This isn't exactly specific to writing, but since I'm doing reviews of the Hugo nominees, I figured I could write a few notes about the professional artists as well. This will be a bit different as well in that I have minimal ability to analyze or critique the art. Instead, I have to go entirely with what I feel.
Actually, sometimes that doesn't seem as different from the written works as I thought at first.
So, the professional artists are always hard for me to judge, because I feel all their works are good. For many if not most of this year's nominees, I even recognize a number of the works as covers of books I've read. I'm not sure if that makes a difference, but I suspect I can't help but like or dislike a particular work a little more based on my feelings for the book it was on.
Sometimes I also feel like throwing a dart and being done with it. Nice and simple.
Instead, I'll rank them from bottom to top, totally in my opinion and with no credentials to rank them whatsoever.
Coming in last, but still hard to say anything bad about, I have Julie Dillon. I don't know why in particular, but I think it's because most of the works shown in the packet represent basic scenes I've seen represented before.
Next, Vincent Chong. Primarily because, despite how generally good the packet submissions are, none of them really held my attention for long.
Third, Chris McGrath. I liked the two browner pieces a lot (one of them being the Alloy of Law cover), but made this elimination due to the similarity in scene construction for all of the submitted pieces.
Finally, and this is a really tough choice, I go with Dan dos Santos in second place. I really like the detail in his works, and could look at them for a while just finding new neat things about it, but even though it might be nearly a toss-up, I have to give the nod to John Picacio. This makes me a bit of a hypocrite, I suppose, since all of his pieces in the packet are also composed the same way. However, each one evokes a sense of wonder in me, and a desire to read the story (or in the case of Hyperion, re-read the story) they represent. Granted the Shrike isn't quite like I imagine, but that's the risk on cover portraits, and it is still a really cool painting.
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