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Starlog #22 — Don Maitz's science fiction artwork

 
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 01, 2018 9:33 pm    Post subject: Starlog #22 — Don Maitz's science fiction artwork Reply with quote

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The beautiful artwork of Don Maitz is featured in this Starlog article from issue #22.

Don Maitz did several covers for Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr series, which I read as a teenager from copies I got at my locale library. They are all spectacular, and I loved every one of them.

I replaced all the jpegs in the article with better versions (except for one that looked better than any other copy I found) to enhance this tribute to a great artist. Very Happy

Click on each page here to see a large, easy-to-read version you can zoom in on. Click on the large version again, and then zoom in as close as you want!

Below each image you'll see this:

Click here to see the original page above, before I enhanced it.

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~ Click here to see the original page above, before I enhanced it.




~ Click here to see the original page above, before I enhanced it.




~ Click here to see the original page above, before I enhanced it.

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Custer
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 11:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Interesting. The Don Maitz signature is on this cover for the first book in the series, from 1978... not a scan of my copy, but taken from the isfdb site:

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Custer wrote:
Interesting. The Don Maitz signature is on this cover for the first book in the series, from 1978... not a scan of my copy, but taken from the isfdb site:

Thanks for including that cover. I didn't find a very good image of it, but I didn't like it as much as the others anyway, so I didn't include it in the gallery below.

As an amateur artist I was very interested in the Starlog article. It starts out with Don Maitz describing how an illustrator normally goes about creating the cover of a book. But Maitz tells us that “normal” isn’t always the norm, and illustrators often have to beat an unreasonable deadline to finish the cover in time for publication.

And yet Maitz says that sometime the pressure he’s been under has actually benefited his final creations.

Hence the title of the article, “Haste Doesn’t Always Make Waste”.

One of the reason I could never have been a successful illustrator is that I just can’t work very fast. It took me too long to get in painting or drawing juuuust right before I was happy with. Some paintings never good just right and got juuuust thrown away. Sad

Maybe if it done more painting and drawing I’d have developed the necessary speed. But I’m kinda lazy, so I painted and drew when I wanted to, without a whole lot of ambition.

Maitz got the assignment to do four books for Asimov’s Lucky Starr and had to work 18 hours a day for three weeks to met the deadline. And yet the paintings are gorgeous, especially in view of the fact that he had to take over from John Berkey, who’d done the first two in the new re-issue of the novels and then backed out because he was too busy to finish the other four.

The publisher gave Maitz several transparencies of Berkey’s work and told him to match the style. I’m a big fan of John Berkey, but frankly I’m not impressed with the one Berkey cover I found online (the one on the left). I like Don’s paintings for the Lucky Starr series much better!

Berkey's is just a hodgepodge of elements slapped together. It doesn't even look a like a Berkey painting! But true to the publisher's wishes, Maitz's painting does! Shocked






The majority of Maitz cover illustrations have been fantasy novels rather than science fiction, so I had to do quite a big of searching to find the gallery below.

Enjoy! Very Happy



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Oh, and by the way . . . Don Maitz did the famous painting below, too. Very Happy

I have a bottle of Captain Morgan rum on my fireplace mantle (with amber water inside), just as a decoration, along with photos of my grandchildren, a three foot fern tree, and two lava lamps.

I don't remember how the rum bottle got there, but I'm sure I had fun emptying it. And I've always liked that painting of the Captain. Cool



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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2018 4:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

When I opened this thread and began scanning the paintings before reading, my first thought was, "Hmm... John Berkey influence." Then the text clarified that it wasn't "influence", but intentional imitation!
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Custer
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 11:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

John Carter and Dejah Thoris… not a perfect copy, at least until Bud gets to work on it! Dejah seems a bit apprehensive about their faithful companion, which is unlike her. It looks as if the picture was done for a game version...


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 4:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Well, I went to work on the blemishes at the top and the faded red background, but I soon realized that the splotchy areas on both sides of the two figures' feet was light reflecting off the glossy, uneven surface of the paper.






There was no way to fix that, so found a picture of the original artwork. Unfortunately it wasn't as sharp as the magazine cover, and the colors were all wrong.





So, I isolated the two figures and all the text with Paint.net, then I laid them over the deep red background of the original painting to correct the flaws in that part.

Next I copied pieces of the lower background areas on each side of the figures, the parts that were marred by the reflections on the magazine, and I corrected the colors and contrast. I put the pieces together one at a time until I'd replaced the flawed areas.

But the painting was cropped on the right, so I had to paint in a little of the calot's paw and the missing area to the right and below it.

This is what ended up with. Click on the image to see a much larger, sharper version. Very Happy




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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:29 pm; edited 3 times in total
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice job Bud!

But you left off the "S" in MARS.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
Nice job Bud!

But you left off the "S" in MARS.

Oops, it somehow got left off when I pasted the modified magazine cover to the background of the poster! I was so busy being an artist that I forget to check the text!

I've fixed it. Thanks.
Very Happy
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Custer
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 9:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very nice work, yes! I was just trying to find other Don Maitz artwork for Dejah and friends, and I did come across this version of the art, without the lettering etc:



The background here seems a bit too dark, to me... Now, if only I could figure out what their multi-legged friend was saying, to get that reaction from Ms Thoris!
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2018 3:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
Nice job Bud!

But you left off the "S" in MARS.

I thought Bud was referring to only one Mar.
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2018 4:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Why does he have a BATMAN emblem on his chest?

David.
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