Michael Whelan

If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features."

There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.

Samples of large gaming mousepad (290x250mm, 11.4x9.8in), playmat (700x400mm, 27.5x15.7in), and desk mat (900x400mm, 35x15.7in) featuring THE WAY OF KINGS

Announcement coming soon for new playmats, gaming mousepads, and desk mats. 😁

Book cover for THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS by Anne McCaffrey, published by TOR Books.

Figure detail from GOLDEN DRAGON featuring a young woman standing on a boulder with one arm reaching up. Her dress is of peasant style with tight cuffs around the upper arm and accents of purple beaded trim. Her long blonde hair and tattered skirts whip with the motion of her reaching out. At the base of the boulders where she stands upon, a young man in plain tan shirt kneels, leaning against the trunk of a fallen tree as he twists around to look back at her.

Creature detail featuring a golden dragon in an alien forest. It has one claw up and its wings spread. Its amber eyes are focused off panel left.

Cover illustration for THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS by Anne McCaffrey (TOR) 4/4

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/go...

Figure study of a woman standing unevenly on boulders as she reaches up with one arm. Her hair, skirts, and a sash tied at her waist whip with the motion of her reaching out. The white stone and her light dress contrast her dark hair and boots in this tonal study.

Color study for GOLDEN DRAGON featuring the rough cover layout but the young woman's hair is still rendered black, and the young man isn't present.

Since I was long associated with Pern dragons, I was asked not only to do the cover, but also to supply interior artwork. I handed a pile of slides to Tor Book’s editor who chose the 24 drawings to include. 3/4

Tonal preliminary concept for GOLDEN DRAGON featuring a young woman with dark hair turning back toward the audience as she reaches up to the sky as a sortie of dragons soar past. She stands on a flat boulder and her figure is framed by tall slender trees with leafy tops pointed up to the sky.

Tonal preliminary concept for GOLDEN DRAGON featuring a young woman with dark hair facing away from the audience as she stands unevenly on boulders as she reaches up toward a single dragon with rider soaring past.

Preliminary concept for GOLDEN DRAGON featuring a dragon seen in profile winding through the tall bare trunks of an alien forest. A young woman with dark hair stands atop a boulder desperately reaching up toward it.

The title novella is part of the Dragonrider of Pern series, but the rest of the works included are not. 2/4

A young woman stands upon a boulder with one arm reaching up toward a dragon that weaves its way through the tall bare trunks of an alien forest. Its amber eyes are focused off panel left past trees with spongy red tops that resemble the shape of a flame. Her dress is of peasant style with tight cuffs around the upper arm and accents of purple beaded trim. Her long blonde hair and tattered skirts whip with the motion of her reaching out. At the base of the boulders where she stands upon, a young man in plain tan shirt kneels, leaning against the trunk of a fallen tree as he twists around to look back at her.

GOLDEN DRAGON (1994)
Acrylic on Watercolor Board - 30” x 20”

THE GIRL WHO HEARD DRAGONS is a collection of Anne McCaffrey’s short fantasy and science fiction, mostly published in various magazines or anthologies. 1/4

Fred Augis is on Bsky! He's worth following!
He's created tons of concept art that I've already shared (on Twitter then here), mainly for Prey (2017), but also Love, Death & Robots, Returnal, Dual Universe, and even Beyond Good & Evil 2. 😍

#oc #comicart #digitalart #catgirl
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CATTER VS SPARKY 🐱⚡🥊CATGIRL FIGHT!
Sparky created by @macrohardt.bsky.social🤖
🧵 1/4 Full sequence below!

Magical Waters A deep dive into the making of Seawall

ICYMI, we ran an in-depth feature on the making of the painting in the newsletter last weekend. Lots of process photos and thoughts behind the image. ~ME

theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/magical-wa...

Figure study for SEAWALL. Custom framed original art in silver wood moulding with linen liner. Features a girl in white shirt and shorts patterned with 5-pointed pink blossoms. She holds a blue rubber ball at her hip. Next to her, the broken base of a street sign juts out of the concrete.

This small original is now available in our shop while it lasts. 3/3

www.michaelwhelan.com/shop/figure-...

SEAWALL (2009), Oil - 36” x 24” A girl stares down a concrete causeway descending into the rippling ocean. She wears shorts patterned with pink 5-pointed blossoms and a plain white shirt. Long blonde hair falls to her waist. Against her hip rests a ball held as if her play was interrupted to stare into the distance. Milky green-blue water froths climbing the causeway. The leading edge creeps up toward the low seawall on which she stands. Broken rebar juts up from the foundation. Intact to her left, the rusted metal forms a railing with the leading edge painted with yellow warning stripes.

Detail from SEAWALL featuring a girl with long blonde hair staring down a causeway that descends into rippling ocean. She holds a rubber ball at her hip. The rubber surface shines with highlights on marbleized pink cast by light from behind.

A friend’s daughter T’iana happened to be just the right age—and had great hair too—so I took photos of her playing outside. Ultimately I changed the pose and painted this study to serve as reference for my gallery work SEAWALL. 2/3

Figure study for SEAWALL featuring a girl in white shirt and shorts patterned with 5-pointed pink blossoms. She holds a blue rubber ball at her hip. Next to her, the broken base of a street sign juts out of the concrete.

Figure study for SEAWALL
Acrylic - 13” x 9 ½”

I imagined a young girl looking off to an uncertain future to represent the next generation facing global climate change. I wanted a photo reference but my daughter Alexa was grown up and off finishing grad school. 1/3

Please help if you can, especially if you live in the area and enjoy comics and community building. Katie is a Portland treasure, she has helped me and countless other creatives get their work out there 💕

I’ve been a FreeTaxUSA proselytizer for years and years and I strongly encourage everyone to make the switch. same kind of step by step “for dummies” interface, even for my complicated freelancer taxes, and you don’t have to give your money to one of our most evil lobbyists

watercolour painting of a fat little monster with a pink bottom. Sitting as a dog might sit on its haunches and looking back at us (so we can see his bum) with three orange eyes and a grin and two long ears. He is purple with a green belly and his bum is pink.

sculpture of a fat little monster with a pink bottom, green belly and purple back. Three orange eyes and a grin with an overbite.

sculpture of a fat little monster with a pink bottom, green belly and purple back. Three orange eyes and a grin with an overbite.

sculpture of a fat little monster with a pink bottom, green belly and purple back. Three orange eyes and a grin with an overbite. (rear view, big pink bottom)

I fancied getting back into sculpting which I hadn't done since school. This was based on my Pedro monster I did for one of my books (first pic). SO MUCH FUN. He keeps an eye on me in the studio now. #monster #sculpture #airdryclay #cutemonster #sillymonster #funny #pinkbottom

That Other American Tolkien When I was a child, the novels of Fritz Leiber were way more important to me than The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. If anything Tolkien was the British Leiber

Back when I worked at Time magazine I wrote a piece calling George R.R. Martin “the American Tolkien.” Is it true? Who knows. WHAT AFTER ALL IS TRUTH REALLY.

But in my house, when I was a kid, the American Tolkien was Fritz Leiber. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Detail from SEAWALL featuring a girl staring down a concrete causeway that descends into the rippling ocean. She wears shorts patterned with pink 5-pointed blossoms and a plain white shirt. Long blonde hair falls to her waist. Beside her the concrete curves. Rusty rebar sticks out forming a railing with yellow caution stripes where the metal hasn’t snapped off.

Tomorrow (Wed 11/19) we’ll be offering a painted study for SEAWALL at 11am ET. A preview of this original art is now available for our paid subscribers:

theartofmichaelwhelan.substack.com/p/faded-star...

Detail from ARMENIA featuring a young woman with arms crossed leaning against a pillar. Animal bones are set in shallow relief on the surface of the pillar.

Figure study in pencil for ARMENIA featuring a young woman in long robes standing with her arms crossed. She's holding a shepherd's crook.

BONES (1990), Pen and ink on paper, 12" x 6". A study for ARMENIA arranging an assortment of human and animal bones.

The creators of those works never seem to take account of unchanging human nature: I always wonder where the graffiti, the police, and the litter are-the negative aspects of society as it is and probably ever will be. 5/5

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/ar...

Background detail from ARMENIA featuring a futuristic floating city bathed in the glow of the setting sun as it angles out of the water. It's not clear if the city is sinking or rising out of the water.

For example, on one level it is a reaction to the naive futurism underlying the pristine “floating city” cliche so often seen in SF art. 4/5

Detail from ARMENIA featuring a young woman with arms crossed and wearing white robes, leaning against a pillar. In the backdrop, a futuristic city angles up out of water that is bathed in the glow of the setting sun. Small creatures, cute and furry, stop for a snack on alien vegetation, which includes red flowers that stand vibrant among the muted greens in the foreground.

However, as is usual with my art in general and my personal works in particular, this painting is also a confluence of thoughts, themes, symbols, and feelings. Therefore it has a number of layers of meaning for me. 3/5

Layout sketch for Armenia in pencil. The paper is yellowed and aged with wrinkled texture and small pieces missing at the edge.

Among the most crushing of these is the death of two cherished notions: that of progress and that of the perfectibility of mankind. Many of the symbolic elements in the painting are derived from aspects of and variations on that theme. 2/5

With arms crossed and wearing long white robes, a young woman leans against a pillar and offers the audience an apathetic glance. Behind her, the warm glow of the setting sun—unseen behind low billowing clouds—illuminates the water and the tilted remains of a futuristic city. It's not clear if the city is sinking or rising out of the water. On close examination, human and animal bones can be seen in relief on the surface of the pillar. The weathered stumps of other pillars can be seen in the field around her. Small creatures, cute and furry, stop for a snack on alien vegetation, which includes red flowers that stand vibrant among the muted greens in the foreground.

ARMENIA (1990)
Oil on Canvas - 22” x 35”

Ar-me-ni-a, city in the sky, a Who song, not the country.

This painting is part of a series dealing with what Barbara Tuchman describes as the disillusionments of twentieth-century man. 1/5

AI Socrates A philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes

AI Socrates -
existentialcomics.com/comic/629

Book cover for THE WITCHWOOD CROWN by Tad Williams, published by DAW Books.

Cover illustration for THE WITCHWOOD CROWN by Tad Williams (DAW) 5/5

www.michaelwhelan.com/galleries/da...

Detail from DARKNESS OVER HAYHOLT featuring the left side of the painting where the castle structures match in uniform style with wide crenelated towers. A statue of an angel with one arm raised is in the lower right.

Detail from DARKNESS OVER HAYHOLT featuring the Tower of Hjeldin which is markedly different in construction than the buildings on the left. It looks more ancient and chaotic, built of stones that are not uniform size and shape. At the top of the tower, a pair of wide narrow slits glow red through bars.

This time around, the publisher preferred a more mysterious approach without the main characters—it’s the red menace in the windows of the Tower of Hjeldin that takes center stage. 4/5

SORROW (2016), a runed blade reflecting odd patterns of light. It has a double crossguard with the side facing the grip shorter and thicker. The grip itself is wrapped in black leather and studded.

Study for DARKNESS OVER HAYHOLT featuring a witchwood tree set against a black background. The tree has a more tropical appearance with papery tan bark peeling to reveal coffee brown wood underneath. The leaves are literally shaped like swords.

Study for DARKNESS OVER HAYHOLT featuring a witchwood tree against a gray background. The wood is opalescent where the bark has peeled off. The trunk and roots are twist and curl at the bottom while the shock of foliage at the top of the tree radiates outward.

For this book, I explored several motifs for the witchwood trees, which readers of the original trilogy might recall were combined with iron in “a blasphemy against the earth” to forge the sword Jingizu. 3/5

THE ANGEL OF HAYHOLT (2016), Acrylic and Pastel on Paper - 14” x 10”. A painted study that reverses the position of the angel statuefrom the final painting so the figure is facing left.

Tad’s work continued to inspire epic covers from Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn to the sequel series The Last King of Osten Ard, which began with this commission for The Witchwood Crown. 2/5

Constrained view of a castle courtyard as seen at night through a stone archway lit from behind the viewer. On the right, the Tower of Hjeldin rises with wide narrow, barred slits at the top glowing red. The statue of an angel stands on the left with one arm raised. Tall bushes obscure the entrance through an inner wall leading to the keep. Above is a mix of starry dark sky and layers of clouds illuminated by a glowing crescent moon.

DARKNESS OVER HAYHOLT (2016)
Acrylic on Gessobord - 24” x 36”

When DAW contacted me 35 years ago about illustrating the cover for a high fantasy novel by Tad Williams, an amazing relationship began with THE DRAGONBONE CHAIR. 1/5

Pope Leo absolutely cooking

My art digital, a wolf and a women

Some Magical Girls are WOLVES- 2025