…pick out my nine best pieces -- "Five, if you haven't got nine strong ones" -- and put my worst one first, my best one last. This made no sense to me whatsoever, but I had been getting lots of doors slammed in my face lately, so I thought, "What the heck?" I tried it the next day. It worked. I got a cover the very next time I showed the portfolio. With glacial slowness, the portfolio got better and the work came in with more regularity.

Teresa Patterson: Once you started working as a freelance illustrator you became subject to the whims and requirements of art directors, and some of them can be very difficult.

David Cherry: Fortunately, for every jerk who gives artists sleepless nights and ulcers, there are three top-notch professional art directors who are a joy to work with. One of the things that had me nervous when I signed on to work at my current job with Ensemble Studios was knowing that I would be working directly under an art director -- and knowing how uncomfortable that could be if the art director wasn't one of the good ones. As it happened, I totally lucked out. Ensemble hired Brad Pollard in that position, and he is definitely one of the best. In every interaction we have ever had, he has always been professional and has bent over backwards to be helpful and supportive.

Teresa Patterson: Aside from Brad Pollard, who are your favorite art directors?

David Cherry: In the field of book covers, I would have to say that Dave Stevenson at Ballantine is my all time favorite art director. He is a good artist himself. He knows what it takes to get a job done, what the stresses and problems are, and he makes allowances. I also used to work with Ruth Ross at Ballantine. She was wonderful too, very professional. She knew her field. She was down to earth, reasonable. And her word was as good as gold.

With regard to magazines, I always liked Rachel Holmen at Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. I don't think any art director in the history of the planet ever cared more about the artists or tried harder to be fair and accommodating. She is a jewel. She is also, I hear, looking for a new assignment, by the way. Anyone with connections that can help get her placed back where she can do us all some good would have my sincere thanks.

And I have to throw in a good word about Bill Fawcett too. He is not an art director, per se. He wears lots of different hats. And he can be totally maddening -- like the time he sent me a copy of Photoshop(tm), with no manual, and told me to learn it, and to produce a useable screen for one of his new computer games. All this in one month -- and me still trying to figure out Windows(tm) for pity sake, since I had only owned a computer for two months at that point. I was charmed by his faith in me and devastated by the load.

But all in all, Bill has always been there for me through thick and thin. Especially thin. If times ever got tough, Bill was there finding work for me. If he couldn't find any, he'd invent some. He gave me my first professional assignment as a freelancer, and he gave me my last, The World of Shannara. And I love the way he art directed me on it.

"OK, Dave. The deadline is the 23rd. Can you make it?"

"Yeah, sure, Bill. What do you want it to look like?"

"Whatever you want, Dave. Just make it cool."

The Sword of Shannara by David Cherry From The World of Shannara Copyright © 2001 Bill Fawcett and Associates. All rights reserved.

There ought to be more art directors like that.

Teresa Patterson: You mentioned that you left cover work for the gaming industry. Other than special projects, would you ever go back to book illustration full time?

David Cherry: Life is long. It is hard to say. I loved doing covers. I am sure I could love doing them again. But there are some definite downsides to consider. When I started, the business was directed and controlled by people like Don Wollheim, Lester Del Rey, and Ian Ballantine. They were passionate about all aspects of science fiction and fantasy -- art included. If they gave art direction, it was drawn from a vast well of experience in a genre that they not only understood, but loved and had helped form.

Once they were gone I found myself frequently art directed by people who couldn't care less and who often wanted you to jump through hoops just to show you who was boss. And I am not necessarily talking about art directors here, although there were some of those too. Once Wollheim, Del Rey, and Ballantine were gone, there was no one left with a grand, overall vision and understanding of what was called for. No one was sure enough of themselves to say, "Here. This is what needs to be done. Now go do it."

It seemed as if, lacking the vision or the understanding of the genre, no one wanted to take on that kind of responsibility. Everything became a committee decision. Where in the past I would work directly under Don, who did most of his own art directing, or say, under an art director who might be reporting directly to Lester Del Rey, I suddenly found myself being directed by a committee. The art director might be involved, but so would one or more editors, and (the bane of my existence) the [shudder] marketing people. I have seen so many truly bad decisions fueled by the genius of marketing gurus.

You can imagine how many more misdirections and changes and alterations get asked for by a committee, where everyone feels he has to ask for one just to show that he is involved in the process. And when the marketing people got involved as well, with all their swell ideas (fresh out of some college textbook), a fun and creative process was turned into an exercise in frustration. I hear that the pendulum is starting to swing the other way now and that people like Irene Gallo are helping the process. I hope so. It really got to be a mess there for a while.

Another negative, for me at least, in thinking about going back to doing covers is a purely financial consideration. The pay today is approximately what it was when I started in 1982. But it costs more to live, and I now have a family to support, kids to buy cars for, college to pay for. I can only paint so fast, only stay awake so many hours, but it takes more and more paintings to make enough to live on. Freelancing is fun in that you are almost totally your own boss and totally in control of your time. But when you have to work constantly, that becomes a distinction with little meaning.

Teresa Patterson: As one of the few artists in the field to work as both a freelance book illustrator and a company game artist, how would you contrast the two?

David Cherry: I loved being a freelancer when I lived by myself and no one got hurt but me if I couldn't pay the rent. And I especially loved it when the kids were little because it allowed me to be at home with them 24/7. But while I was at home, I was almost always working. My girls grew up in my studio with their own desks near mine because Daddy was always working, so they would come up and do art too. It was great. But I digress.

If I go back to freelancing, I will probably do some book covers but will probably also keep game art as my primary focus. It is such a new industry that the people who had the vision and the passion for it are usually still there in the companies. So working in this field is much more like doing book covers was when I could work with the Don Wollheims of the world. I like that. It counts for a lot. The pay is often worse, so you have to do a lot of little paintings rather than a few big ones, but the work is usually fairly plentiful.

For the past year, however, I have not been freelancing. I have been working as an artist for Ensemble Studios, which has lately become a Microsoft company. We make PC computer games like Age Of Empires, and Age of Kings. Right now, we are busy at work on a similar but slightly different game called Age of Mythology. Most of the artists in the computer gaming world are 3D specialists. They work in 3D programs on the computer and make models, then go into Photoshop and create textures to go on the models. Then another set of artists takes the textured models and animates them. One of the big lures for me is that I want to learn all of that stuff. I have had some training in it, and it is a blast. Any given aspect of it is fun.

Brin Ohmsford by David Cherry From The World of Shannara Copyright © 2001 Bill Fawcett and Associates. All rights reserved.

But I was originally hired to do concept art, having no training in 3D at the time. I was to do 2D drawings of buildings and characters to show the modelers and texturers what to aim for.

Eventually, however, I migrated back to doing what I have done for years, which is, essentially, marketing art. I have been doing really fun paintings of Thor, Odin, Isis, Poseidon, etc. for magazine covers, posters, coffee mugs, t-shirts, what have you.

I have, over the years acquired a fairly extensive knowledge of Photoshop, so I do some of the work on computer, but most of it is the old fashioned stuff I have always done, painted by hand. My boss, Tony Goodman, had the insight to see that something of this sort would be useful, and I think he had in mind all along that I would end up doing this. I can't think of any other computer game developer that has a dedicated marketing art department like ours. The differences between doing this and doing covers are all positive ones.

First of all, to my great pleasure and surprise, I have always been given whatever time I need in order to get a painting right. That almost never happened when doing covers. I was always having to send something out the door, lamenting what it could have been like with only a day or two more to work on it. Secondly, I am trusted and expected to know what I am doing. Art direction is minimal and exists only to help, never hinder. It is also accurate and knowledgeable.

When doing covers, art direction was often by committee or by people who couldn't do a painting themselves if their life depended on it. And having no concept of what they were asking for, it was often more of a hindrance to the process than a help. When I was freelancing I kept saying, "When you hire a plumber, you let him plumb. When you hire an artist, why can't you let him art?" At Ensemble they let me art.

There are other benefits as well. A steady income is a nice change. Good health care and insurance is something I really missed while freelancing. And with both kids needing braces, it is certainly a good thing to have now. But the biggest change for me, I suppose, is the hours.

Every few months, the company will call a "Crunch." Workers are expected to work from 10 a.m. 'til midnight for four days of a given week (normal hours the fifth day) and to do that for two weeks. They think that that is working a lot of hours. When I was freelancing, those would have been considered light days. I often went for three or four months straight with no more than four hours of sleep a night. That was not at all unusual.

Now, even though I am not home during the day, I have evenings and weekends off. And when I am off, I am really and truly off. If I want, I can just spend a whole evening playing Purple Pooh Bear with Kasi or take a day and go to the zoo. That is a magnificent luxury. It would be hard to give that up and go back into freelancing, especially when the people I work for are so thoughtful and wonderful and when the work I am doing is so fulfilling.

If I sound like a happy man, I am. But that could change. Corporate environments constantly evolve. Years from now I could be a victim of downsizing or find myself working long hours for people I don't like on projects that are of no interest to me. I doubt that will be the case, but it could happen. If it does, I will be back into freelancing like a shot. One thing about a strong portfolio, it is very good job security.

Teresa Patterson: Your last book illustration project was the newly released The World of Shannara. In that book, a full color opus dedicated to Terry Brooks' fantasy world, you did most of the illustrations and actually designed the look of the book. What was it like working with Terry Brooks?

David Cherry: I did almost all of the art for the book with the notable exception of the cover. By agreement, the cover was to have been mine as well. It was a great surprise to Terry, Bill Fawcett, our editor and me when it turned out that other art had been used. That caught us flat-footed. Who could have imagined that someone would do something like that?

But other than that particular slap in the face, every other thing about doing the book (except for the long hours) was tremendous. Our editor was Shelly Shapiro. I love her. She is really good. And when our vision of the project expanded beyond the original concept, she was right there beside us, working to find ways to make it all happen and produce the best book possible. And of course, you and Bill were great to work with too. I know we all gave each other ulcers during the process, but I am very proud of what we accomplished, and if I had to do one of these things again, I would want to be working with you and with Bill.

Terry was fabulous to work with. He is a very kind and intelligent gentleman and, of course, a tremendous author. It was extremely nice of him to open his home to us so we could get the details of our project worked out and establish a working relationship. I did not know what to expect.

Some authors could have kept us tied up for years doing revisions to get everything just the way they wanted it to be. Terry's view was that, any given book is different for each person who reads it and that that person's view of what a character or place might look like is, perforce, as valid as his own. So, while he was nice enough to help out by sharing his own views of how, say, Alanon should look, or how the airship or sword should look, he was also open to allowing my own artistic interpretation to be expressed when appropriate.

Garett Jax, for instance, was done as I see him. Terry did ask for a few changes on other pieces -- nothing at all unreasonable -- and I was happy to make them. It is, after all, the fact that he took the time to guide my interpretations that make this book so special. But he was always supportive, always helpful, always a total professional whenever we had the chance to interact. I value his acquaintance and consider it an honor to know him, much less to have been allowed to play in his world as I did.

Teresa Patterson: Since you were the initial designer for the book, how close to your vision was the final product?

David Cherry - Continued