Dean Ellis – Literary Art and Illustration

Paralleling my posts displaying reimagined cover art of The Sirens of Titan (by Richard M. Powers), Astounding Science Fiction (by William Timmins), The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (by Chesley Bonestell), and If (Kenneth Fagg), here’s a new example: Dean Ellis’ cover art for Alan Dean Foster’s The Tar-Ayim Krang.

Just like the aforementioned examples, this was a sort-of-experiment: Assuming Ellis’ original cover art no longer exists these fifty-two years after Ballantine’s adaptation of his painting for Foster’s book, I wanted to recreate the appearance of the painting as it p r o b a b l y & most l i k e l y – existed. The fact that the author’s name, one-sentence promotional blurb, book price, and Ballantine logo appear in the relatively empty area in the upper part of the page made this digital endeavor relatively straightforward. Albeit… I added some stars, gas clouds, and varied background shading to the area atop the orange-ringed planet, so the resulting image would conform to the rest of the painting.

As for the book?

I’ve not read it. (!)

I bought it for the attractive cover alone.

(Ellis did good work!)