This is the cover for the book of female images
This is the cover for the book on dragons, monsters, witches, etc
This is a story book illustration painting from the book
This is from a series of prints done for the Wizard of Oz
Here's a dragon painting from the book
Okay, good news. I'm currently working on two more books with William Stout. Each of these two books will be 48 pages and feature a wide variety of paintings Bill has done over the last few years. Posted above, you can see the two different covers of the books. They kind of represent a male and female perspective of Bill's paintings. These will be done the same size and format as the popular "Various Drawings" books by Mark Schultz. Once again these will be published by Flesk Publications. It sure gives me a lot of pleasure to work on these books. It's always such a delight to work with Bill and John to do something in a collaborative way. It's always a challenge to bring several highly creative people together and to create something that everyone finds pleasing. I think if you are able to accomplish that, it is greatly satisfying.
The inspiration for the design on these books was the great graphic designer Will Bradley. He was very influential during the last part of the 1800's and into the early 1900's. Bill's paintings for the cover have a very organic art nouveau feel to them, so I felt the rest of the cover should follow that sensibilty. To me, that's where I get the greatest enjoyment out of design, to try to match the personality and character of the art and then design around that. The covers were meant to have a similar "feel," yet look different enough, as to not be confused with each other.
I have five other books in the beginning stages of the design process. I hope to be able to post images soon, however the publishers have not made the formal announcements yet. I'm very excited about these books, they are from very high profile iconic (legends) artists. Okay I can't wait, here's a couple of the names....nah I better not.
You, my friend, are amazing.
ReplyDeleteThis looks great. I'm loving what you're doing with Stout's work.
I got the regular addition of The Rocketeer hardcover this past weekend (I was holding out for the collector's addition which is nowhere to be found!), and I just marveled at what you and Laura Martin brought to Dave's work.
I can't wait to hear more about your upcoming books!
Great work.
I just saw the two new Stout books listed over at John's blog. I'll be first in line to get copies!
ReplyDeleteI feel spoiled (in a good way) to see new books by Bill and Mark. I don't suppose you could drop even a hint as to who the other names are, huh? ;-)
While I'm looking forward to these I was under the impression from Bill that he was working on a coffee table style book. Granted, that was a couple of years ago and the specificity towards that effort was not nailed down. I guess this explains why he's recently been talking about more than one book.
ReplyDeleteStill, who am I to complain? I'll be snatching these up as soon as they're made available for pre-order.
Thanks for the FB alert, Scott.
Randy, you are the bass player in the rock and roll band that is book design. You're the foundation of great work and I appreciate it.
Shanth,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your compliments, Those things are very nice to hear and greatly appreciated. Sometimes it feels like I'm working on an island, and I'm never sure what people think of my design work. It really is my passion, I love what I do. It not only is my occupation, but also my hobby. I have been so blessed to be able to do something I truly love.
As far as the Deluxe version of the Rocketeer, I was told it is sold out, but there have been discussions about going back for a second printing. There is another Rocketeer book that I will be working on, that I think you will really enjoy, stay tuned for more details!
Scott,
um...can't yet. Hopefully in couple of days.
Rick,
Bill had talked about doing a large coffee table book, however, the new idea is to create a library of his work. This way there will be several books that each feature a section of his artwork. The "Hallucinations" and "Inspirations" books are examples of that. I like that approach better, to have several volumes dedicated to his work as opposed to one large book. I feel overall, I'll end up seeing more of Bill's work that way. I don't think this is a secret, but, other volumes of Bill's work will consist of, his movie poster work, his bootleg album covers, his comic book stories, his movie production work, and on and on. Bill's very excited about this, so you can be sure the work will be fabulous! Thanks again for the nice things you write to me, Rick, I love the bass player analogy!