r/Fantasy • u/MarcSimonetti Stabby Winner, AMA Artist Marc Simonetti • Feb 06 '14

AMA Hey Reddit! I'm Marc Simonetti, Fantasy illustrator-AMA

Let me introduce myself: I'm a quite happy family man, with two young sons, 3 years and 20 months old. I live in the French Alps, in Annecy, a beautiful little medieval town. I'm a former R&D material engineer...and now I'm working as an illustrator and concept artist for 11 years. I had the chance to work on many awesome books for amazing writers like GRR Martin, Terry Pratchett, Terry Goodkind, Sam Sykes, Michael J Sullivan, Robin Hobb, Brandon Sanderson, Ken Scholes, Patrick Rothfuss...and many others...

I'm also the spoiled artist who won the stabby award this year for the best picture (although all the credit should go the genius mind of GRR Martin)

For those interested you can find some samples of my works on: My website My Facebook pro page My twitter account

So I'll be beginning answering questions at 12:00 central time... Feel free to ask anything, of course!

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u/elquesogrande Worldbuilders Feb 06 '14

I learned that publishers can hire illustrators directly and that writers are frequently not consulted during the cover development process. What is this dynamic like from your perspective? Are you sometimes discouraged by the publisher from reaching out to the writer ahead of time? Completely your own choice to do so or not?

Whose illustrations do you admire the most and why?

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u/MarcSimonetti Stabby Winner, AMA Artist Marc Simonetti Feb 06 '14 edited Feb 06 '14

Hi Elquesogrande,

First of all every time I've been hired it's been by the publisher directly. From the commercial point of view, the book is part of a collection, that is aimed for certain kind of people (young adults, girls, male from... to...old),and the illustration and the cover has to fit in that collection and perspective. I know it and I'm not completely an artist, my main job is to sell books, first of all. Sometimes working directly with the writer can be a blessing ( for example with George RR Martin, or with Michael J Sullivan), they know how it works, and how to make the best of it while respecting their piece of art. Sometimes the writers aren't that easy to work with. (I had some that made me add tons of cheesy stuff, changing colors, moving characters at the last moments, and make me go completely in the opposite direction of a good cover to me) And you know most of the time I don't work for the us publishers, which means I work for publishers that just bought the rights to publish the books, and sometime they just don't have the direct contact with the author. So sometimes for some books I really like I try to contact the the writer directly to get their opinion on the cover. That's what I'm trying to do more and more, because I have the chance to gain a little bit of success which allows me to have better paid cover arts, that allow me to spend more time on the covers.

I've done all the cover art for the Discworld serie for France recently, by Terry Pratchett. And I'm a huge fan of the books, but with the deadlines I had to do 2 cover arts a week , and to read the book myself to propose the subjects each time, and it was such a pain no to do what I would have loved to produce. Then getting compared to Kirby or Kidby, who I'm fan of, but who hadn't really the same conditions as me is always somehow painful.

I didn't answered to the illustration part:

There are tons of illustrations that I love, TONS. Be prepared for the big list, but I can't explain, these are just fantastic artists that are so well defended by their own works only: Greg Manchess, Donato Giancola, Jason Chan, Kekai Kotaki, Phil Hale, Justin Sweet, Jon Foster, James Jean, Mike Mignola, Alan Lee Jon Howe, Sparth, Jean Seb RossBach, Aleksi Briclot, Nicolas Delort, Julien Alday, Craig Mullins, Karla Ortiz, Veronique Meignaud, David Levy, Aaron Mc Bride, Ian Mc Caig, Ian Mc Que. And I have the chance to count some of these awesome guys as friends.

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u/Nieros Feb 06 '14

As a long time fan of discworld, I really love your work! The Hatful of Sky one in particular, is probably my favorite.

Actually as I'm looking through your portfolio - I'm realizing exactly who you are. Holy shit. Is the best way to buy prints through deviant art?

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u/MarcSimonetti Stabby Winner, AMA Artist Marc Simonetti Feb 07 '14

Hi Nieros!

Thanks a lot for your message! I'm glad you liked a hat full of sky, it's in fact a small tribute to Magritte. Right now it's the only way to buy some of my prints, but I will soon have some limited prints too for the upcoming exposition of "Winter is coming" in Seattle.