julaugpreview2018

COMMUNICATION ARTS PHOTOGRAPHY ANNUAL 59

Red Urban FutureDeluxe Tommy Arnold Exhibit

Fuzzco

July/August 2018 Twenty-Four Dollars commarts.com

SCI-FI GUY

BY CLAIRE SYKES

I

t all begins with a small, black smudge. As Tommy Arnold slides the stylus around, the amorphous shape on the screen gradually turns into a man. A few more strokes, and the shadow behind him becomes a billowing blood-red velvet cloak, the blob on his head a golden-spiked helmet.

Crouched and clutching a shining dagger, the warrior braces himself for battle as lightning slashes the sky.

Fantastic characters like this have always felt normal to Arnold, 28, who grew up playing Magic: The Gathering and watching Star Wars and, especially, Lord of the Rings. Of the latter, Arnold says, “Those movies were a huge watershed moment for fantasy in terms of it becoming mainstream, but to me as a child then, this genre felt very normal. And a lot of these stories, at their core, are just about the power of the human spirit—something I’ve always really believed in.” For Arnold now, living in the world of science fiction and fantasy means illustrating its book covers.

One of them is for Touch of Iron, which author Timandra Whitecastle self-published in 2016. “He conveys the book’s grim and hostile environment so well in the sparks and ashes flying about; and the female character’s don’t-mess-with-me attitude in her posture and face,” she says. “His covers are clear-cut and stark in their aesthetic. You immediately get a sense of who these characters are and what to expect from the novels. I’d have trouble naming another cover artist working in speculative fiction today who gets even close to the level of definition and realism that Tommy does.”

Just a few years into the profession, this Bellingham, Washington, illustrator is already one of the industry’s most respected. But Arnold didn’t grow up imagining life as an artist.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in smaller Southeast towns, he entered LaGrange College with no idea of a career for himself. Then he took a required art class, which sparked a love of drawing. That’s when he noticed the illustrators credited on his Magic cards and book covers. He suddenly wanted to be one of them.

While finishing up at LaGrange long distance, he enrolled in the two-year illustration program at Portfolio Center in Atlanta. Here, instructor and comic-book artist Brian Stelfreeze quickly became his mentor. He taught illustration fundamentals in figure drawing, painting, perspective and color theory, “and that there’s a science to illustration,” says Arnold. “He challenged me to analyze and understand what I was seeing in pictures, and know that with hard work, I could master and command any element of artistic vocabulary.” Stelfreeze also was living proof for him that it was possible to be a successful freelance illustrator, “an example I was keen to imitate.”

In 2012, three-quarters into his program at Portfolio Center, Arnold dropped out to take a job illustrating for an animated TV series with Bento Box Entertainment, while working nights on freelance gigs. Then, after a nine-month stint with Floyd County Productions’ Archer series, his savings let him leap into freelancing full-time.

Soon after, he met Irene Gallo, associate publisher of Tor.com and creative director at Tor Books, which launched his professional career. By then, “I was really focused and knew exactly what I wanted to do,” he says. He was getting known as a cover artist.

In early 2015, Lauren Panepinto, creative director at Orbit Books, was looking through Tor.com one day when she was

Right: Touch of Iron. “Cover art for the debut novel of the same name by Timandra Whitecastle, who has the great ability of making you see and experience a lot with the use of very few words. It was important to me that her covers be in keeping with that strength.” Timandra Whitecastle, client.

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BOOKS 1 (series) Tim Flach, photographer Cameron Gibb, Blackwell & Ruth, designer Abrams, publisher/client “Endangered, by Tim Flach, is a thoughtprovoking combination of words and extraordinary images that reveal the heartbreakingly fast pace of change our natural world is experiencing. Each photograph represents countless moments of suspense and labor; each represents research, persistence, and the artistic and technical skill honed over a master photographer’s professional lifetime.”

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EDITORIAL 1 (series) Joe Pugliese, photographer Steven Banks, creative director Jennifer Dorn, director of photography Los Angeles, client “Portrait series of the jockeys at the Santa Anita Park racetrack, taken moments after the end of their races.”

2 Justin Poulsen, photographer Tim Davin, art director Strategy, client “Created for the cover of Strategy’s January/February 2018 issue, this ‘Trojan beaver’ symbolizes Canada’s advertising influence infiltrating the international market.”

3 Alex Telfer, photographer The Observer Magazine, client “For a feature story about professor Linda Gask, the preeminent psychiatrist who suffers from depression.”

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FRESH ANAÏS BOILEAU

At first, Anaïs Boileau wanted to be a photojournalist. That influence can be seen in her work today, which also draws inspiration from movies, paintings, and artists like Henri Matisse and Frédéric Bazille. “I have a pictorial approach to photography. The picture’s composition, forms and colors are really important in my practice,” the Paris, France–based photographer says. Just see her diploma project, Plein Soleil, which documents women who relish sunbathing in seaside towns that are distinct with Latin architecture.

This project generated not only accolades and exposure, but also an opportunity for Boileau to work with her mother and her mother’s friends, who posed for the series. “I am not only proud that they introduced me to their sunbathing rituals, but also that I got to incorporate something funny and tender from my hometown in the south of France,” she says. Boileau hopes to continue working in Paris and the south of France, applying her pictorial approach to fashion and documentary photography. anaisboileau.com

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