Don Ivan Punchatz was one of the outstanding talents in late 20th Century illustration. It’s unlikely that you have not seen his illustrations somewhere, whether on book covers or in magazines like Time, Newsweek, Playboy, Esquire, Rolling Stone, National Geographic or National Lampoon.

Personally, I remember being struck by his cover illustrations for the Avon editions of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.

Punchatz had a versatile range, a solid command of painting technique, and a wild imagination. He particularly excelled at conceptual metaphor, carrying complex ideas through in images that had more than one layer of meaning.

Ray Bradbury said of him: “His ability to touch men with acrylic and melt them into beasts, or touch beasts with oil and ink – and: voila! they are senators or brokers – is endlessly stunning. Metaphor, after all, is the universal language. He could teach at Berlitz!”

In addition to his work as an illustrator, Punchatz was influential on other illustrators in a more direct way. He was one of the few to move away from the New York publishing center, and established a studio in Texas that became the model for several others.

Due to the detailed nature of his style, and the difficulty of creating images on deadline, he hired several assistants, and, according to illustrator and comics artist Gary Panter, who was one of them, ran his studio like a Renaissance workshop. As was also the case with Renaissance workshops, many of his assistants went on to become accomplished artists in their own right.

Punchatz taught illustration and graphic design at Texas Christian University and was a guest instructor at Syracuse University. He was also recognized outside of the illustration field, and his work in in the collections of the Dallas Art Museum and the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery.

Don Ivan Punchatz died of cardiac arrest on October 22nd. Unfortunately, I can’t find a major collection of his work online, but I’ve gathered a few sites below that either have bios or examples of his work.

Many are familiar with Punchatz primarily for his famous cover for the hugely popular game Doom, for which he unfortunately turned down royalties, opting instead for a flat fee. Like many freelance artists, Punchatz was not as strong at business as he might have been.

Also like many freelance illustrators and artists, Punchatz was without medical insurance, and his widow is now facing a mountain of medical bills from his hospitalization. Donations can be made to Sandra Punchatz, c/o Lewis Glaser, TCU School of Art, TCU, Box 298000, Fort Worth TX 76129.

[Suggestion and donation address courtesy of Larry Roibal]

(Any of you Republicans out there want to tell me again why you’re conducting this embarrassingly shameful fight to prevent health care reform in the U.S.?)

Addendum: Despite my comment above, I have suspended comments on this post. I simply don’t have time to admin a continuing political debate, as valuable as lively discussion may be. The original post is about Don Ivan Punchatz, and I have let his son Greg close out the discussion in the comments section. -Charley

Donato Giancola, the renowned science fiction and fantasy illustrator that I wrote about previously last year and in 2005, has a new instructional DVD (more details here), published by Massive Black Media, in which the camera follows him through the creation of “The Mechanic” (larger version here), an painting that was created specifically for the demonstration.

While you might expect a painting developed for an instructional DVD to be more quickly realized than Giancola’s highly finessed professional work, he turns in a work worthy of the 18 Chesley Awards he has garnered, showcasing his strengths not only as an imaginative science fiction artist, but as a strong figurative painter, steeped in the techniques of traditional oil painting.

The demonstration goes from initial sketches to reference photography through the step by step creation of the finished painting. The two disc DVD is $60 and runs 5 hours, but there is a 6 minute+ trailer on YouTube, that is instructive in it’s own right, in addition to giving a good taste of the quality of the DVD.

Giancola presents his thoughts with clarity, explaining his process in some detail, while the director alternates between time-lapse segments, in which some of the more extended periods of painting are condensed, and real-time segments in which the most salient parts of Giancola’s painting process are demonstrated.

Jon Foster, who I wrote about previously here and here, has a new web site.

It is simultaneously wonderful and frustrating. It’s wonderful, of course, because it features even more of Foster’s elegant, painterly, and superbly accomplished illustrations, old and new; and now includes a terrific section of sketches.

It’s frustrating because it simply doesn’t do justice to how good his paintings are. Size and resolution, as they often are in web galleries, are the limitation here. You can certainly get a taste by browsing through the site, but I have to emphasize that it’s worth seeking out his work in print, as I pointed out before.

Unfortunately, both collections of his work are out of print and commanding high prices used, but if you have copies of the Spectrum collections of fantastic art, you may find some Foster treasures in them (I don’t have a list of the particular volumes).

There is a gallery on the Tor.com site that is much more limited than Foster’s site, but has slightly larger images. There is an audio interview with Foster on Sidebar, part 1 and part 2.

[Via The Art Department]

Randy “RK” Post is an illustrator who has a fascination with monsters and a penchant for the gruesome and grotesque, an inclination that serves him well in his role creating fantasy and gaming illustrations for clients like TSR, Wizards of the Coast, LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox, Sega, and others. He also counts comics companies like Marvel, DC and Dark Horse among his clients.

Post’s richly detailed and vividly imagined monsters are joined by warriors, priestesses, wizards, and demonic figures of all shapes and sizes. His intricate renderings of characters and their accoutrements, along with his wildly bizarre monsters, are often set against spare, but highly textured backgrounds, giving a nice counterbalance while still serving up lots of fantasy eye candy.

Post also plays with his color palette, contrasting deep, color filled darks with intense color areas, and arraying them across detailed costume and creature designs.

There is a book of Post’s work called Postmortem: The Art of RK Post.

Myke Amend is an illustrator who focuses on steampunk and gothic horror themes, stemming largely from traditions grounded in the literary work of Jules Verne and H.P. Lovecraft.

These two traditions dovetail in Amend’s series of paintings “Airships and Tentacles” which feature detailed, highly textured images of, well… just that. Amend works these images in a nicely retro manner, with a subdued palette and atmospheric lighting.

Amend works primarily in acrylic, with occasional paintings in oil and a variety of drawing media, including a series of engravings. Some of his other subject matter is handled in a breezier, almost cartoonlike style.

His galleries are in the Gallery & eCards section of his site, though the largest images are in the Desktop Wallpapers section. There are also pieces scattered around the rest of the site.

The home page of his site acts as a blog, though he seems to maintain a second blog on LiveJournal. You can also find his work on deviantART and MySpace.

[Via Dark Roasted Blend]

Jody A. Lee is a New York based artist and illustrator, best known for her work in the field of fantasy illustration.

Originally from San Francisco, Lee studied at the Academy of Art College there, majoring in Illustration.

Her work, done in oil on canvas or acrylic or oil on illustration board, often includes decorative motifs incorporated with the representational images, sometimes done with metallic gold or silver paints.

Her images are frequently rendered with a high level of detail and attention to visual texture, which can make an effective contrast against the more graphic decorative elements.

Her web site includes a Portfolio of illustration and a Gallery of paintings, drawings and sketches.

I found the pop-out thumbnail navigation awkward and not conducive to browsing. Fortunately, when in the Portfolio section at least, there is an option under the main images for “Quickreference” which gives access to an easier to browse thumbnail page. Be sure to click on the main images for the larger versions.

There is also a section of Portraits and a page describing her media and methods.

UK artist John Harris began painting at the age of 14 and entered Luton College of Art at 16. His interest in space, and the portrayal of the scale of large objects and distances, led him to illustration work in the science fiction and fantasy field.

He was influenced in his early paintings by the English Victorian painter John Martin, who painted large scale canvasses of large scale scenes, often dramatic depictions of Biblical disasters.

Over time, Harris moved away from the tightly painted Victorian style into the looser, more painterly and texture rich style he now employs.

He also moved away from his early experiments with techniques involving gouache and shellac inks, which, though they produced interesting effects, proved to be impermanent and fragile.

In addition to his work in publishing and advertising, his paintings are in the collections of NASA and the Smithsonian as well as numerous private collections.

Harris has a skill for using texture and color to suggest, where others might paint detail. His atmospheric otherworldly landscapes and space scenes are created from fields of multi colored and richly textured areas that in small sections might seem abstract in intent, but resolve in the eye into the feeling of more detail than is actually present (somewhat akin to the approach of John Berkey).

Harris revels in the feeling of monumental scale and often offsets his structures with suggestions of small figures.

Harris also paints traditional landscapes, though perhaps a bit non-traditional in that his personal vision often lends itself to slightly other-worldly choices of color and atmospherics.

There is a collection of his work titled Mass: The Art Of John Harris.

As I mentioned in my article last month about the MicroVisions 4 auction in support of the Society of Illustrators Scholarship Fund, the auction of several small original pieces by top science fiction and fantasy illustrators is now in progress.

You can find additional details in Irene Gallo’s MicroVisions auction article on Tor.com.

The small size of the works (5×7″, 12×17cm) allows for an entry point for acquiring works by these artists that is lower than their larger work, which usually goes for amounts beyond the reach of a casual collector.

The MicroVisions auction itself is through eBay. As of this writing the auction has 4 days, 5 hours and a few odd minutes to run.

(Images above, left to right: Michael Whelan, Francis Vallejo, Greg Ruth, Luis Royo)

MicroVisions is an auction, now in its fourth year, in support of the Society of Illustrators scholarship fund.

The auction is organized by Irene Gallo, the well known art director at Tor Books and author of the excellent blog, The Art Department, along with illustrator Dan Dos Santos (see my posts on Irene Gallo, Tor Books and Dan Dos Santos).

The participating artists, all renowned illustrators, particularly in the field of fantastic art, science fiction and fantasy illustration, each donate a small artwork, usually created specifically for the event, to be auctioned off via eBay. All of the proceeds go to the scholarship fund. The first three MicroVisions auctions raised a total of $16,000 for the fund.

This years contributing artists are: Welsey Allsbrook, Volkan Baga, Chris Buzelli, Justin Gerard, Michael Kaluta, Greg Manchess, Paolo Rivera, Greg Ruth, Francis Vallejo and Michael Whelan.

(See my posts about Volkan Baga, Greg Manchess, Paolo Rivera, Justin Gerard and Michael Whelan.)

The auction will take place via eBay in late April. I’ll try to keep you informed about the exact dates, but to be sure, you could follow Irene Gallos posts about MicroVisions 4 on The Art Department. (Anyone who is interested in science fiction or fantasy illustration should be reading The Art Department on a regular basis anyway.)

(Image above, left to right: Chris Buzelli, Greg Manchess, Volkan Baga, Justin Gerard, Paolo Rivera)

Justin Gerard is an illustrator about whom I have little background information. His web site has galleries of his beautiful fantasy themed illustrations, but lacks a simple bio.

His blog has some fascinating details, like his confession about swiping a copy of a Step by Step Graphics from a college library because of an article on the art of Gregory Manchess that Gerard found dramatically influential; and his hope to somehow atone with his contribution to this year’s MicroVisions art auction in support of the Society of Illustrators scholarship fund (more the MicroVisions auction in a subsequent post).

I also found an interview with Gerard by Irene Gallo on the Tor Books site, in which Gerard discusses his project to create illustrations of his own interpretation of The Hobbit, apparently as a personal project, which I find amazing (image above with detail below, larger version here). If this work is not slated to be printed in some form it certainly should be, even if as a self-published version through Blurb or something similar (I’d certainly buy a copy).

In other sections of his web site gallery, I found wonderful fantasy illustrations of various subjects and a section devoted to illustrations of Beowulf, as well as the series from The Hobbit.

Gerard’s illustrations are intricately textured, make great use of chiaroscuro and leverage the power of a limited palette to produce drama and control focus. His style, though based on intensely observed realism in some respects, has a feeling of whimsey and charm that is ideally suited to his subject matter.

I also found a number of books that he has illustrated on Amazon, and a gallery of his work on the Tor Books site.

I finally found a brief bio on the site of Portland Studios, an illustration, animation and interactive firm of which he is a part. From it I learned that Gerard lives in South Carolina and won an IPPY Award for his interpretation of Beowulf Book One: Grendel the Ghastly. There is also an animation called The Mad Bull on the home page of the Portland Studios site for which he is listed as co-creator.