‘The Art of Ian Miller’ – Ian Miller & Tom Wyte (Titan Books)

I was going to say that I wasn't sure what happened yesterday but... I know exactly what happened :o) I kicked things off with a visit from the insomnia fairy, dragged myself out to walk my youngest up to school, watched a bit of telly/napped and then back out to pick said youngest up from school. An evening at mine, involving more telly, food and chat. Then I dropped her off back at her Mum's and it was back to mine to round things off with even more telly ('Scream 6') You'd never have thought that I'm having memory problems, would you? ;o)

You can see what's missing though... There wasn't any time for reading or posting about what I'd read. Dammit, I'll see if I can make up for that today. In the meantime, I've been dipping in and out of 'The Art of Ian Miller' (lost my old copy, managed to track another one down fairly recently) and thought I'd make use of an older post, that I wrote way back in 2014, to give myself a little breathing space to catch up on my reading today. It's more 'quick thoughts' than an actual review, I can talk your ears off when it's about prose but with art-work, it's a little more difficult to find the words. The post below still sums up what I think of Miller's art though and if you're not familiar with his work, it's worth having a little Google as it is bloody brilliant stuff. Anyway, here goes...

I first came across Ian Miller’s work on the covers of Michael Scott-Rohan’s ‘The Winter of the World’ series back in the late eighties. Actually, that’s not quite true; the first time I came across Ian Miller’s work (although I didn’t realize it at the time) was on the front of the Fighting Fantasy Gamebook ‘The Citadel of Chaos’ (which I have now finally read…) I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Ian Miller is one of those fantasy artists who has done a lot more work than you think; you’ve probably even seen his work and not realized it – like all that work he did for Games Workshop back in the day (late eighties again) that I didn’t realize was him until I read the back of this book.

‘The Art of Ian Miller’ has over three hundred pieces of artwork, spanning a career that is decades long, and is a book that I got lost in for what felt like hours the other night. Every single piece of artwork is full of detail that demands your full attention and is also full of ominous undertones that really capture the darkness in the worlds that Miller portrays; be it Gormenghast (I saw little hints of the ‘Winter of the World’ covers there), Lovecraft’s mythos or just the strange stuff that apparently goes on inside Miller’s head.

These are dark and dangerous worlds that Miller gives us a window into and he gives us some commentary on each piece at the same time. I got a lot out of the history of each piece but got a little lost when he started to explain the process of how each piece was created. If you’re really into your art then you’ll get a lot out of this; I on the other hand just like to look at the pictures and there is plenty of scope in this book to do just that.

For those who didn’t know it already, ‘The Art of Ian Miller’ clearly shows that Ian Miller has the imagination and skill to capture iconic moments of fantasy in just the way they were intended to be. Not only this though; Miller has more than a few dark visions of his own (those trees…) and it all makes for disturbing yet compelling viewing. If you get a chance, have a look for yourself.