Showing posts with label Lightspeed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lightspeed. Show all posts

Monday, October 20, 2014

WOMEN DESTROY FANTASY! a roundtable discussion.

Julie Bell, Irene Gallo, Rebecca Guay, Lauren Panepinto, Zoe Robinson, Julie Bell, Elizabeth Leggett
It was my extreme honor to gather a few of the most amazing brains in SF/F illustrating, and ask them a few questions about being a women in the field today.  I give you the Women In Fantasy Roundtable discussion with Julie Bell, Irene Gallo, Rebecca Guay, Lauren Panepinto, Zoe Robinson, Julie Bell, and Elizabeth Leggett.  A powerful line of of highly influential art directors and award winning artists. 

"There’s been a lot of talk about gender parity in the SF illustrating field, about how few women, percentage-wise, are working as illustrators—especially since at least half of art students are female. Did your gender ever come into play in your careers? What are your thoughts about what causes this attrition?

Panepinto: These are definitely conversations Irene and I have had before, trying to think of all the female names, who’s working and who’s not, and it seems like there are so many female students that are into it right now, but then where are the working artists?

Robinson: I think it’s just recently that it hasn’t been just the hardheaded girls toughing it out. It’s been very recently that generally, girls are aware that this is something that they’re invited and allowed to do.

Panepinto: I think that it also comes out of the YA fiction. Harry Potter’s got such strong characters—Hermione’s such a great female character—and The Hunger Games.

Dillon: I’ve done most of my work online, working by myself at home, so it’s difficult to gauge sometimes if gender has come into play in terms of my career path. Early on, it felt pretty isolating not seeing many other women in the big art forums at the time, but there have been more and more women becoming more visible in the field over the years...." ~read more
art work by Rebecca Guay, Julie Dillon, Elizabeth Leggett, and Julie Bell



Thursday, August 7, 2014

illustration for Undermarket Data, written by An Owomoyela

"The white flag, stained grey from rain and city grime, called him halfway up a block of flats to a job. People like him didn’t have territories, but this—inconvenient from the streets and rooftops both—was as close as it came to his: the space where it was easier for those who preferred to move in three dimensions than two." ~Undermarket Data, written by An Owomoyela

© galen dara 2014

Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Women Destroy Science Fiction, in my hands.

What was waiting for me when I got back from the Illustration Masters Class:
women destroy!

It's a hefty tome of awesome and you can get it in paperback here, or ebook here.

It happens to include the work of four other artists who it was my delight to work with. Li Grabensetter, Elizabeth Leggett, Christine Mitzuk, and Hillary Pearlman.

Now, an excerpt from my interview with them:
"...it feels timely, and personally fitting, that this would be the summer Lightspeed dedicates an entire issue to the enormously talented and fantastically imaginative women working in the field of speculative fiction. The opportunity for me to invite other artists to be a part of the project was nothing short of breathtaking. Li Grabensetter with her beautiful handling of inks and watercolors, Elizabeth Leggett with her brilliant digital renderings, Christine Mitzuk’s rich painterly style, and Hillary Pearlman’s fantastical tinkering bring the fiction in this issue depth and texture. It was a pleasure to work with these gifted and passionate artists who are deeply involved in the speculative fiction community. My favorite part of working on this issue was sitting back and watching their amazing art come in. My second favorite part was getting to know these fantastic creators just a little bit better. I hope you enjoy this spotlight on why each of them does what they do. Which, apparently, is to destroy Science Fiction." ~read more 
And here, a sampling of what they did for this issue of Lightspeed:

Li Grabensetter's illustration for Each to Each, written by Seanan McGuire:
Elizabeth Leggett's illustration for Salvage, written by Carrie Vaughn:

Christine Mitzuk's illustration for The Case of the Passionless Bees, written by Rhonda Eikamp :


And Hillary Pearlman's illustration for Walking Awake, by N.K. Jemisin:





It was a pleasure to be involved with this project, many thanks to Christie Yant for her hard work in bringing this epic volume to life.   Stay Tuned, more exciting things coming with Women Destroy Fantasy and Women Destroy Horror.

(squeeee!)

Monday, May 12, 2014

WOMEN DESTROY SCIENCE FICTION!

the Women Destroy Science Fiction issue of Lightspeed magazine is now available for pre-order. Here is a look at the table of contents (this issue is a veritable TOME of freaking awesome females.)
Aaaaand... here's a look at the cover I painted for it:

cover for WOMEN DESTROY SCIENCE FICTION © galen dara 2014 © Lightspeed magazine 2014

For this one I got in touch with my pulpy sf side (didn't even know I had one) and started handing out bazookas. It was pretty different from basically anything I've done before and it was incredibly fun. Thank you Christie Yant, Wendy Wagner and John Joseph Adams for letting me have my little part of destroying Science Fiction!

Stay Tuned: Women Destroy Fantasy and Women Destroy Horror are coming up
(and, apparently, Queers will be destroying SF next year OMG SQUEEEEE) 


Tuesday, April 22, 2014

random (Hugo + gender) stuff

Well since the Hugo ballot went live this past weekend, lots of stuff has been said.

But it's what Jeb Hartman said that is bringing tears to my eyes right now:
"One of the most happily amazing things about this year's ballot, in terms of gender, is the Pro Artist category. Last year, one woman was nominated (Julie Dillon), and she was the first woman to appear on the ballot in that category in twenty-seven years. This year: THREE women.
This is unprecedented in the entire fifty-five-year history of nominations in this category. There was only one previous year when even two women were on the ballot, and that was 1984." ~read more
Before last year only two women had ever been nominated in the Pro Artist category; Rowena Morrill (nominated several times)  and Val Lakey Lindahn. (btw, you really should read Justin Landon's run down of gender parity in  the SF art world.) And now here's us: Julie Dillon was the first woman on the ballot in 27 years. Fiona Staples, technically on the ballot twice because Saga is Nominated for Best Graphic Novel. And me, who made the jump from the Fan artist ballot to the Professional Artist ballot in one year. (Yeah.)

Going back to Jeb, because he just said it so well:
"[The Professional Artist] category is one of the least-changing categories on the ballot; this development seems to me to be a great indicator that things are changing. Though of course a single year does not make a trend. I hope this continues; and I hope that the Pro Artist category continues to recognize a larger number of artists than it usually has over time." ~read more
In that light I want to give a shout out to the four other illustrators working with me on the Women Destroy Science Fiction issue of Lightspeed Magazine:
As well as a random (short!) list of my own favorite artists (who happen to be women) working in the field today:
Because it feel so applicable  here's an excerpt from Kameron Hurley's essay We Have Always Fought: Challenging the Women, Cattle and Slaves Narrative”:

"And when we talk about war, we talk about soldiers and female soldiers.
Because this is the way we talk, when we talk about history and use the word “soldiers” it immediately erases any women doing the fighting. Which is it comes as no surprise that the folks excavating Viking graves didn’t bother to check whether the graves they dug up were male or female. They were graves swords in them. Swords are for soldiers. Soldiers are men.... Let’s just put it this way: if you think there’s a thing – anything – women didn’t do in the past, you’re wrong. Women – now and then – even made a habit of peeing standing up." ~read more 

(That essay, btw, is nominated for a Hugo in Best Related Work, and is published at  Aidan Moher's A Dribble of Ink which is nominated for Best Fanzine. It's A Great Lineup all around.)

Speaking of women who fight, here's the illustration I did for Codename Delphi, written by Linda Nagata, published at Lightspeed Magazine, (which is nominated for Hugo in the Best Semiprozine category.)
Okay, that's it for now. Back to work.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

ROBOTS!!!

After you have gotten your fix of modern military science fiction, you really should go check out the quirkier side of kickstarter with HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!!  Based on the short story of the same name by Keffy R. M. Kehrli published at Lightspeed Magazine, that delicious little piece of fiction convinced editor John Joseph Adams that a whole anthology based on the concept of  improbable kickstarters needed to happen. After all the kickstarters I've been involved with... I CONCUR. 

My part in this is small, I just drew some robots. These ones:

illustration by galen dara for FUND MY ROBOT ARMY



A little something about me: I don't think I could draw a nice neat straight line to save my life. My robots tend to be loopy.  Here's some WIP sketches as I played with robots:
initial loopy-style robots

preliminary grouping for a robot army
eventually the grouping went this way, for simplicity and the ominous robot factor.
For more info about Help Fund HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY and for KITTIES!! watch the trailer:

 
(And to conclude, you really must keep the Women Destroy SF special issue of Lightspeed on your radar for next year)

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Thumbnails etc

Over at BookLifeNow I have a new post where I walk through creating the illustration for The Ballad of Marisol Brook. Go check it out! 

Since I'm making an effort to have thumbnail sketches be a pivotal part of my process, here's a few recent ones:



Definitely something I'm rusty at (and impatient with), but need to commit to do, even if it's just one or two per project. (Dan Dos Santos does a good break down of the thumbnail process.)

Now just for kicks... here are some notebooks and sketchbooks from famous authors, arists, and visionaries (because I love this kind of stuff, and I need to get back in the habit of sketchbooking/notebooking.)


Okay, back to work.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

illustrating Ghost River Red.

Ghost River Red by Aidan Doyle just went live over at lightspeed magazine. It is a stunningly rich story: when it showed up in my inbox with a request for an illustration I could hardly contain my self. Every part of the story is lush with incredible imagery and symbolism. And COLOR. Oh the color. (Read the author interview here for more about it). Many thanks to John Remy who helped me with some image reference for the story.


Here's few snapshots of how the piece came together:

I started out sketching in the forest setting and experimenting with various iaido sword fighting stance:



I really wanted to show the fact that Akamiko was elderly (an awesome aspect of the story),  so I  tried several variations with gray or white hair:


I ultimately went with a dark haired Akamiko for design purposes. And finally limited myself to one sword as well (that was also hard: the story has some pretty powerful symbolism linked to the various colored swords):


Halfway through, I realized the image would be stronger if I flipped the whole thing:


A bit further along I realized the image would be stronger still if I flipped Akamiko:

And, finally finished. 

created in Photoshop, cs3, with an intuos 4 tablet.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

badass women.

(because I love strong women of all types...)

You probably don't get more different than Sunstone magazine and Lightspeed magazine, but between the two of them I've had the chance to illustrate some awesome female power lately.

For the Sunstone magazine (my lingering connection with mormonism) I worked with Holly and Stephen to re-envision Heavenly Mother and the Creation of Eve and some additional Goddess imagery to boot.


THEN, I got a story from Lightspeed to work on: Ruminations in an Alien Tongue, which featured a most intriguing protagonist: Birha, a brilliant, aging scientist living on a far away planet in the distant future.

NOW, I'm illustrating another story for Lightspeed that will go up in May, featuring a handful of kick-ass-century-old-space-age-warrior-women, fighting for their life on Callisto. (Can't wait for you to read this one!)

Life is awesome right now.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Illustrating 'Ruminations In An Alien Tongue'

'Ruminations In An Alien Tongue' by Vandana Singh just went up over at Lightspeed. It is a breathtaking, heart wenching, poetic epic of a story. A brief teaser:
"She had gone up the ladder, stepped through the round opening. Darkness, her footsteps echoing in the enormous space, the light she carried casting a small, bobbing pool of illumination. This was the alien stronghold considered invincible by the human conquerors, to which the last denizens of a dying race had crawled in a war she had forgotten when she was young. She had expected to find their broken, decayed bodies, but instead there was a silence like the inside of a temple up in the mountains...
That was the moment when everything changed. For her, and eventually for humankind. She had been young then."
~read more
It was a privilege to work on an illustration for this Story.

Monday, March 19, 2012

Beauty, by David Barr Kirtley.

David Barr Kirtly's story, Beauty just went up over at Lightspeed. It's an amazing story, here's a taste:

'“....No!” he raged, pacing back and forth in front of the mirror. “No! This can’t be happening.”
Nicole watched from the bed. She said softly, “How?”
“I don’t know. The spell was gone, broken, it—” He turned on her suddenly. “You! You did this to me.”
“What? But I . . .”
He sat down beside her and took her by the hand. “Do you still love me?”
“Of course I do.”
“With all your heart? Like you used to?...”'

Go read the rest of it, now!

I had the pleasure of doing the illustration for it. Many thanks to Lightspeed for that opportunity.

Also, for kicks, I assembled a few more thoughts on monsters.