Revolution: The Art of Jon Foster

by Jon Foster, Cathy Fenner (Editor), Arnie Fenner (Editor)

Jon Foster creates irresistibly dark demimondes populated by retro robots, Star Wars villains, and creepy goth-inspired creatures that recall the work of James Gurney ( Dynotopia ), H. R. Giger, and past masters of the grotesque like Goya. Yet his work is inimitably his own, from the noirish lighting, off-kilter angles, and kinetic sense of movement to his singular technique of starting a project with oils and then scanning it into a computer to add more startling visual effects. This collection samples a wide range of Foster’s work, reprinting paperback art for novels by Michael Moorcock, Paul Collins, and Liz Williams, along with a selection of his work for Wizards of the Coast's The Gathering game cards, DC Comics covers (including Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic ), and his unusual images for National Geographic. Some of his most striking work as conceptual artist for a forthcoming animated film based on The Diary of Anne Frank is included.

Genres: Art

128 pages, Hardcover

First published November 29, 2006

Reviews

[Parka · Rating 5 out of 5]

(More pictures at parkablogs.com)

The only work I know from Jon Foster are the illustrations he did for Star Wars. I don't follow his work much so this art book is pretty refreshing to me.

There's a short 3-page biography to start the book. It talks his life, career and influences. It's always fun to read about who they are before they became famous. There are interesting things like financial concerns he faced when starting out, his self-doubts, success with Spectrum to the point where his works are displayed in museums.

Here's a short excerpt from from biography that appears in the book:

Jon Foster doesn't make things easy.

The standard artist-bios tropes don't seem to fit when trying to describe him, the cliches don't comfortably apply. The compliments and glowing adjectives about his art come easily, true, but the challenge to properly convey something about the man with the brush (or computer mouse) in his hand...that's the hard part.

This book contains his work done on oil and digital. There are a few pages devoted to pencil sketches. The paintings are truly amazing. I can only imagine how good they are in the museums or art galleries. Each illustration is captioned on the background and comes with quotes from Jon Foster explaining his inspiration.

This is a fantastic art book. It might be hard to find now because it was published in 2006. Check out the Amazon merchants if Amazon is out of stock themselves. Amazon links are below.

Jon Foster has a homepage and you can check out more of his wonderful illustrations there.

This review was first published on parkablogs.com. There are more pictures and videos on my blog.

[Monique · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although I'm not really into fantasy art, I think Jon Fosters compositions are amazing! I didn't even know you could mix digital art with oil!