GALLERY

About

Hello, I'm a freelance illustrator based in the UK.

I was born in London, and started out in illustration with work for fantasy & horror RPG fanzines in the '80s, in particular the H.P. Lovecraft-devoted Dagon. My first professional commissions came from Games Workshop for their magazine White Dwarf, and this began a long relationship with the company, illustrating lots of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay publications and the very first Warhammer 40,000 book, as well as many other GW books and boardgames. I've also done game-related material for other publishers, including covers and internal illustrations for twenty-two (I think) of the Fighting Fantasy series from Puffin Books/Wizard Books, and card art for Magic: The Gathering from Wizards of the Coast.

I've also produced artwork for various publishers around the world including Scholastic, Time-Warner, HarperCollins and Oxford University Press, illustrating popular authors such as Anne McCaffrey, Raymond E. Feist and Harry Turtledove, as well as some classics including Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and The Silver Sword. I was fortunate enough to receive the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist.

I illustrated the book accompanying the album release of Misterstourworm & the Kelpie's Gift, an orchestral work based on stories and characters from Scottish legend. My artwork was used as large-scale backdrops for live performances of the work by The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, with narration by Lord of the Rings actor Billy Boyd.

As an author, I've written some books about digital art including Digital Fantasy Painting Workshop and Digital Horror Art, and edited Fantasy Art Now published by Collins. In addition to work in publishing, I do concept and production art for computer games, and film and television productions which have included the BAFTA-nominated The Magician of Samarkand for the BBC, and most recently Gulliver's Travels for 20th Century Fox.

Currently: I'm writing and illustrating a picture book of my own devising which is due for publication Christmas 2010 (all being well). This is with Scholastic. While I'm busy on this I might still be able to accept some illustration commissions, so get in touch!

martin@martinmckenna.net

List of Published Work
List of Clients

Giclee prints at PODgallery
McKenna's Bookshop
Prints & posters at AllPosters.com
Prints & posters at Art.co.uk
CGSociety
ConceptArt
Epilogue
Art de la Fantasy
Fantasy Gallery
Neheriel Art
Wikia
The old martinmckenna.net

News

Character Roughs

08 October 2009

Here's a look at three rough designs I did last year; these were my initial versions of the principal characters in the Mirabilis graphic novel project.

This one's of Estelle in saucy goth vamp mode, having swigged some Jekyll juice:

My take on The Kind Gentleman:

Young Jack Ember:

...here's how I later depicted Jack in colour (click on thumb for bigger pic):

Midgard

08 October 2009

My Eye of the Dragon image has been used as the cover for Midgard by Wolfgang & Heike Hohlbein, the first in a series of fantasy titles published in Germany by Suddeutche Zeitung. Here's a copy of the book, plus some info about it and the rest of the series:

New Fighting Fantasy covers

07 September 2009

A glimpse of the covers for the new editions of the Fighting Fantasy books. The first four books have just been published, and the others are due for release in 2010. Five of the covers feature artwork of mine... the cover here for Night of the Necromancer, a brand new title by Jonathan Green, is just a mock-up.

Howl of the Werewolf trailer

03 September 2009

Here's a promo video for the Fighting Fantasy book Howl of the Werewolf. It's been put together by the book's author Jonathan Green, using my cover and internal illustrations. Visit Jon's excellent blog, Unnatural History.

And buy yourself a copy of Howl of the Werewolf here.

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

03 September 2009

Received today, these copies of the new edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, published by Wizard Books. They're sporting the all-new cover design, with my artwork set within it. Due to a printing error the artwork hasn't reproduced particularly well, but I'm assured it'll be rectified (and presumably looking more like how it does in my blog post last month) for the next print run.

Buy this new edition here.

Wizard of Rondo paperback

03 September 2009

The Wizard of Rondo by Emily Rodda (best-selling author of Deltora Quest) has now been released in paperback with my cover, and here's a photo of a little pile of them. It's a Children's Book Council of Australia short-listed book, so sez the little gold sticker. Published by Omnibus Books, an imprint of Scholastic.