Monday, November 2, 2015

Illustrated Capital

Illustrated initial capital, brush and ink.
I drew this illustrated capital to begin one of the chapters of The Hand of Dinotopia by Alan Dean Foster.

Trusting the universe I created to someone else's imagination takes a leap of faith, but this was a leap I made with a lot of confidence, knowing that Alan was accustomed to writing within established intellectual properties. Among many other projects, he ghost-wrote the original novelization of Star Wars.

James Gurney and Alan Dean Foster in Tunisia, 2008
He is also a friend of mine, and we traveled together to Malta, Tunisia, and Morocco in 2008.

6 comments:

Pierre Fontaine said...

I've been a big fan of Alan Dean Foster's writing for a very long time, ever since he wrote the Star Trek Log books based on the Animated Series. I've read quite a few of his novels as well.

I'd love to hear more about the kind of input you had into the book series as well as the TV series that was produced many years ago. The TV series was incredibly ambitious for the time and I've always been curious what kind of input you had on this project.

Pierre

David Webb said...

James, am I right in thinking he wrote the original Alien too?

Rick Robinson said...

I really liked HAND OF and fervently wish for more Dinotopia novels!

Anonymous said...

I remember being in high school and joining the Science Fiction Book Club to get that book!

Susan Krzywicki said...

ooooh, lovely illustration.

James Gurney said...

Pierre, I reviewed all the novels in the rough draft and final draft stages. In the case of ADF's novels, there were very few suggested changes. I wasn't involved at all in the TV show at all—that was totally Hallmark's story, casting, and design. It was ambitious, and won an Emmy for best special effects, but it's a very different world from the world I created in the books.