Miller, Ian
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comical_imbalance
- Art Expert
- Posts: 1449
- Joined: Wed Oct 25, 2006 12:00 am
- Location: Australia
"Will you tell me what you saw and I'll tell you what you missed"
Tra la la la la...
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dirkstainly
- EB Team
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- Location: United States
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dirkstainly
- EB Team
- Posts: 38943
- Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:55 pm
- Location: United States
Just as a bit of background info - Ian is an artist that I have loved since I first came across him in the very early 1980s as a result of being a nerd (before it became cool) that played a lot of RPGs (pen & paper) and wargames, primarily Warhammer and Warhammer 40k - he did a lot of work for Games Workshop and also had illustrations in their monthly magazine White Dwarf back when it was more of a general RPG mag rather than something that just related to Warhammer.
However it was this book - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tolkien-Bestiar ... n+bestiary that I got in the early 80s that contained many of my favourite images and that cemented my admiration - I always think of him as being a key LOTR artist (albeit not as well known as guys like Alan Lee. He worked quite a lot with the director Ralph Bakshi and did some early design work for him on his ambitious animated Lord of the Rings movie in the late 1970s (which I still enjoy more than the Peter Jackson movies probably for the sake of nostalgia I accept but John Hurt as Aragorn cannot be beat).
He also became well known as an illustrator in the incredibly popular Fighting Fantasy / Choose your own adventure books that were a major fad back in the 80s (I stupidly sold all mine on ebay as a package deal a decade or so ago and now wish I had them all back!) and has also illustrated quite a number of Magic the Gathering Cards.
His technique tends towards the very detailed but there is quite a variety in style - with some works being very organic and "grotesque" like his Lovecraft works (he has done covers for a number of fantasy books in particular including a lot of HP Lovecraft collections) and others being very precise and structured such as his mechanical constructions and some other stuff that is just plain nuts (in the nicest possible way) - he also does a lot of quick/rough sketches often using digital technologies.
My favourite works tend to be his castles, which are wonderfully ramshackle and chaotic and how I always imagined then to look when playing AD&D as a kid.
However it was this book - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tolkien-Bestiar ... n+bestiary that I got in the early 80s that contained many of my favourite images and that cemented my admiration - I always think of him as being a key LOTR artist (albeit not as well known as guys like Alan Lee. He worked quite a lot with the director Ralph Bakshi and did some early design work for him on his ambitious animated Lord of the Rings movie in the late 1970s (which I still enjoy more than the Peter Jackson movies probably for the sake of nostalgia I accept but John Hurt as Aragorn cannot be beat).
He also became well known as an illustrator in the incredibly popular Fighting Fantasy / Choose your own adventure books that were a major fad back in the 80s (I stupidly sold all mine on ebay as a package deal a decade or so ago and now wish I had them all back!) and has also illustrated quite a number of Magic the Gathering Cards.
His technique tends towards the very detailed but there is quite a variety in style - with some works being very organic and "grotesque" like his Lovecraft works (he has done covers for a number of fantasy books in particular including a lot of HP Lovecraft collections) and others being very precise and structured such as his mechanical constructions and some other stuff that is just plain nuts (in the nicest possible way) - he also does a lot of quick/rough sketches often using digital technologies.
My favourite works tend to be his castles, which are wonderfully ramshackle and chaotic and how I always imagined then to look when playing AD&D as a kid.
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dirkstainly
- EB Team
- Posts: 38943
- Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:55 pm
- Location: United States