Les Edwards
Encyclopedia
Les Edwards is a British illustrator known for his work in the horror, science fiction and fantasy genres, and has provided numerous illustrations for book jackets, posters, magazines, record covers and games during his career. In addition to working under his actual name, he also uses the pseudonym Edward Miller to paint in a different style and to overcome restrictions placed on him by his association with horror. He has won the British Fantasy Society award for Best Artist seven times, and was awarded the World Fantasy Award in 2008.
between 1968 and 1972, where he says he was "firmly advised that he would never be an illustrator" due to a general perception in the department that the job was too difficult, and later claiming that the experience failed to provide much of use in later years. After graduating, Edwards was taken on by the Young Artists agency in London, and began working as a freelance illustrator.
Over the course of his prolific career Edward's work has included advertising campaigns, graphic novels and film design, but he is perhaps best known for his book jacket illustrations spanning the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres. Over the years he has provided many illustrations for genre titles, including numerous pieces for Robert E. Howard
's Conan
stories and Pratchett
's Discworld
setting, and books by authors such as Anne McCaffrey
, Frank Herbert
, Jack Vance
, and many others.
Edwards is also known for his numerous covers for books in the Fighting Fantasy
series, including Caverns of the Snow Witch, Demons of the Deep, and Crypt of the Sorcerer, and many of the more recent re-issues.
Many of Edward's paintings appeared as covers for Games Workshop's White Dwarf
magazine during the 1980s, and he was featured, along with other illustrators from Young Artists, in an Illuminations exposé in White Dwarf 105. He also provided the covers for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle
and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
supplements Power Behind the Throne and Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, and a series of illustrations for the Dark Future
game. In 1989 Games Workshop published an anthology of Edward's work entitled Blood and Iron. He has also provided several pieces of work for Milton Bradley's HeroQuest
, and covers for books for FASA
's Shadowrun
and Earthdawn
RPGs. Edwards has also provided illustrations for British science fiction periodicals Interzone
and Postscripts
. as well as the now-defunct AD&D fantasy publication IMAGINE Magazine
.
Edwards has illustrated two graphic novels, both adapted by Steve Niles from short stories in Clive Barker
's Books of Blood
. Having met at the World Fantasy Convention in London, Barker later recalled Edwards and recommended him to Eclipse Books for the first, Son of Celluloid; after its success Rawhead Rex followed. Edwards also created the UK publicity posters for the films The Thing, Graveyard Shift
and Nightbreed
, the latter a commission he received as a result of Clive Barker's influence.
Edwards has also provided a number of record covers during his career. A portion of one of his illustrations, originally created for The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton
was also used as cover art for Metallica
's early single, "Jump in the Fire
", whilst his painting The Croglin Vampire appeared as the cover of an album by German band Krokus. More recently he produced the cover for the album Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy.
In recent years Edwards has also begun working under the pseudonym Edward Miller, a move designed to allow him to pursue a more diverse range of commissions without any assumptions on the part of publishers based on his prior work, particularly any restrictive association with the horror genre.
Edwards has won the British Fantasy Award
for Best Artist seven times, and has been nominated three times for a World Fantasy Award
which he finally won, as Edward Miller, in 2008, as well as having acted as a judge for the awards in 2003, and was the artist Guest of Honour at the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention.
Edwards is now represented by his wife, Val Edwards, with whom he lives in Brighton, England. When not painting, his pastimes include model kit building, playing the guitar and fencing.
Amongst Edwards' influences he cites the early influence of comic illustrator Frank Bellamy
, particularly the Heros the Spartan strip, as well as Eagle's Dan Dare
, and a later love for the work of illustrator Bruce Pennington
, and describes a childhood attraction to anything 'strange or bizarre', drawing from a very early age, inspired by comics and film. His later exposure to macabre and violent elements in the work of more traditional artists, such as Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, left an impression. Other major influences include William Blake
, John Singer Sargent
and John Everett Millais
.
Although he has also occasionally used gouache, and more recently has often worked in acrylics, Edwards' original medium of choice is oil paint. This is used on any smooth board, ideally hardboard, which is primed with gesso. Following from preliminary sketches, images are constructed on the support with a hard pencil before being developed using washes of a neutral coloured acryclic, usually brown, a technique Edwards says he borrowed from 'the old masters'. The oils are mixed with an alkyd medium called liquin, which thins the paint and speeds drying time. Edwards and Miller are also separated by distinctions of medium, with pieces under the Miller name more typically executed in acylic paint on canvas panels as opposed to Edward's more usual use of oils on smooth board. Recently Edwards has also begun working in the digital medium with programs like Painter, enjoying the freedom afforded with computers, although he continues to express a preference for traditional painting techniques.
Life and career
Edwards studied at Hornsey College of ArtHornsey College of Art
Hornsey College of Art is a former college centred in Crouch End, London, England. Since 2008, the building has been a part of Coleridge Primary School, upon its expansion to four form entry...
between 1968 and 1972, where he says he was "firmly advised that he would never be an illustrator" due to a general perception in the department that the job was too difficult, and later claiming that the experience failed to provide much of use in later years. After graduating, Edwards was taken on by the Young Artists agency in London, and began working as a freelance illustrator.
Over the course of his prolific career Edward's work has included advertising campaigns, graphic novels and film design, but he is perhaps best known for his book jacket illustrations spanning the horror, fantasy and science fiction genres. Over the years he has provided many illustrations for genre titles, including numerous pieces for Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
's Conan
Conan the Barbarian
Conan the Barbarian is a fictional sword and sorcery hero that originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films , television programs, video games, roleplaying games and other media...
stories and Pratchett
Terry Pratchett
Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...
's Discworld
Discworld
Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle, Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from, J. R. R....
setting, and books by authors such as Anne McCaffrey
Anne McCaffrey
Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American-born Irish writer, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. Over the course of her 46 year career she won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award...
, Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
, Jack Vance
Jack Vance
John Holbrook Vance is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author. Most of his work has been published under the name Jack Vance. Vance has published 11 mysteries as John Holbrook Vance and 3 as Ellery Queen...
, and many others.
Edwards is also known for his numerous covers for books in the Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy is a series of single-player fantasy roleplay gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone. The first volumes in the series were published by Puffin in 1982, with the rights to the franchise eventually being purchased by Wizard Books in 2002...
series, including Caverns of the Snow Witch, Demons of the Deep, and Crypt of the Sorcerer, and many of the more recent re-issues.
Many of Edward's paintings appeared as covers for Games Workshop's White Dwarf
White Dwarf (magazine)
White Dwarf is a magazine published by British games manufacturer Games Workshop. Initially covering a wide variety of fantasy and science-fiction role-playing and board games, particularly the role playing games Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest and Traveller...
magazine during the 1980s, and he was featured, along with other illustrators from Young Artists, in an Illuminations exposé in White Dwarf 105. He also provided the covers for the Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer Fantasy Battle
Warhammer: The Game of Fantasy Battles is a tabletop wargame created by Games Workshop. It is the origin of the Warhammer Fantasy setting....
and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is a role-playing game set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Over the years, it has been through a number of phases and different publishers, most of which were related in some way to Games Workshop...
supplements Power Behind the Throne and Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned, and a series of illustrations for the Dark Future
Dark Future
Dark Future is a 1988 miniature wargame by Games Workshop. It is set in an alternate reality where the United States—and indeed the rest of the world—is falling apart. Society is going to ruins, and the natural laws of physics are breaking down...
game. In 1989 Games Workshop published an anthology of Edward's work entitled Blood and Iron. He has also provided several pieces of work for Milton Bradley's HeroQuest
HeroQuest (board game)
HeroQuest, sometimes also written as Hero Quest, is an adventure board game that was created by Milton Bradley in conjunction with the British company Games Workshop and set in the latter's Warhammer Fantasy fictional universe, as shown by a map of the Warhammer 'Old World' being printed on the...
, and covers for books for FASA
FASA
FASA Corporation was an American publisher of role-playing games, wargames and board games between 1980 and 2001. Originally the name FASA was an acronym for "Freedonian Aeronautics and Space Administration", a joking allusion to the Marx Brothers film Duck Soup. This tongue-in-cheek attitude was...
's Shadowrun
Shadowrun
Shadowrun is a role-playing game set in a near-future fictional universe in which cybernetics, magic and fantasy creatures co-exist. It combines genres of cyberpunk, urban fantasy and crime, with occasional elements of conspiracy fiction, horror, and detective fiction.The original game has spawned...
and Earthdawn
Earthdawn
Earthdawn is a fantasy role-playing game, originally produced by FASA in 1993. In 1999 it was licensed to Living Room Games, which produced the Second Edition...
RPGs. Edwards has also provided illustrations for British science fiction periodicals Interzone
Interzone (magazine)
Interzone is an award-winning British fantasy and science fiction magazine. Published since 1982, Interzone is the eighth longest-running science fiction magazine in history and the longest-running British SF magazine...
and Postscripts
Postscripts
Postscripts is a quarterly Britishmagazine of science fiction, fantasy, horror and crime fiction, first published in June 2004.Each issue is published in two editions: a regular newsstand-type edition and a signed, numbered, 150-copy hardcover edition. Beginning with Postscripts #14, it is a...
. as well as the now-defunct AD&D fantasy publication IMAGINE Magazine
Imagine (AD&D magazine)
Imagine Magazine was a monthly magazine dedicated to the first edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons and Dungeons and Dragons role playing game systems published by TSR UK Limited.-History:Imagine was published between April 1983 and October 1985...
.
Edwards has illustrated two graphic novels, both adapted by Steve Niles from short stories in Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...
's Books of Blood
Books of Blood
Books of Blood are a series of horror fiction collections written by the British author Clive Barker.There are six books in total, each simply subtitled Volume 1 through to Volume 6, and were subsequently re-published in two omnibus editions containing three volumes each. Each volume contains four...
. Having met at the World Fantasy Convention in London, Barker later recalled Edwards and recommended him to Eclipse Books for the first, Son of Celluloid; after its success Rawhead Rex followed. Edwards also created the UK publicity posters for the films The Thing, Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift (film)
Graveyard Shift is a 1990 film directed by Ralph S. Singleton, written by John Esposito and based on the short story by Stephen King; First published in the 1970 issue of Cavalier magazine, and later collected in King's 1978 collection Night Shift...
and Nightbreed
Nightbreed
Nightbreed is a 1990 American fantasy horror film written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his 1988 novella Cabal. The film features Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby and David Cronenberg. The story centers in a community of mutant outcasts that hides from humanity, known as the...
, the latter a commission he received as a result of Clive Barker's influence.
Edwards has also provided a number of record covers during his career. A portion of one of his illustrations, originally created for The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton
Graham Masterton
Graham Masterton is a British horror author. Originally editor of Mayfair and the British edition of Penthouse, Graham Masterton's first novel The Manitou was released in 1976. This novel was adapted in 1978 for the film The Manitou...
was also used as cover art for Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...
's early single, "Jump in the Fire
Jump in the Fire
-External links:* *...
", whilst his painting The Croglin Vampire appeared as the cover of an album by German band Krokus. More recently he produced the cover for the album Music for the Jilted Generation by The Prodigy.
In recent years Edwards has also begun working under the pseudonym Edward Miller, a move designed to allow him to pursue a more diverse range of commissions without any assumptions on the part of publishers based on his prior work, particularly any restrictive association with the horror genre.
Edwards has won the British Fantasy Award
British Fantasy Award
The British Fantasy Awards are administered annually by the British Fantasy Society and were first awarded in 1971. The membership of the BFS vote to determine recommendations, short-lists and winners of the awards...
for Best Artist seven times, and has been nominated three times for a World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
which he finally won, as Edward Miller, in 2008, as well as having acted as a judge for the awards in 2003, and was the artist Guest of Honour at the 1995 World Science Fiction Convention.
Edwards is now represented by his wife, Val Edwards, with whom he lives in Brighton, England. When not painting, his pastimes include model kit building, playing the guitar and fencing.
Style and technique
Edwards often refers to his vintage horror work as his 'Red Period', a reference to the profusion of gore prevalent in horror illustration at the time, and to more recent work as his 'Blue Period'. Edwards is generally known for his emphasis on portrait elements, whilst as Miller, on the other hand, he places a greater emphasis on landscapes, and what he views as a more 'romantic style'.Amongst Edwards' influences he cites the early influence of comic illustrator Frank Bellamy
Frank Bellamy
Frank Bellamy was a British comics artist, best known for his work on the Eagle comic, for which he illustrated Heros the Spartan and Fraser of Africa. He reworked its flagship Dan Dare strip....
, particularly the Heros the Spartan strip, as well as Eagle's Dan Dare
Dan Dare
Dan Dare is a British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories, that is, the Venus and Red Moon stories, and a complete storyline for Operation Saturn...
, and a later love for the work of illustrator Bruce Pennington
Bruce Pennington
Bruce Pennington is a British painter, perhaps best known for his science fiction and fantasy novel cover art. Pennington's works have largely featured on the covers of novels of the likes of Isaac Asimov, Clark Ashton Smith and Robert A. Heinlein, adopting both science fiction and fantastical...
, and describes a childhood attraction to anything 'strange or bizarre', drawing from a very early age, inspired by comics and film. His later exposure to macabre and violent elements in the work of more traditional artists, such as Goya's Saturn Devouring His Son, left an impression. Other major influences include William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
and John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...
.
Although he has also occasionally used gouache, and more recently has often worked in acrylics, Edwards' original medium of choice is oil paint. This is used on any smooth board, ideally hardboard, which is primed with gesso. Following from preliminary sketches, images are constructed on the support with a hard pencil before being developed using washes of a neutral coloured acryclic, usually brown, a technique Edwards says he borrowed from 'the old masters'. The oils are mixed with an alkyd medium called liquin, which thins the paint and speeds drying time. Edwards and Miller are also separated by distinctions of medium, with pieces under the Miller name more typically executed in acylic paint on canvas panels as opposed to Edward's more usual use of oils on smooth board. Recently Edwards has also begun working in the digital medium with programs like Painter, enjoying the freedom afforded with computers, although he continues to express a preference for traditional painting techniques.
External links
- The Art of Les Edwards official site
- The Art of Edward Miller official site
- Les Edwards, Master of the Macabre at Abandonart
- An interview with Edwards on Paul Kane's Shadow Writer site
- An Interview with Edwards on Dark Wolf's Fantasy Reviews
- Les Edwards' Fighting Fantasy contributions at Titannica Gaming Wiki