Hugo Art Categories
Jun. 29th, 2019 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraWhole thing behind a cut. Thoughts about all the artists and art books, ballots, and predictions.
Pro Artists
I like Galen Dara's work a lot but I liked her older, softer-edged, more muted stuff better than her sharper-edged recent work and especially better than the garish colors on those Lightspeed covers. The Future Is Blue piece and Electric Forest piece are lovely, though.
Jaime Jones is the only artist I wasn't already familiar with. Looks like he's doing the covers for Murderbot (which are fine functional SF art), although my favorite of what he put in the packet is the Phoenix Express piece.
Victo Ngai apparently put a bunch of stuff in her packet from previous years, that we're not supposed to consider (Norse Mythology, Battlefield of the Fans, Clover, Evolution of Sports, Serving Fish, as per File 770). I like her work a lot though - I think my favorite of what's left is Dazzle.
John Picacio is a frequent flier. (And La Valiente is not eligible per File 770.) I continue to not be that into his work, although I guess he's a cool dude who created the Mexicanx Initiative and stuff. But that's outside the scope of this award.
Yuko Shimizu is another one of my nominees and there's a ton of her work in the packet that I've never seen, eee. Oh man, the booklust I have for those printed art books in their little jackets. We're supposed to ignore the Ascent to Godhood cover.
Charles Vess's Earthsea illustrations I have talked about before: I wasn't a fan. His Ged and his dragons are just too far away from the ones in my head. I think Vess is going to win though, since I think people will find the project exciting.
My ballot:
1 - Yuko Shimizu
2 - Victo Ngai
3 - Galen Dara
4 - Jaime Jones
5 - John Picacio
6 - Charles Vess
Fan Artists (none of whom are Brad Foster or Steve Stiles)
I find this category endlessly vexing - who counts as a fan artist - but, well, these six people, at least, so, whatever. (But it's hard because there's so much really high quality "fan art" of the other sort, the kind out in media fandom, that it's hard for me to not judge these people against that.)
Sara Felix makes space jewelry and co-designed last year's Hugo base and did a cover for a Dublincon thing, so, this year's Maya Hahto, ish. Which is a category of artist I totally don't mind seeing on the ballot as long as it's not the *same ones over and over*.
Grace P. Fong I think I remember finding striking last year, and this year too. That city! That person in yellow!
Meg Frank does jewelry and kind of abstracty space paintings and didn't grab me.
Ariela Housman does calligraphy and illumination, enh.
Likhain (Mia Sereno)'s stuff is very cool and I love Sample 1, with the person in gold and the person in silver.
Spring Schoenhuth may eventually reach Foster/Stiles levels of annoying me with ballot over-representation, but hasn't quite yet. Luna City is a cute piece.
So, uh. Likhain's year, maybe? My ballot:
1 - Likhain (Mia Sereno)
2 - Grace P. Fong
3 - Sara Felix
4 - Spring Schoenhuth, I guess?
5 - Meg Frank
6 - Ariela Housman
Art Books
A new category! So, here is a question, what do we even want, in an art book. What do *I* want. What am I trying to think about, to judge these. With, like, the fiction categories, I used to read the nominees and argue about them for years before I ever started voting. I had lots of practice having opinions about them! These art book opinions are going to have to be brand new.
Luckily, we can start off with Vess's Illustrated Earthsea, which I continue to find unsatisfying and displeasing (which I suppose is just as well, as if I liked the art I would almost certainly buy it). But probably going to win.
Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon was not in the packet, butelysdir kindly brought his copy and let me have a look at it. Nice book full of gorgeous Julie Dillon art (and I think some thoughts about where she got her ideas and stuff? Gah, this was less than a month ago and it's already fuzzy in my mind.)
Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History I actually read in its entirety! An impressive and interesting history of D&D publications (and operations) which walloped me square in the nostalgia feels when we got to 3.0 (and will presumably hit everyone else in their relevant era). I ended up with three complaints, though. 1, it got ridiculously hagiographic when we got to the 5th edition which is apparently the Ultimate Supreme Manifestation Of Everything You Ever Liked About D&D Oh God Please Just Try 5th Edition, presumably because it's an official publication. It's going to sound really stupid once 6 comes out though. 2, related to it being official, we never really get any kind of *critical* perspective on some of the ways D&D art has evolved. A couple of sidebar essays on, like, the history of depicting women characters with armor/with clothes at all/not primarily for male gaze, or when/how much TSR/WotC have bothered to show human racial diversity, would have been so much more interesting than the bland/neutral approach. I suppose it'll be a great reference for someone writing such essays at least. And 3, this is petty but they didn't do a monster spotlight on the tarrasque! They never even mentioned the tarrasque! How do you leave out the tarrasque?
Spectrum 25 was not in the packet but I guess consists of the Spectrum 25 nominees which can be seen here. So, collecting it in a book seems... archivally valuable, at least?
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie has some interesting concept art. A movie art book feels like a somewhat different thing than, like, the Vess illustrations, which are themselves the final form of what they are. I guess the D&D book was closer to this though. I don't know, I loved the movie but I feel like I've seen more interesting gifs and analysis of the images online than anything that jumped out at me from this book excerpt.
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth is I guess more like the exhibition catalogue for a Bodleian exhibit of Tolkien Stuff (Tolkiana? is that the word?), including letters he wrote, letters his parents wrote (his mother's handwriting was such an influence on his lettering!), photos, his old crossword puzzles he did and doodles on the newspaper, so it's sort of like half biography to give some context for this stuff, and half the stuff that the curators thought people would find interesting. But the excerpt didn't include any of the best stuff (judging by the table of contents) so that makes it harder to judge.
Ugh, I have no idea where this leaves me. Like, which one of these do I like best. I don't know, Dillon does the best art, the Tolkien is probably the most interesting, the D&D was a worthwhile endeavor despite its problems... I... guess that's my top three then?
1 - Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon
2 - Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth
3 - Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History
4 - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie
5 - The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
6 - Spectrum 25
Pro Artists
I like Galen Dara's work a lot but I liked her older, softer-edged, more muted stuff better than her sharper-edged recent work and especially better than the garish colors on those Lightspeed covers. The Future Is Blue piece and Electric Forest piece are lovely, though.
Jaime Jones is the only artist I wasn't already familiar with. Looks like he's doing the covers for Murderbot (which are fine functional SF art), although my favorite of what he put in the packet is the Phoenix Express piece.
Victo Ngai apparently put a bunch of stuff in her packet from previous years, that we're not supposed to consider (Norse Mythology, Battlefield of the Fans, Clover, Evolution of Sports, Serving Fish, as per File 770). I like her work a lot though - I think my favorite of what's left is Dazzle.
John Picacio is a frequent flier. (And La Valiente is not eligible per File 770.) I continue to not be that into his work, although I guess he's a cool dude who created the Mexicanx Initiative and stuff. But that's outside the scope of this award.
Yuko Shimizu is another one of my nominees and there's a ton of her work in the packet that I've never seen, eee. Oh man, the booklust I have for those printed art books in their little jackets. We're supposed to ignore the Ascent to Godhood cover.
Charles Vess's Earthsea illustrations I have talked about before: I wasn't a fan. His Ged and his dragons are just too far away from the ones in my head. I think Vess is going to win though, since I think people will find the project exciting.
My ballot:
1 - Yuko Shimizu
2 - Victo Ngai
3 - Galen Dara
4 - Jaime Jones
5 - John Picacio
6 - Charles Vess
Fan Artists (none of whom are Brad Foster or Steve Stiles)
I find this category endlessly vexing - who counts as a fan artist - but, well, these six people, at least, so, whatever. (But it's hard because there's so much really high quality "fan art" of the other sort, the kind out in media fandom, that it's hard for me to not judge these people against that.)
Sara Felix makes space jewelry and co-designed last year's Hugo base and did a cover for a Dublincon thing, so, this year's Maya Hahto, ish. Which is a category of artist I totally don't mind seeing on the ballot as long as it's not the *same ones over and over*.
Grace P. Fong I think I remember finding striking last year, and this year too. That city! That person in yellow!
Meg Frank does jewelry and kind of abstracty space paintings and didn't grab me.
Ariela Housman does calligraphy and illumination, enh.
Likhain (Mia Sereno)'s stuff is very cool and I love Sample 1, with the person in gold and the person in silver.
Spring Schoenhuth may eventually reach Foster/Stiles levels of annoying me with ballot over-representation, but hasn't quite yet. Luna City is a cute piece.
So, uh. Likhain's year, maybe? My ballot:
1 - Likhain (Mia Sereno)
2 - Grace P. Fong
3 - Sara Felix
4 - Spring Schoenhuth, I guess?
5 - Meg Frank
6 - Ariela Housman
Art Books
A new category! So, here is a question, what do we even want, in an art book. What do *I* want. What am I trying to think about, to judge these. With, like, the fiction categories, I used to read the nominees and argue about them for years before I ever started voting. I had lots of practice having opinions about them! These art book opinions are going to have to be brand new.
Luckily, we can start off with Vess's Illustrated Earthsea, which I continue to find unsatisfying and displeasing (which I suppose is just as well, as if I liked the art I would almost certainly buy it). But probably going to win.
Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon was not in the packet, but
elysdir kindly brought his copy and let me have a look at it. Nice book full of gorgeous Julie Dillon art (and I think some thoughts about where she got her ideas and stuff? Gah, this was less than a month ago and it's already fuzzy in my mind.)Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History I actually read in its entirety! An impressive and interesting history of D&D publications (and operations) which walloped me square in the nostalgia feels when we got to 3.0 (and will presumably hit everyone else in their relevant era). I ended up with three complaints, though. 1, it got ridiculously hagiographic when we got to the 5th edition which is apparently the Ultimate Supreme Manifestation Of Everything You Ever Liked About D&D Oh God Please Just Try 5th Edition, presumably because it's an official publication. It's going to sound really stupid once 6 comes out though. 2, related to it being official, we never really get any kind of *critical* perspective on some of the ways D&D art has evolved. A couple of sidebar essays on, like, the history of depicting women characters with armor/with clothes at all/not primarily for male gaze, or when/how much TSR/WotC have bothered to show human racial diversity, would have been so much more interesting than the bland/neutral approach. I suppose it'll be a great reference for someone writing such essays at least. And 3, this is petty but they didn't do a monster spotlight on the tarrasque! They never even mentioned the tarrasque! How do you leave out the tarrasque?
Spectrum 25 was not in the packet but I guess consists of the Spectrum 25 nominees which can be seen here. So, collecting it in a book seems... archivally valuable, at least?
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie has some interesting concept art. A movie art book feels like a somewhat different thing than, like, the Vess illustrations, which are themselves the final form of what they are. I guess the D&D book was closer to this though. I don't know, I loved the movie but I feel like I've seen more interesting gifs and analysis of the images online than anything that jumped out at me from this book excerpt.
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth is I guess more like the exhibition catalogue for a Bodleian exhibit of Tolkien Stuff (Tolkiana? is that the word?), including letters he wrote, letters his parents wrote (his mother's handwriting was such an influence on his lettering!), photos, his old crossword puzzles he did and doodles on the newspaper, so it's sort of like half biography to give some context for this stuff, and half the stuff that the curators thought people would find interesting. But the excerpt didn't include any of the best stuff (judging by the table of contents) so that makes it harder to judge.
Ugh, I have no idea where this leaves me. Like, which one of these do I like best. I don't know, Dillon does the best art, the Tolkien is probably the most interesting, the D&D was a worthwhile endeavor despite its problems... I... guess that's my top three then?
1 - Daydreamer’s Journey: The Art of Julie Dillon
2 - Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth
3 - Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana: A Visual History
4 - Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse – The Art of the Movie
5 - The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition
6 - Spectrum 25
