Hal Clement, Jack McDevitt, Frederik Pohl, Orson Scott Card's Enders books and many more.

Art:

Note: All artwork and images copyright © John Harris. Please do not use images without the permission.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Trading Post by Tim White (1976)

Trading Post, by Tim White, 1976.

Tim White (Timothy Thomas Anthony White) is a British science fiction and fantasy artist, whose main focus is on commissioned artwork, primarily for book covers and magazine illustrations. As one of his generation's most successful fantasy artists, Tim White's paintings have become widely recognizable through their appearance on numerous book covers worldwide.

Born in Kent (1952), Tim White joined the Medway College of Art in 1968, where his unique detailed style was allowed to develop without commercial pressure, and he completed his course there in 1972. Leaving art college, Tim worked in several advertising studios. In 1974 his work was first used commercially on the cover of Arthur C. Clarke's The Other Side of the Sky, and since then, the artist has illustrated the covers of hundreds of books on themes of science fiction and fantasy by many well known authors (including Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, August Derleth, H. P. Lovecraft, Piers Anthony, Bruce Sterling) and has had his works published in many countries throughout the world.

Tim White's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and anyone with a selection of science fiction works will doubtless have encountered his illustrations. Aside from book covers and magazine illustrations, his work has appeared in and on: computer games and animation, TV adverts, CD covers, video covers, trading cards, postcards, prints and even puzzles. Several anthologies of his work have been published. A list of which can be found below, please see art books.

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction says: "Tim White has been celebrated as a representative of a new school of super-realists that began shaping British sf art in the mid-1970s, though Chris Foss and Jim Burns were equally influential, and there is a case for calling him the finest technician in this tradition, as his use of very fine detail imbues his paintings with a luminous clarity sometimes reminiscent of René Magritte (1898-1967) or (rather differently) of Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009). Between 1981 and 1986, he was nominated six consecutive times for the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Artist, receiving the honour in 1983. While he continued working in the 1990s, though, the results generally seemed less inspired, and he has been relatively inactive since the year 2000."

Art Books:

The Science Fiction and Fantasy World of Tim White

The first collection of work by Tim White published by 'New English Library' in hardcover in 1981 with a co-edition published by 'AMP' in France. This title was re-issued by 'Paper Tiger' in 1988 in both hardcover and soft cover. A4 format, 144 pages.

Chiaroscuro: The Art of Tim White

The second collection of work by Tim White published by 'Paper Tiger' in 1988 in both hardcover and soft cover. The artist presents 105 of his fantasy paintings in Chiaroscuro, showcasing his impressive breadth of style: futuristic land- and spacescapes, urban and pastoral, peopled and unpeopled; humans, aliens and winged, four-footed, scaled and mechanized creatures; scenes of beauty, devastation, horror and, always, wonder. Paintings include the cover from Clive Barker's Weaveworld and Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy. A4 format, 144 pages.

Mirror of Dreams

The third collection of work by Tim White published by 'Norma Editorial' (Spanish and English Edition) in 1994. Soft cover. 11.75 x 9.8 inches format, 80 pages.

Art:

Note: All artwork and images copyright © Tim White. Please do not use images without the permission.