THE MASTER MIND OF MARS
Cover illustration for Edgar Rice Burroughs
The only John Carter cover in which I intentionally deviated from the story. The Master Mind does not appear in the actual scene but Lester del Rey thought the cover should go along with the title, so I took liberty placing the character there.
The composition reflects my concern for uniting the front and back sides of the cover painting. The arch of the wall and the equipment in the foreground form an oval that both focuses attention on the center of action—the operating table—and involves the white ape in the scene.
I thought long about the color scheme, deciding to go with a blue-gray-vermilion plan, with a central object separating the front and back sections. I don’t recall how many preliminaries I did for that assignment, but this one has to be one of the early ones as I hadn’t come around to putting a white ape into the picture yet.
Additional images from THE MASTER MIND OF MARS
Share your thoughts…
We’d love to hear your feedback as we soft launch here on Substack. There are still a few details to work out before we officially announce our launch and that may take a few weeks. Please let us know your thoughts, questions, etc!
Like what you see? Subscribe!
We will be posting art every day on Substack. Don’t want to miss anything? Subscribe to get a weekly email including a recap of daily art posts.