Fantastic VisionsLovers of Christian speculative fiction do not restrict themselves to the amazing worlds depicted by talented authors. We gravitate as well to those artists who can, through their gifts of vision and art, show us worlds and beings we've never imagined. The artists whose galleries are linked to below usher us to worlds of fantasy, science fiction, and pure speculative wonder. Note: Due to the number of artists (and artforms) represented on this page, its length has grown to almost burdensome levels. I've added the following jumps for your use:
A Marcher Lord GalleryThe best place to find, all in one place, 20+ Christian artists who do speculative art is to procure a copy of A Marcher Lord Gallery. This virtual coffee table e-book is an extravaganza of speculative art by Christian artists. You'll find more than 100 pieces of original and pre-existing art from twenty artists, such as Frank Hettick (who did the main painting on WhereTheMapEnds), Kirk DouPonce (who did many of the covers for Marcher Lord Press), and Todd Mueller (who did the image above). You'll find paintings, 3D renders, dolls, sculpture, photography, charcoal sketches, line art, and more, all by Christian artists who have been way off the edge of the map. Many of the artists listed below are included in the book. Marcher Lord Gallery is available as a PDF file via download or on a CD-ROM. To purchase it, go to the . Christian Speculative ArtistsFrank Hettick The first place to go is the Sky High Gallery to see the work of Frank Hettick, who graciously contributed several pieces to this site—most notably the amazing piece, "Early Explorations," which forms the banner for every page of this site. Frank's space art seems to perfectly capture the ethos of WhereTheMapEnds.com.
DeviantMISSION DeviantMISSION is a Christian artists' corner of DeviantART. Check it out. Lots of great artists there. Randy Gallegos Randy is a Christian illustrator working in the mainstream fantasy market. He has some amazing work posted on his site here. Michael W. Carroll Mike Carroll is an internationally known space and paleontological artist whose art has been featured in Time, National Geographic, and Astronomy magazines and has been aired on Nova, Cosmos, and various TV specials. And he's a Christian. Pretty cool.
Check out his site here. Sara M. Butcher Some delightful illustrations here.
Note that Sara appears to be renovating her site. You can find it
here, but if
that isn't available, look
here. Carmen Keys Some nice angels and fairy tale illustrations here.
Rachel Marks Rachel is a friend and WhereTheMapEnds subscriber. She's also a writer of Christian speculative fiction. Check out her site and gallery.
Hanna Sandvig Hanna doesn't do exclusively speculative art, but she's a gifted artist who loves Christian speculative fiction. Great, fresh style. See her gallery here.
Duncan Long Duncan is a talented illustrator and also a novelist. Check out his site.
Michelle J.A. McIntyre Michelle's site has some great work, too.
Okay, I know I'm no artist. I have no delusions. But I've been having
such great fun with two free 3D graphics and animation programs,
Daz|Studio and
Bryce, that I wanted to share
one of the pieces I've
created.
The cool thing about 3D programs like this is that you can download or
purchase great-looking pieces or figures or clothing or whatever and
then put them together into any scene you can imagine. That's always been my situation: I can think of the cool scenes but I have no ability to render them—except through words. Now I can fairly quickly put together a pretty good facsimile of what I'm trying to depict. Extreme coolness. I mean, geek-level coolness.
In fact, I've gotten so comfortable with design software now, that
I've even used it to compose some of the cover art for Marcher Lord
Press books. Check the section on
Christian Graphic Designers below
for a glimpse.
Kimberly M. Sponaugle Kim does children's books. Visit her site.
Aaron Siddall Check out Aaron's site.
Matt Marcy Visit Matt's site.
Michael J. Williams A Michigan native, Michael has worked with some well known clients, such as White Wolf Games and Moody Publishers. His work has amazing depth and clarity. See it here.
Kurt Rickerd Here's Kurt's site. Kurt does some wonderful 3D renders.
Tim Baron Tim's work is quite polished. Check out his site.
Andrew C. Stewart Andrew is a Christian space artist based in Nottingham, England. He's done quite a bit of work for major magazines. The piece below was done for Astronomy magazine. Check out Andrew's site.
Joshua Stewart Another Christian artist with the Stewart surname, Joshua does fantastic work. Though most of it wouldn't necessarily be called "Christian", Joshua admits that Jesus plays an important part in his life. You can find Joshua's site here.
Gordon Napier Gordon is a young British artist with a wide variety of styles and aptitudes. His Templar/Crusader work is quite interesting, but he's also got categories for sacred, Gothic, Fantasy/SF, and more. Check him out.
Holly Heisey Though "classically trained" I think you'll agree Holly has a real gift for art that is speculative. You can see more of her work here.
Jonathan Myers Jonathan is an illustrator, cartoonist, and an outspoken fan. So, of course, we think he's awesome! You can find out more about Jonathan at his site.
Bart Willard Here's another well rounded artist. Currently, Bart is primarily doing game art, but he has over 15 years of experience in applied arts. Whether it is graphic arts, conceptual, 3D, gaming, cartoons—it is all fantastic. Check it out here.
Scott Stabler Scott is an artist, a map-maker, and a self-published author. Epic fantasy is where he lives.
See more of Scott's work here. Jeremiah Humphries Another freelance artist who is currently working in games, Jeremiah's concept art is stunning. See it all here.
Secular Speculative ArtistsActually, several of these folks may indeed be Christians, but they don't advertise their art in that way. Talk about your amazing worlds. The first place to go here is The Shannon Associates. This company is an artist representation firm that specializes in illustrators of all kinds. The link will take you to those artists who classify themselves as science fiction or fantasy artists.
Here are some of my favorite illustrators represented by The Shannon Associates:
I went to Comic-CON 2007 (yeah, I'm a geek; proud of it, too) and met a number of excellent illustrators whose work I hadn't heard of before. Here are links to their sites:
Another great place for speculative art is Spectrum, an annual collection of the best in contemporary fantastic art. Of course, it's definitely not coming from a Christian orientation. Lots of the art could be considered lewd. There's not much at their Web site. However, they have a wonderful links page that points you to terrific speculative art sites, like: You have to go see the work of Kees Veenenbos. Kees is a Dutch artist who uses the rendering software Terragen, plus real-world data, to create unbelievable images of Mars and other solar system neighbors.
Kees has been kind to me by responding to my inquiries over the last couple of years. He even created a custom Mars render for me because I wanted to see what it would look like with water. This from an Emmy-award nominated artist whose work is regularly featured in National Geographic, Telescope, and Astronomy. I urge you to visit his site and maybe even drop him a note if you like his stuff. Christian Graphic Designers (i.e., The Guys Who Do Book Covers)I count it my great privilege to be friends with several of the leading cover designers in the Christian publishing industry. A visit to their sites is a real treat.
Other Weird StuffYou gotta love a title like that, huh? In this section I want to highlight creative folks who are exploring Christian speculative stories through media besides novels. Take an hour and explore the strange and wonderful worlds they're imagining. Sites Dedicated to Christian Science Fiction and FantasyI have visited all these sites. Several of them provided ideas and inspiration, and certainly encouragement, to me as I was constructing WhereTheMapEnds.com. If you're hankering for more speculative spelunking than you can shake a magical staff at, these are the places to go.
Online Magazines with Christian Speculative ThemesThese have been recommended to me by site guests like yourself. I've checked them all out and they look cool. Most of them were clearly Christian. Some, though, didn't look unChristian; I just couldn't find any Christian content on my very quick look. But they all looked fun! Christian Comics and Graphic NovelsKing Comics—As of this writing, this group is trying to raise funds to get their first comic book printed. (Color printing is outrageously expensive.) Here's a sample of their work:
You have to admit, it looks fantastic. For more about King Comics, just follow the link.
Doug TenNapel's Graphic Novels:
ForeverQuest—Graphic novel written and illustrated by Ken Raney (husband of Christian novelist Deborah Raney).
PistolFist: Revolutionary Warrior comic Christian MangaChristian Japanese manga based on the Gospels Christian Computer GamingEternal Forces (Left Behind Game) Foundations of Hope (Christian MMORPG by Leathel Grody) Holy Lands RPG (not a computer game) Astral Empires (Christian SF battle game) Breakthrough Gaming (Christian-Themed Games) Christian Animation StudiosChristian Machinima Studios
What is "machinima," you ask? Machinima is a relatively new art form
created at the intersection of computer animation, filmmaking, and
computer games.
Many computer game engines include editing, or "modding," tools that
allow industrious gamers to make their own movies using the look of
the game in question.
These innovative filmmakers write scripts, shoot their movies, edit,
include voice acting, compose soundtracks, and the rest. It's
real-time animation (courtesy of the game engine) and garage
filmmaking, and it's wide open to any speculative idea you can
imagine. A site called "GospelSims" used to be a great example of this sort of art, but it is no longer available. If you know of other online examples of Christian Machinima let us know! Christian Speculative Podcast
Spirit Blade is a "science fiction audio experience." According to the
site, it is "a full-cast audio drama that uses cinematic sound design,
a pulse pounding electronic score, and dynamic acting and musical
performances to draw listeners into another world: A future where the
government determines the spiritual beliefs of its citizens, and only
a few rebellious 'Seekers of Truth' remain to free the world from
deception." Sounds cool to me.
Check it out. |
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