• Howl of the Werewolf
  • Vampire Hunter
  • The Tank
  • Werewolf
  • Eye of the Dragon
  • Unicorn Hunt
  • Legend of Zagor
  • Return to Firetop Mountain
  • Film visualization stuff
  • Orcs
  • Blue Queen
  • Curse of the Mummy
  • Frankenstein's Legions - Hussar
  • Frankenstein's Legions - Scots Guard
  • Mirabilis - Big Ben
  • Angry Mob
  • Headless Highwayman
  • Wizard of Rondo
  • Gnome
  • Temple of Terror

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 from September 2012

    The Weird and the Wonderful portfolio


    Talking of ancient images lately, a properly old one of mine appears in a new portfolio from Spectre Press. It's a presentation of artwork from the collection of publisher Jon Harvey. My drawing is one that Jon bought at the World Fantasy Convention in 1988, and I can hardly remember what it looked like. It was my attempt at a Black Rider from
    The Lord of the Rings, sniffing out a Hobbit or two in the undergrowth. I don't remember if it was any good. Anyway, there's a bit more about the portfolio - which is available as prints, or on a state-of-the-art CD-ROM! - here.



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    The Pirate of Beyond


    My Bloodbones picture gets another airing on the cover of this new edition from Gallimard Jeunesse. Available to buy here.






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    Prints and Posters


    A range of photographic prints, premium Giclee prints, and canvas prints featuring my artwork is now available at Art.co.uk and AllPosters.co.uk, and more images will be added in time. All prints can be ordered unframed, but a huge selection of rather tasty looking frames, in endless combination with a wide choice of coloured mounts, is available.






    • reddit.com

    RPG & CCG Artists


    I'm one of the 150 artists featured in Role-Playing Game and Collectible Card Game Artists: A Biographical Dictionary, compiled by Jane Frank and published by McFarland, which can be purchased here. A Kindle edition will be released on the 15th of December.

    "This biographical dictionary is the first of its kind to document artists' contributions to one of the most popular and far-reaching of contemporary teenage social pastimes of the last quarter of the 20th century; that of role-playing games and collectible card games. The book presents full information on 150 artists, both painters and cartographers, whose influence and illustrative contributions to the field of table-top, pen-and-paper games helped define the "look" of game art and helped establish game art as a unique and recognizable genre. In addition to providing inclusive biographical data on each artist, the entries also include a bibliographic listing of each artist's published work in the genre.

    Jane Frank is collector, author, and private art dealer specializing in science fiction and fantasy illustration art. She currently runs Worlds of Wonder, an art agency dedicated to gaining further exposure for the art and the artists associated with the fields of science fiction and fantasy, and lives in McLean, Virginia."




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    The Gift - the first copy


    Here's my advance copy of The Gift, my first proper picture book for children. It's a very touching story by author Penny Matthews, which was lots of fun to illustrate as it's a real departure for me with no werewolves, no rotting flesh; although I did manage to sneak in a couple of robots. Below is a small taster of the artwork I've done for it. A bit more about the book on Penny's site. The Gift is published in hardback by Scholastic on the 1st of October.





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    Ancient images No.2


    The second in what's looking like a very occasional series of things dug up from the drawers of ancient artwork. Not quite so antediluvian this time. This is an ink drawing on board, done for the horror anthology Northern Chills published in 1994. It illustrates the story 'Guilty Party' by Stephen Laws. More finger pointing going on here, but a less successful shadow this time. Looking at it nearly twenty years on, the only bit of this drawing I like is the top left area of trees - some pretty smart cross-hatching going on there. The original drawing is currently for sale here.



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