Customer Reviews

Revolution: The Art of Jon Foster

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The postman arrived about an hour ago. I opened the parcel, the book and got lost in Jon's worlds.
I just shut it and I felt need to get this out now.
I first got hooked by Jon's art as I read Liz Williams' Inspector Chen novels. His covers are amazing. Before starting the novels, you are pulled into a world you wouldn't imagine.
My compliments also go to Underwood Books, the publisher. What a wonderful book, good paper, terrific reproduction quality!
Now to Jon's art. Like film stills each picture tells a story, moves like the wind and/or crackles like a rusty robot. You're there, in the tree with the kid amidst the red and golden leaves, next to the sizzling dragon, in a boat in the storm during the revolution, fighting the zombies as part of a hot-babe team. The list goes on and on.
Clearly influenced by the timeless classic masters in painting and illustration, Jon Foster has developed his own terrific style. No matter what material, oil or digital, which assignment, for National Geographic, Lucas Film, Books of Magic and tons of others, every single picture will fascinate you and pull you in as they do me.
If you would want to compare him - which I wouldn't cause he is entirely his very own terrific self, but still, if, then sometimes Vermeer and Rembrandt come to mind, or Ashley Wood, Kent Williams, even a hint of Frank Frazetta. But, as I said, don't, don't compare, just enjoy.
Perfect compositions, wonderful lighting, well chosen moments and characters - no flaws, except... please more of his terrific work.

Even though the back dust jacket of The Art of Jon Foster talks about his meteoric rise to the top of the fantasy and Sci-Fi art world, I hate to refer to Foster as MERELY a fantasy and Sci-Fi artist. Fosters work goes so far beyond the traditional commercialism of book covers, calendars, and gaming cover artwork. Foster breaks out of the relative safety of genre art and dares to be wildly experimental, and yet also provide a classical illustration look. This collection of Foster's work comes from the good people at Underwood books who each ear provide fans with the wonderful Spectrum book, highlighting the best in fantasy, Sci-Fi, and comic art from the previous year.

Foster's Sci-Fi art isn't the typical gleaming, glittering scope that you see in many from this genre. Quite the contrary, his robots have a decrepit, rusted look to them, as if they may fall to pieces at any time. Witness a prime example of this with the painting "Crowbot", one of his most popular works. The steel, retro-looking robot is a vision of a futuristic scarecrow. Another example is the towering "Rust Golem."

Foster's range is one of his great strengths and the book dutifully gives many fantastic examples from the Renaissance-like "Lupercalia" to pieces like "Iggy" that look like they stepped off a 1930's pulp magazine. Another great example of Foster's period illustration paintings is his depiction of King Kong, rampaging through the streets of New York for Underwood Books' illustrated King Kong novel. Star Wars fans will be overjoyed that Underwood has included several of the covers that Jon did for the Star Wars comic, originally published by Dark Horse. One of the most spectacular of these features a bathe between Darth Maul and Darth Vader. There are also a number of other paintings included from the realm of comics including the dramatic "The Last Sons" featuring Superman and The Martian Manhunter.

One of my favorite paintings in the book also graces the back cover, "The Snake Agent" is a spectacular work of contrasts with an art deco, almost Rockwellian look.

For those looking for something just a little different, a little more creative, I highly recommend picking up the Art of Jon Foster.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

Length:: 0:15 Mins

The only work I know from Jon Foster are the illustrations he did for Star Wars. I don't follow his work much so this art book is pretty refreshing to me.

There's a short 3-page biography to start the book. It talks his life, career and influences. It's always fun to read about who they are before they became famous. There are interesting things like financial concerns he faced when starting out, his self-doubts, success with Spectrum to the point where his works are displayed in museums.

Here's a short excerpt from from biography that appears in the book:

Jon Foster doesn't make things easy.

The standard artist-bios tropes don't seem to fit when trying to describe him, the cliches don't comfortably apply. The compliments and glowing adjectives about his art come easily, true, but the challenge to properly convey something about the man with the brush (or computer mouse) in his hand...that's the hard part.

<end excerpt>

This book contains his work done on oil and digital. There are a few pages devoted to pencil sketches. The paintings are truly amazing. I can only imagine how good they are in the museums or art galleries. Each illustration is captioned on the background and comes with quotes from Jon Foster explaining his inspiration.

This is a fantastic art book. It might be hard to find now because it was published in 2006. Check out the Amazon merchants if Amazon is out of stock themselves. Amazon links are below.

Jon Foster has a homepage and you can check out more of his wonderful illustrations there.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

Foster is one of the new breed of illustrators who makes seamless transitions from traditional artist's materials to the digital realm. He is inventive and demonstrates what has to be the hard work of perfecting exciting compositions.

I heard of John Foster somewhere after joining Concept Art's forums, but truly took an interest in him after my roommate did a phone interview with him for an art class. I bought this out-of-print book on a whim, after seeing the strength of the cover image. Inside were 128 pages filled with paintings, thumbnail sketches, comments from Jones himself, or commentary from other respected illustrators. The images themselves I would describe as "immersive". Every time I open this book I end up investing more time than I actually have feasting on individual images. In fact, I can't thumb through the pages quickly without feeling pangs of guilt. All the brushstrokes, whether digital or oils, truly demand my full-attention. His bending of perspective, colour, and proportion exaggerate in simultaneously gross and natural ways, recognizing your understanding of life and delivering a more intense version.

When I first got this book, it followed me everywhere. I would show it to anyone that saw the cover and asked me about it. Since most people today aren't familiar with good examples of what "illustration" is, carrying the book around family meetings ended up saving me a lot of talking about what I'm going to do when I "grow up". Keeping this on my person also inspired and captivated people, regardless of their understanding of elements and principles of design. More than once I've let complete strangers look at this book, because it's too good for them to miss.

While expensive, I value this book more than most of the books in my collection, and its purpose for me--to inspire me to do better while tickling my senses--is fulfilled on a consistent basis. For the record, I would recommend this book for a student, a professional, or anyone who doesn't get this whole "art" thing and is willing to have their world rocked.

Nobody paints like Jon Foster. Nobody.

There's something wild about the idea of this maverick artist, a brush-swinger in an age when illustrators live by the mouse-click, who paints these beautiful, unique and powerful works. At his best, Foster's work doesn't feel like a guy illustrating an assignment; it feels like he's offering us a peek at a natural and functioning world that truly exists-- in his head if nowhere else.

Really, the man is unbelievable. Un. Believe. Able.

Friend of mine bought this book and showed me today, I had Jon Foster's previous book that some of the images are the same but I couldn't resist to order this one.
Jon made more amazing paintings, some of them is really good and much better then old stuff.
Also price of the book is reasonable. If you are an artist you have to own it.

Jon Foster's a great artist. Everyone knows that. He makes painting of the moment right in action, which makes it so interesting.

One thing I wish they could've include in this book is how he works. Maybe a little tutorial. That would be the best.

If you're a fan of his, this is a much have. If you like digital artist, get this book.

If you love modern masters like Ashley Wood, Phil Hale and so on, you'll love this book. Wonderful paintings. wonderfully photographed . wonderfully printed.

Don't listen to all these jerks saying Foster is a Phil Hale biter. Obviously they don't know how to see. Fosters stuff is great and that's all. The only down side to the book is alot of the stuff is recycled and already in other books that feature Foster. Also another thing that bothers me is that everybody seems to be doing the James Jean pastel colors. Foster seems to do the same lately. But who cares. All in all a must for an artist.