The featured artist today is Ken Kelly–another legend and longstayer in the sword and sorcery and heroic fantasy subgenres. You’ll note a familiarity between his style and that of Frank Frazetta’s. Kelly studied under Frazetta, you see, and it shows.
Kelly has been in the business for well over 30 years, specifically in painting book covers, which is where I first saw his work many years ago. He did covers for Robert E. Howard’s books, Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ Tarzan and John Carter of Mars books, and the complete series of Robert Adam’s Horseclans novels. There are many more and not enough space to mention them all.
Kelly, along with Frazetta and Vallejo and a few others were responsible for my imagination going into overdrive as a kid. Man, I used to just stare at the covers they did, already fantasizing about the world painted there, already participating in the adventure–all before I even opened the book. That is the power of a good cover. I miss those days.
Please find below a few choice pieces I selected that I feel is representative of my babble above.
Hope you guys enjoy today’s #Art of Fantasy.
Until next time.
Woelf
Woelf Dietrich 
Woelf, man, how is it that you like all the fantasy artists that I like??? Say, when were you born? 😉
You know, although they do excellent covers today, I kind of miss the painted covers that were common in the Eighties and Nineties, when I became a fantasy fan. Back then, painting was basically the only way to illustrate a fantasy world. It was more inspiring. Well, at least this is how I feel about it.
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1972 :-p I agree. I used to buy some of those books purely based on the awesomeness of the covers. They gave you an inkling of what to expect inside the book (not always, but mostly) and it ignited your imagination.
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1972, uh? That explains a lot 😉
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