Who is the dang artist anyway?!?!?!

[Running Wolf]

Ok, Im new to the board, so maybe this has been said many times, i dont know, but i definetly wonder.
How many of you feel like i do, the artist for the books, at least the ones ive bought, SUCKS!
Maybe he even reads this board, i have no clue, but...... I must say.
When i bought the books, the artwork on the cover seemed cool, but after reading the books, im not sure the artist read the same books i did.
I wont break down each cover, but, Rand seems to be short, Perrin seems scrawny strong, not broad and big. Book 2 i beleive shows the Ogier like he is just a large human!!
Oh and another thing, is it just me, or dont the trollocs look like men with masks on?!?!?!
I hope this is the right forum for this vent :)
Anyway, Robert Jordan needs to hire a different artist IMO

[Aragorn]

Yeah, Darrel Sweet is the guy. He does kinda suck. But it isn't Jordan's fault, because Tor hired the guy.

[Strabo]

Yeah, he really does suck. I haven't ever really found anyone that likes him. But I have a feeling we're stuck with him. Even if Tor did care what we thought about the cover art they probably signed him onto a contract for the entire series :P Besides...on the bright side...all the covers fall off the those great Tor paperbacks and the coverart doesn't matter :)

[QuirkyTemplate]

Terry Goodkind seems to have pretty good cover art. So does Tad Williams. But RJ. Poor RJ.

[LaughingTurtle]

TG, and Tad Williams = Keith Parkenson is the artist

See www.keithparkenson.com/index.html for his webpage

He deffinitely is a good artist!

Maybe RJ should get Tor to hire him...

EDIT: Oh yeah, the worst cover TSR...a wagon...A FRIGGIN WAGON!! Come on people...where's the drama, the action, the coolness factor that makes people want to pick up the book and read it? (though yes, i know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but i think everyone does it, even if you don't mean to at some point or another)

[balefire]

Originally posted by LaughingTurtle
Oh yeah, the worst cover TSR...a wagon...A FRIGGIN WAGON!! Come on people...where's the drama, the action, the coolness factor that makes people want to pick up the book and read it? (though yes, i know you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but i think everyone does it, even if you don't mean to at some point or another)

I think they should have portrayed the fight between Rand & Asmodean in Rhuidean, with the Tree of Life nearby. The cover for TEOTW is good, although I think Moiraine is supposed to have black hair (?)

TGH & TFOH suck too. They could show the fight in the sky between Rand & Ba'alzamon, & some scene involving the use of balefire instead.

[Jacob]

WOT without Darrel K. Sweet just wouldn't be right. I know that "Darrel K. Sweet sucks". I used to feel the same in the beginning, but now I can't imagine anyone else taking over doing the cover art. It just wouldn't be right. It just wouldn't LOOK right. Granted, alot of things on the covers are all wrong, like Perrin having red hair on the TDR cover (and Rand not) etc. etc. I wonder though, if this really is Darrels fault. Something that we should remember with these covers is that they are choosen before the book's printed: Has Darrel gotten to read the book before he makes the cover? I rather suspect not. I suspect that Darrel K. simply get's a scene discribed and then he makes a sketch off of that that he shows to the folk at Tor. Wrong hair colour of hair should be rather easy to simply change before the cover goes to print, right? So then it's clear to me that it must be those people at Tor that are to blaim for this not happening.

Also, I think that the covers have gotten alot better (I read that RJ made complaints about the early covers). Though about the early ones: The cover on TDR really is a great picture, it's just that the hair colour of Perrin's character etc. doesn't fit the character discription.

[Tinkers Sword]

I've always thought D.K.S. got it perfect with the cover art to aCoS. The Trollocs were a vast improvement on previous books like tGH, and Rand looks pretty pissed off.

As for the rest of his work - he's a good artist but he should really read the descriptions in the books more carefully. Rand has changed more times than I've changed my trunks in the last week!

[Aragorn]

And how about EotW? Moiraine and Lan look alright (Lan's a bit too heavily armored maybe). But there's like fourteen people riding along behind them.

[nightfairy]

Yes, I've always hated the inconsistancies of the artwork! So glad to hear I'm not the only one! Out of context, the artwork is good, but when you know what the characters are supposed to look like, its very frustrating. :mad: Why cant talant & accuracy go hand in hand?!

[flyingdutchman]

Have any of you ever considered the athmosphere in the artwork?
I personally think it couldn't be put as a cover on any other book, not because the characters are a bit mangeled up, or the scene's are not that spectacular, but because of the mood scenes set. They are totally WOT.

And besides, if anyone wants to alter the story a little, that's the reader's privilige. Otherwise, why not wait for the movie? Then the special effects are nice and smooth, everyone can agree on what the characters look like, and then we'd have nothing left to dream or talk about.

[nightfairy]

The atmosphere doesnt have anything to do with it; the publisher doesnt HAVE to use this artist just cause his art has the same "mood" of the storyline (although I agree the artist does an excellent job of capturing the feeling of the WOT world).

And the objections I have with the artwork arent related to the stuff left up to the interpretation of the reader, it's stuff drilled into our heads by the author. Its not like, I always pictured her in a red dress, & he painted it blue, so this sucks. Its like Rand is tall in this pic, & short in the next, or his hair color isnt even close to reddish. Its stuff that RJ considers important enough to repeat over & over & they are important to the storyline.

[Darius Sei'taer]

Darrel Sweet sucks

[val7]

someone has a website that has a collection of DKS art *shudder* it's like they think he's good or something. I haven't seen any other fantasy artists as bad as DKS.

question: who's the artist for the GRRM books? those are pretty good.

[Travis]

Also, the dragons on rands arms on aCoS are just little gay circles.
The should be better, not llok just like a bracelet.

[Beowulf]

Well I don't think his style of painting is in itself all that bad.

But when I look at the book covers, I always wonder, if other cover artists can get it right, dealing with the same issues DKS has, then why can't he?

I think maybe the problem is some kind of communication thing.

Tor or whoever is supposed to be giving him an accurate description of what should be happening in the cover is falling short of accurate descriptions.

Or maybe DKS is just an idiot since things tend to wildly fluctuate (Rand's height, hair colors, etc)...

[Amelia Sedai]

I think Sweet is a good artist, its just that the pics dont match. Geez, I just repeated what everybody else just said.

Ok heres one.....when one of the books came out in paperback I think it was CoS. It wasnt with Sweets pic but something different, I think it was a crown of swords (duh!) it was marroon background. Does anybody remember? Was I hallucinating?

[val7]

i remember... tEotW has a version like that too: teal background with a weird oval shaped thing that had purple spirals on it (i think it is supposed to be the Eye or something). But those covers are boring. If I picked that off the shelf I wouldn't buy it because it looks boring; at least DKS's look a little interesting.

[archely]

Yeah, i have that version of aCoS, it was the only one available when i wanted to get it...and i guess the final say is that cover art is all fine and good, but you never see it when you're reading...

and, just in case anyone out there cares, the WoT RPG core book actually has some pretty cool pics in it, if you ever get a chance to browse through it. There are a few duds, but i think for the most part they are pretty good. The pics of main characters are near the back.

[Darius Sei'taer]

I think that if Rj changed artists it would be ok. It would not disrupt the series