Fantastic Art: An Interview with Vincent Chong

I first became aware of the work of British fantasy artist Vincent Chong a few years ago, during the time when I was running the website and looking after the marketing side of things for PS Publishing and I've been a huge fan ever since.

The first piece of his work I encountered was the absolutely gorgeous wrap-around covers for Joe Hill's long sold-out and much sought-after debut collection Twentieth Century Ghosts (see below for front panel artwork) and ever since then, PS head honcho Pete Crowther has asked Vincent to supply a steady stream of cover images for his titles.

He's not the only publisher to have taken note, either, as Vincent's work now graces an ever-growing range of book covers from various UK and US independents, including Subterranean Press, Pendragon Press and Screaming Dreams.

For the past two years Vincent has won the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist - in the process ending a five-year run of wins by one of my other very favourite artists, Les Edwards - a clear indication of his growing stature and popularity among the UK's genre fiction fans.

The aspect of Vincent's work that has always most impressed me is his incredible use of texture and tone to create a disquieting, almost menacing mood in his pieces. As a result his work tends to be imbued with a genuinely haunting, unsettling, atmosphere that always suits the books he works with perfectly.

Take a look at these examples of his art and design work and then visit the galleries at www.vincentchong-art.co.uk for many more examples:

I dropped Vincent a line and put a few questions to him about his work and this is what he told me:

DT: You've developed a wonderful signature style full of muted, swirling colours, shadow and darkness, that clearly draws inspiration from a wide range of sources. Who, or what, are your major influences? Who are your favourite artists, authors, film directors?

Vincent Chong: When I was younger I was really into the Amercian superhero style of comic art and Fantasy artists such as Boris Vallejo and Luis Royo, which I've now moved away from a bit. These days I'm more inspired by comic artists like Ashley Wood and Ben Templesmith, and recently I've been drawn to Mike Mignola's more graphic style. I also really loved HR Giger's nightmarish imagery and the surreal compositions of Salvador Dali. A major influence is the work of Dave McKean, whose mixed-media approach played a big part in inspiring my own style.

Aside from various artists I also draw inspiration from photography, album packaging design, music videos, movie posters, and movies themselves. The photography and music videos of Floria Sigismondi (who did some early Marilyn Manson videos) were an influence early on. My favourite film director is Jean Pierre Jeunet, the French director of Amelie and Delicatessen and I also love the work of Tim Burton and Guillermo Del Toro. All three have a very strong visual style and create fantastical worlds in their films that suck you in.

DT: What sort of production techniques do you employ? Do you have a preference for digital or analog methods? Or do you find that a blend of the two produces the most effective results?

Vincent Chong: I put together all my final artwork digitally, but typically, in the process of creating a piece of art, I employ various other methods of working as well. I use a lot of photography , but also combine it with drawn and painted elements and scanned-in found objects and created textures. Sometimes I also make sculptural elements that I then photograph and incorporate into an image.

So it's not so much having a preference for either digital or analog methods, but using a mixture of both to achieve the result I want. For me, the advantages of putting together the final image digitally, is that it gives me greater scope to experiment, as a lot of the time it's easier and quicker to change things around digitally.

DT: You've already illustrated book covers for some of the biggest names in genre fiction. But are there any authors whose work you haven't been asked to interpret yet that you'd particularly like to illustrate in the future?

Vincent Chong: I've been very fortunate that I've had the chance to illustrate the works of some great authors. I was a big fan of Stephen King's books when I was growing up and never thought that one day I'd actually be illustrating his work. But now, I think I'm more keen to have the opportunity to one day illustrate something that I've written myself. I've enjoyed interpreting the work of various authors, but I would like to be able to illustrate something entirely of my own creation. I've had the beginnings of ideas in the past, but haven't ever written anything properly, so I don't even know if this is something I could do, but I'd like to give it a try one day...

DT: You're best known as a cover artist and that's clearly keeping you very busy. But are there any other avenues that you're keen to explore? Any other media that you'd be interested in working in down the line?

Vincent Chong: I'd love to do more artwork and design for album packaging and maybe do some work for the film industry – either with movie posters or concept art. I've done a few projects creating artwork for websites - for online games and book trailers and such - which were quite interesting to do, as the artwork had to be animated which provided different challenges from doing the usual print stuff, so I wouldn't mind exploring the multimedia avenue more. I'd also like to explore photography further. I use a lot of photography in my illustration work now anyway, but I'd like to try doing some more straight-forward photography without as much digital manipulation.

I always thought it'd be cool to do get the chance to be a film-maker, but I think it's one of those ideas that sounds great in my head, but in practice I'm not sure how much I'd enjoy it, and it's not an area that I have much knowledge in at the moment, so it's not something I'm particularly focusing on right now, but in the future, who knows?

DT: How has winning the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist for the last two years affected your profile? Have any commissions come about as a direct result?

Vincent Chong: It's hard to know if any commissions have come about directly as a result of the awards wins, but I think it's definitely helped to raise my profile around the world and bring attention to my work to those who had never heard of me before. I've noticed a steady increase in the traffic to my website over the last couple of years, and I've been getting more enquiries and commissions, so it seems that there's been a growing awareness of my work, and I think the awards wins helps to establish my reputation a bit more.

DT: What do you think are going to be the major challenges facing fantasy artists in the next 5 or 10 years? And what do you think are the major opportunities?

Vincent Chong: With the current economic situation around the world, I think there's always going to be some worry about whether artists will be able to find work, especially as I think it's quite easy for publishers to turn more to cheaper alternatives, such as creating artwork in-house or using stock photography.

However, with the web and new technologies I think there are more and more opportunities for artists to exploit these days. It's getting easier for artists to get their work out there and seen by a large worldwide audience with faster internet speeds and the increasing ways to showcase work online – through blogs, online gallery and community art sites, as well as the various social networking sites. And with ever improving print-on-demand services as well, it opens up the opportunity for artists to self-publish as another avenue to get their work out there.

I also think new artists are adapting to the new technology and software available to them and it's no longer the case that, for example, an illustrator would just be creating material for print, but they may also cross over into other areas as well, such as providing content for websites or other media.

Many thanks indeed to Vincent for taking the time away from his creative work to answer those questions and for his permission to borrow some of the images from his gallery, all of which remain copyright (c) Vincent Chong, of course.

Do be sure to visit www.vincentchong-art.co.uk and check out Vincent's portfolio.

CGI Society 'Steampunk Myths & Legends' winners

The CGI Society has unveiled the winners of their latest graphics-creation competition and there's some truly fantastic art on show as a result.

Bonsaininja's Master-Award winning Team Video Entry, EMET, is just fabulous, and the judges must have had an incredibly hard time choosing between that and the winner of the Team Excellence Award, Atlantis: An Inconvenient Truth, which was submitted by a team of four German designers.

Elsewhere, there's more incredible artwork on display, including the winner in the Individual Image category, Fabricio Moraes' 'Steamnocchio':

Check out the piece's entry page to see the various stages of the work-in-progress.

I think my personal favourite, though, has to be the winner of the Best Character award, Guillaume Dubois' 'Alice's Adventures in Steamland':

Again, work-in-progress images available on the entry page.

Fantastic Art: An Interview with Alex CF

I first encountered the cryptozoological scientific art of Alex CF via this post on Boing Boing, back in June '07 and have been keeping half an eye on his fabulous portfolio of weird and wonderful artistic endeavours ever since.

Alex is a multi-talented artist: as well as an illustrator, he's also the creator of some incredible and rather wonderful vignettes: themed collections of objet d'bizarre that include Victorian-era scientific paraphenalia; strange, sticky specimens in murky jars; the remains of mummified monsters, aged and cryptically annotated diaries and notebooks... all sorts of wonderful things encased in a suitably battered-looking display boxes or presentation cases. And each is accompanied by its own narrative, explaining the provenance and history of the items in question; Alex is a prose story-teller as well.

Personally, I've always been a huge fan of artwork that's intricate, complex, imaginative and above all, fascinating and for me, it doesn't come much more all-of-the-above than, say, this C19th Anatomical Study Cabinet {1}, or this Lost World Exploration Case {2}, or the gloomy and gothic Death's Coffer {3}, or his latest piece, At the Mountains, There is Madness... {4}. Take a look:

Alex undertakes commissions - such as the time machine he built for UK publisher Solaris to help promote their Extraordinary Engines anthology and some of his pieces end up for sale via his eBay shop. I've been sorely tempted to bid on several occasions and have only been stopped by the lack of suitable display space for anything I might actually win (alas, we can't all have a library like Jay Walker's...)

When I dropped Alex a line to ask for his permission to use a few images from his website to illustrate this piece, I also wound up asking Alex a few questions for the following mini-interview:

DT: What is it about working in a tactile, 3-D medium (as opposed to, say, illustration) that you find the most interesting and / or satisfying?

Alex CF: I think illustration is still really important to my work, and it is something that I am rediscovering my passion for, when sketching in diaries or manuscripts that feature in my work. But with my 3d art, I guess it's the aspect of realism that I like. I know a lot of my work is not anatomically perfect, but I did a lot of research into how flesh decays, and I like the idea of creating specimens or artifacts that have a real age to them.

I think that most of my customers buy my work because they become focal points in their households, talking points - "This is the living room, here is the fish tank, oh and here is my severed torso of an egyptian vampire mummy" - I like that to most people who have never seen my work before, there is that moment of belief, or suspension of disbelief. I hope that my customers are inspired to add to the stories I mold around each piece. There is a definite extra level to art that can be perceived as real.

DT: Do you draw any of your inspiration from fiction, and if so, are there any authors whose work you particularly enjoy?

Alex CF: I guess any of my work based directly on classic fiction is pretty obvious! For instance the Lost World Expedition Case, based on the book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, much of my early work was based on H.P Lovecraft, and some works are loosely inspired with a less direct approach: The Henrich Emille Rectangle was inspired by books like Solid Geometry by Ian McEwan, or Deaths Coffer, which was influenced by The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.

Much of my work is original, I take ideas from themes I enjoy. These days more of my work is of my own volition, due to my archetype being "borrowed" by people. Trying to create a unique work style without plagiarism is pretty difficult, thanks in most part to the internet!

DT: What sort of research goes into the development of your pieces, or do the concepts tend to flow from your own ideas?

Alex CF: They definitely just flow. I have an original idea, and then I sit down and have a good think about what exactly is needed. If its a research related project, then there are obvious - and sometimes repetetive - needs. Tools, like dissection kits, slides, medical and scientific instruments are common to a lot of my work but this is simply common sense. They are nessecities to any scientist.

But I try to create unique themes and pieces that accompany those items. My diaries are full of illustrations, detailed studies, annotations and guides. My specimens are the focal points, so I spend most of my time on these. Usually if I encounter obstacles I either get angry and throw the piece across the room, or try to be a little more pragmatic... usually the former. I have a short temper when it comes to my work!

DT: Which has been your favourite commissioned piece to-date? And which has been the most challenging or difficult that you've undertaken?

Alex CF: Favourite piece... that's tough. The recent Taxidermied Triceratops was a lot of fun. I guess the Werewolf Research Cases would be my favourite.

I love taking these fictional characters and making a real species out of it. I created this entire alternative history for many of the species involved in my work, how they interact, the evolutionary biology of non existent entities. Many of the pieces are interwoven by the characters involved or the expeditions that take place. Some diaries may point to references in other pieces, I try to create an entire world for my customers to get lost in. I hope it works.

Most difficult piece was the Henrich Emille rectangle. Bloody nightmare!

Many thanks to Alex for taking time away from his creations to answer my questions. If you like the look of his wonderfully macabre work, then you should definitely stop by www.alexcf.com and spend some time poring over his cryptozoological marvels in more detail, as well as reading the back-stories and watching videos of the artist introducing his pieces.

Great stuff.

Update 11.02.09 - Alex has posted details of his latest piece, the Homo Wampyrus Vampire Research Reliquary... incredible!

SF/F/H RSS News Digest via Alltop.com

Here's a website that genre bloggers, readers and fans might want to check out (which I don't think I've seen mentioned elsewhere just yet).

In a mediabistro.com interview posted yesterday, tech-evangelist turned venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki talks about his latest project: an RSS aggregator by the name of Alltop.com that aims to provide a news-gathering service for anyone who doesn't have the time, inclination or know-how to set up their own, bespoke feed-list via a service such as Google Reader.

Alltop.com gathers RSS feeds into themed sections, the aim being to provide as wide an overview of the activity within a particular area of interest as possible, rather than a topic-specific drill-down. Kawasaki explains:

"Think of it as a digital magazine rack. If you went to a newsstand you would see racks of sports magazines, celebrity magazines, car magazines, wine magazines, and food magazines; we have our own virtual rack where we aggregate the Web sites and blogs of the top feeds for each of those topics, and we show the latest five headlines from each source."

I checked out Alltop's genre coverage and sure enough, there's a well-developed and densely-populated section that focuses on science fiction / fantasy / general genre blogs at sff.alltop.com as well as more general books- and writing-related sections (books.alltop.com and writing.alltop.com) that may also be of interest.

Speaking as someone who's spent a fair fair amount of time over the last eight months compiling my RSS-subscription list of genre bloggers, to help me track online coverage of Orbit authors and titles, I really could have done with finding this site round about last May...

Books of 2008, reading plan 2009

Last year I set myself a target of reading 60 books (novels or novellas, not counting graphic novels) and came pretty darn close to meeting that target with a total of 55, which wasn't too shabby.

I started the year with Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie and finished with The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore. In between, I managed to explore a reasonably eclectic mix of territories: from epic fantasy to psychological horror, historical mystery to space opera, serial killer thriller to YA adventure, comic surrealism to fictional memoir.

I enjoyed far too many highlights to list them all, but I am extremely glad I read Guy Gavriel Kay's World Fantasy Award winning Ysabel, as well as Peter Crowther's mini-collection The Land at the End of the Working Day, from the now-defunct Humdrumming Press. Pete is selling copies of that one via the PS Publishing website and I urge you to grab one if you're any sort of fan of the strange, surreal, funny and moving bar tales of Spider Robinson's Callahan's series, in particular.

I also enjoyed reading (or re-reading) some favourite graphic novel series during the year. Mike Carey's eleven-volume Lucifer series was a real treat, and I also caught up with another swathe of Hellblazer back-reading. Plus, re-visits to Alan Moore's Tom Strong and Promethea and a re-read of Jeff Smith's nine-volume Bone adventures.

For 2009 I'm planning on revising my targets slightly. I'm still hoping to read about 60 books, but I'll be interspersing my regular fiction reads (many of which will be Orbit titles, naturally) with a number of marketing titles that I've got my eye on, hopefully to the tune of one a month. Meanwhile, my regular Xmas voucher haul will be helping to fill some gaps in my graphic novel collection, so I'm hoping to be able to re-read the first five volumes of Fables and bring myself up-to-date with the next six. I think I might take another look at The Books of Magic as well.

I'm also hoping to treat myself to a couple of re-reads of favourite novels, which is something I've hardly dared do for the past few years. But what the hell, eh? Sometimes it's important to get back in touch with much-loved books from years gone by, if only to remind yourself of the path you've taken to reach your current reading preferences. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

David Gemmell Legend Award - Voting is Open

The first round of voting for the inaugural David Gemmell Legend Award has been open since December 26th and I've cast mine. I won't say which book I voted for (it is a secret ballot after all) but I will say that I think it's great that we have a new award that serves a dual purpose: commemorating the life and work of one of the great British fantasy writers whilst recognising the work of the current cream of the fantasy crop.

Of course, we already have the World Fantasy Awards, the British Fantasy Awards and numerous smaller, more specific accolades performing much the same latter role, so it will be interesting to see whether the DGLA works to differentiate itself in years to come.

Personally I think there's an argument for re-focusing the award on fantasy novels that are either published in the UK or written by UK-based authors. This stronger focus on the regional element would have two main benefits, from a marketing perspective:

1) It would generate attention for the work of UK-based authors and publishers, which would in turn offer a stronger incentive for those authors and publishers to support the award and publicise it via their own blogs, websites and mailing lists.

2) It would help to position the award as the fantasy equivalent of the highly-regarded Arthur C Clarke Award, which has been providing a focus on UK-based science fiction writers and publishers since 1987.

I also think a return to the originally-announced voting system - a judging panel for the final decision on the winner, based on a shortlist generated by public vote - would be a good idea. This original system had the dual advantage of allowing the public to have its say via the first stage vote, but then removing the 'popularity contest' element at the second stage and allowing a qualitative final decision to be made by a panel of acknowledged experts, whose necessary reading pile would be limited to just those five titles. A win-win there, surely?

But in the meantime, we do have a two-stage voting system, it is open to the public and I therefore urge everyone to head on over to gemmellaward.ning.com and participate. Voting is simple and you don't have to join the Ning group first if you don't want to.

Update 03.01.09: SFAwardsWatch.com picked up on this post, but managed to interpret my musing on how the award's marketing potential could be boosted as a call for a radical overhaul of the DGLA before the first winner has even been voted for. Hmmm. I'm pretty sure that wasn't what I was suggesting, but that just goes to show: it's all in the interpretation.

Update 08.01.09: James Long shares some thoughts on the second round public vote over at speculativehorizons.blogspot.com.

Congratulations, Sir Terry!

I was delighted to learn (via @Colleen_Lindsay), that Terry Pratchett is to receive a Knighthood in the New Years honours list in recognition of his services to literature and, surely, his charity work on behalf of Alzheimer's research.

The Independent has the details of (soon-to-be Sir) Terry's reaction ("I'm having difficulty fitting it into my head. I'm very pleased indeed. It cheers me up no end.") and their op-ed piece on the subject sums up why this is a Very Good Thing Indeed.

Terry Pratchett is one of my all-time favourite authors. I picked up a copy of The Colour of Magic on the day of its paperback publication and have read pretty much everything he's written since (although that reminds me, I'm actually one or two books behind. I'd best get a copy of Nation when I spend my Xmas vouchers...)

New Genre Webzine: Three Crow Press

Stumbled across a new webzine the other day that looks rather interesting. It's called Three Crow Press and it's produced by relatively new independent genre publisher Morrigan Books.

Issue one of the 'zine is online now and features seven pieces of short fiction - by Francesca Forrest, Mark Rossmore, F.R.R. Mallory, Klaudia Bara, Alice Godwin, George Rizen and Catherine J. Gardner - as well as an interview with author Elaine Cunningham, a feature on the work of fantasy artist Ursula Vernon and a few book reviews and articles.

You can also follow their updates on Twitter, if you're that way inclined.

A penny for the droid?

The credit crunch. It's not just about people anymore. This Christmas, spare a thought for poor, sad, lonely, AHD-168...

On Monarchy in Fantasy Fiction

Marie Brennan took a look at the fantasy genre's enduring fascination with monarchy over at sfnovelists.com last week.

Marie made some very good points about just why it is that rule by kings, queens, princesses, princes et al seems to be such an ingrained trope of the genre (mythic resonance, focus of dramatic attention on key individuals) and there's nothing wrong with that sort of thing at all. But I also agree that it would be great to see some variety in the governmental power-structures from time to time.

Admittedly, we do see the occasional imperial (monarchic militocracy) or rule by a shadowy cabal of thieves and / or assassins (anarchic feudalism) or a council of wise mages (oligarchic noocracy) or knife-and-pyre-wielding high-priests (totalitarian theocracy) but there are other options out there that would be equally interesting to read about. Something based on the dynastic plutocracies that held sway in the mediaeval Italian City States, perhaps? Or how about a genuine meritocracy, in which the rulers are selected from amongst those best-suited for the job as a result of their skills and abilities (or would that be pushing the willing suspension of disbelief just a little too far?)

Of course, some of those systems (or others) may have been explored already and I just haven't come across them yet - any suggestions or recommendations for further reading?

Very Special Offer from PS Publishing

My very good friend Pete Crowther, head honcho of the legendary PS Publishing, has just announced a set of very special offers to mark PS's tenth anniversary in 2009.

From now until the end of next year, you'll be able to buy an anniversary box-set of PS novellas (trade or jacketed editions) or novels / collections (trade or slipcased editions) at a very special price. Each box will contain 10 pre-2008 titles (all different, randomly selected by PS, no requests for specific titles). It's a great way to dip into some of truly fantastic genre fiction from the UK's leading specialist independent genre publisher and - who knows? - maybe discover a new favourite author or two in the process.

Visit the PS Publishing News Room for full details.

Anatomy of a Todd Lockwood book cover

Via Suvudu, a link to a highly interesting couple of posts by multi award-winning fantasy artist Todd Lockwood that explains the creative process behind of the cover for the latest R. A. Salvatore Drizzt Do'Urden novel, The Pirate King.

From this:

All the way through to this:

The series includes a third post which focuses on the detail of the main character, with a short video demonstrating how the layers of detail were built up. Fascinating stuff if, like me, you have a keen interest in fantasy art but very little in the way of artistic talent and know-how.

Both images obviously copyright (c) Todd Lockwood. Click on them for the relevant blog posts explaining the earlier and later stages of the process.

Season's Greetings from Vincent Chong

I've been lucky enough to receive another seasonal card from a top fantasy artist. This time it's an e-card: a rather lovely surreal fantasy piece from double British Fantasy Award-winning artist Vincent Chong.

Cheers, Vinny!

Zombie Haiku

I'm sure I'm late to the party on this one, but in case you managed to miss it as well, there's some highly entertaining Poetry of the Living Dead online at www.zombiehaiku.com, including a selection written by some of the site owners' favourite poets and authors.

Thanks to Sam @ Orbit for the heads-up!

New TwitterFiction feed @thaumatrope

Via @Danacea (Danie Ware) this morning, a link to a new twitter fiction feed: @thaumatrope, edited by Nathan E. Lilly of GreenTentacles.com.

I'm hugely intrigued by the concept of TwitterFiction; flash-fiction taken to an imposed extreme. Is it really possible, within Twitter's 140 character limit, to effectively convey a sense of story, or portray anything more than a vague sketch of a character, or present a descriptive vignette in anything other than the sketchiest outline?

If you're likewise interested in finding out, then there are probably plenty more TwitFic feeds out there, but @thaumatrope might be a good place to start.

Star-struck by Stardust

Jo and I finally got around to watching the movie adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust last night via Sky Anytime.

I've always had a soft-spot for fairytale movies - two of my favourites being Labyrinth and The Princess Bride (of course). I think it's the über-story-telling element that attracts me to this sort of fantastical tale more than any love of the aesthetic elements or desire for a simple story with a happy ending.

Perhaps Stardust won't be quite as memorable as the other two, which both have more one-liners and out-and-out comedy moments or stand-out performances (although Robert de Niro as Captain Shakespeare was a definite highlight). But still, it was a good adaptation of the Gaiman original - I think, it's been a while since I read it - which Jo and I thoroughly enjoyed watching and would recommend to anyone looking for a good, entertaining family movie (with just a soupçon of adult humour thrown in) this holiday season. Or, indeed, at any time.

Xmas Greetings from Rocket Santa

I always know it's getting close to Xmas when a card arrives from one of my very favourite fantasy artists: Les Edwards. Or in this case, his alter-ego, Edward Miller.

Rocket Santa awaaaaayyy!

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