• Spellbreaker
  • Frankenstein's Legions - French Officer
  • Return to Firetop Mountain
  • Film visualization stuff
  • Curse of the Mummy
  • Gnome
  • Unicorn Hunt
  • The Tank
  • Removal Giant
  • Vampire Hunter
  • Bloodbones
  • Frankenstein's Legions - Hussar
  • Cyborg
  • Orcs
  • Temple of Terror
  • Talisman of Death
  • Film visualization stuff
  • Film visualization stuff
  • Mirabilis - Big Ben
  • Blue Queen

GALLERY

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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 small press magazines 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 occasionally do concept and production art for computer games (following two years as an in-house artist at Eidos Interactive), 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: October 2015: My latest picture book The Crocodolly was published in hardback by Scholastic last month, and is available in Australia, New Zealand, and soon to be released throughout Asia in English, also with a translation into Chinese. The Crocodolly is something of a companion to my earlier picture book The Octopuppy which has been doing pretty well internationally -- more info at www.theoctopuppy.com  Right now I'm working on my next picture book; so most of my energies have been directed towards my books for children. But I've also just finished another album cover for Axel Rudi Pell, which is the fifth sleeve I've done for his records.  I've also been doing a little bit of work on the Game of Thrones computer game.

martin@martinmckenna.net 

  • List of Published Work
  • List of Clients
  • Merchandise at Wardrobe Of Terror
  • The old martinmckenna.net
  • The Octopuppy
  • Prints at ArtPal
  • Artwork Archive at Flickr
  • News

    OLDHAMMER!


    There's been quite a bit of interest again lately in my old Games Workshop originals, from collectors of vintage Warhammer stuff. Here are a few more examples from the archives, all late '80s and early '90s stuff. Drop me an email if you're interested in originals like these from the olden days, they're fast disappearing from my drawers.







      

                

    Previous posts featuring my old GW stuff here and here.

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    Artwork travels


    My original artwork from the archives continues to steadily sell to all corners of the globe - none to the sides, just the corners. This one's going out the door tomorrow, bound for Australia. It's from the Fighting Fantasy book Revenge of the Vampire.



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    App irate


    A butcher's at the latest airing my Bloodbones cover image is receiving with the new app from Tin Man Games.





    Makes me wonder why I didn't give the old zombie pirate an iPatch.

    Why d'you suppose someone's fiddled about with me clouds?

    • reddit.com

    British Fantasy Awards


    Funny peculiar, but it seems I'm nominated for a British Fantasy Award this year. I'm on the long list anyway. I suspect this is Jon Green's doing, as it's in connection with the cover I did for his book, YOU Are the Hero. I won one of these awards long ago, and how odd to be nominated again, especially when I'm hardly doing any new stuff in this area. All my recent endeavours have been focused on the kids' books I'm developing. But anyway, it's sort of fun to be included.



    I see also that my erstwhile chum Jamie Mathieson is on the list, for his two Doctor Who TV episodes. I haven't seen them, as I was busy moving home when they were broadcast, but I'm sure they're jolly good. It's a small world after all.

    British Fantasy Awards 2015

    • reddit.com

    Talisman of life after Death


    A couple of recent outings for my Talisman of Death image. As the icon for the Dark Fantasy library on Extreme Music, a division of Sony/ATV Music Publishing; and as the cover of a horror special issue of the Czech magazine XB-1.





    Another recent resurrection, my Temple of Terror goblin boat race as the cover for Horsi nez smrt (Worse than Death) by Zdenek Jukl, from Czech publisher Klub Julese Vernea.



    • reddit.com

    On the Trail of a Grecian Cthulhu


    First post here in a while. I've been aht an' abaht, ain't I? Just so you know, I've put some picture book news up over on my Octopuppy blog. Meanwhile here we have some peculiar old news.

    Here's the cover of a 2003 Greek trade paperback of August Derleth's The Trail of Cthulhu. Not only does the book feature an (uncredited) cover by my old friend Dave Carson, it also includes all our artwork from Shadows Over Innsmouth (used without permission). A copy of the book was recently sent to Stephen Jones by Derleth's son-in-law, which is the first any of us had heard about it. The naughty publisher responsible for this was Metaekdotiki, who were based in Thessaloniki, Greece.


    Artwork copyright Dave Carson

    Previous Shadows Over Innsmouth posts here, hare, here.


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