Suite101 caught up with one of the judges for The Illustrators of the Future contest Laura Freas at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Convention where she spoke at a panel and discussed what qualities she looks for in submitted illustrations.
Suite101: Could you please tell us about The Illustrators of the Future contest?
Freas: The Illustrators of the Future contest is the analogous to the Writers of the Future contest. Analogous but not identical because you have completely different point of view. As the story, the ideas generate from the head of the author. Here we’re talking about a term L. Ron Hubbard used called “creative synergy”. And to paraphrase that; if you have a story by itself it is an entity, you have a picture by itself you have an entity, but it you make sure the two connect in a meaningful way and communicate, then you have something larger than the sum of two. It’s exponential at that point and it is this creative synergy that I as a judge look for when I’m judging contest entries.
Suite101: What is the difference between an illustrator and a fine artist?
Freas: Here again the idea for the story comes from the author. The idea for the illustration, unlike the fine artists, who has the same painting and drawing skills as the illustrator with one essential difference, with the fine artist, the ideas for the pictures come from the artist’s head.
Suite101: What is the best approach for an illustrator when interpreting an author's work?
Laura: The mission of the illustrator is to take the ideas of the author and to communicate that visually take hundreds of thousands of words and somehow congeal all that into one immediate potent image that sparks the imagination with enough information to communicate the story, but just enough to get the reader’s attention so that they want to know more and pick up the book to take home. It’s about marketing and packaging if you want to use commercial terms. This is the creative synergy we’re looking for.
Suite101: Can you provide an example of what not to do?
Freas: If you’re doing fantasy you could say I’m going to do a picture of a girl who’s gazing at the moon and there’s a unicorn. This could be beautifully drawn, gorgeous, and with good composition, but it’s very ho-hum in it’s communicative value because it’s a drawing of a static idea. Or sometimes we get portraits of beautiful fairies. Or sometimes we get captions like ‘Tongor meets his match! Boom!’. Yeah, that's nice but what is the story really about? Show us the core essence of the story you're illustrating.
To submit an illustration to this contest visit: Writers & Illustrators of the Future
About Laura Freas
Laura Brodian Freas, is a Doctor of Music and a professional artist whose first nationally illustrations appeared in Weird Tales, Analog, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine, and in special editions of Easton Press. She has been nominated for the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artist’s highest award four times. She and husband, Frank Kelly Freas, shared the Chesley Award for the joint painting Scribe.
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