John Picacio is an award winning science fiction, fantasy and horror illustrator that I first wrote about in 2006. He has been the recipient of the Locus Award, the International Horror Guild Award (x2), the Chesley Award (x5!), the World Fantasy Award and, just recently, the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist.
For those not familiar with the field, the Hugo Award, in particular, is highly prized. Picacio has just added a post on his blog in which he pays tribute to those who preceded him, and it’s a heady list — reaching back to 1955.
Picacio works in both traditional and digital media, at times combining the two by scanning a work painted in physical paint into the computer for further development in digital painting applications.
He has an unusual approach to color in many of his works, utilizing loosely defined bands or waves of high chroma color across the composition within which the image unfolds and other colors blend from one area to the other. This is contrasted by other works in which he utilizes muted limited palettes accented with smaller areas of more intense color.
Picacio’s compositions sometimes utilize areas of patterns or design elements, and often are richly textured.
His online portfolio is arranged by year. You can find additional image on his blog, On the Front. Picacio is also a contributor to the San Antonio area group science fiction, fantasy and horror blog, Missions Unknown.
