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 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 from February 2012

The Grasping Goblin!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The cover I did for The Grasping Goblin, the second book in the Grim and Grimmer series by Ian Irvine published by the excellent Omnibus Books, an imprint of Scholastic.

The back of the book features a silhouette of our heroine Mellie being threatened by a demon. Below, a rough of the goblin. Below right, a doodle of the Headless Highwayman for the first cover seen in an earlier post.

The printed cover is super glossy with orange foil on the title and the goblin's eyes. A really nice finished product!

Album cover rough

Sunday, February 12, 2012

One of the roughs I did during production of the sleeve artwork for the forthcoming album Circle of the Oath by Axel Rudi Pell. The artwork evolved considerably beyond this under Axel's instruction, and I'll whack the finished thing up here closer to the album's release. It's the third ARP album I've illustrated, and it's great to have my stuff on the albums in all their formats, particularly the gatefold sleeve vinyl editions, as well as part of the stage design for live performances, and tour merchandise.

An old Newman

Sunday, February 12, 2012

A blast from the past, this is an ink portrait I did of author and sporter of Piccadilly weepers, Kim Newman. I did it originally for a collection of Kim's stories, and it's been resurrected recently by the Overlook Connection Press in Atlanta as a limited edition bookplate. You can visit their site to order one of Kim's books in hardback to receive a free signed bookplate.

I'm returning to Mr Newman as my muse for a new piece of artwork for PS Publishing. More on that as it comes to pass.

Hunted

Sunday, February 12, 2012

The cover for Hunted, the first book in The Shadowing series by Adam Slater, published by Egmont.

In print the flayed face on the cover is embossed and strategically varnished, to make the face pop out at the viewer and appear glisteningly wet. Quite effective. Be scared at The Shadowing site.

Where wolf exhibition?

Sunday, February 12, 2012

My artwork has been exhibited at Knuthenborg Safari Park in Bandholm, Denmark. A collection of my werewolf pieces featured in an audio visual display presenting visitors with depictions of wolves in myth and legend, to mark the opening of the park's new wolf enclosure. The artwork was also used in publicity online and in the Danish press. Safari, so goody.