Ian Miller (illustrator)

Ian Miller (b. 11 November 1946) is a British fantasy illustrator and writer best known for his quirkily-etched gothic style and macabre sensibility, and particularly noted for illustrations for the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks which achieved popularity in the 1980s and various Role-Playing Game publications, as well as contributions to the Ralph Bakshi films Wizards and Coolworld.

Early life

Miller was born in 1946. Between 1963 and 1967 he attended Northwich School of Art, before embarking upon a degree at St. Martin's College of Art, London where he began in sculpture before switching to painting, graduating with honours in 1970. Shortly after this he began working in London as a professional illustrator.

Career

In 1975 and 1976 Miller contributed to the Ralph Bakshi film Wizards, later working on Coolworld by the same director in the 1980s. He has also produced pre-production work for the film Shrek.

Miller is well known for his work on the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks which rose to popularity in the mid-1980s, and numerous contributions to the Games Workshop-published fantasy gaming periodical White Dwarf and illustrations for various role-playing game books and supplements for Games Workshop and others.

Miller has published a number of anthologies of his illustrated work. His first, The Green Dog Trumpet, was published by Dragon's Dream in 1979, and was followed by another, Secret Art, toward the end of the 1980s, and a third, entitled Ratspyke, co-authored with fellow illustrator John Blanche and published by Games Workshop Books.

He has also produced imagery for two graphic novels, the first, Luck In The Head, with writer M.John Harrison and a second with John Herbert called The City, as well as working on an unpublished third called Suzie Pellet. He has also provided illustrations for Alien Stories 2 by Dennis Pepper.

Miller has exhibited frequently during his thirty-year career in both solo shows and group exhibitions in Britain and internationally.

Miller is currently engaged in the production of a series of black and white panel drawings called Corpus Pandemonium, and a book called The Broken Novel, a reworked film project called The Confessions of Carrie Sphagnum, a set of Tarot cards, and a theatre project entitled The Shingle Dance.

See also

*Fighting Fantasy
*White Dwarf (magazine)
*Games Workshop
*John Blanche

External sources

* [http://www.ian-miller.org// Offical Ian Miller website]
* [http://www.fantasymagazine.it/rubriche/6570 An article on Miller in an Italian fantasy e-zine]
* [http://www.fantasymagazine.it/gallerie/181 Samples of Miller's artwork in a fantasy e-zine]
* [http://books.google.it/books?id=fDJoV9FdRKQC&pg=PP5&lpg=PP5&dq=Ian+Miller&source=web&ots=gqtoF9qi4e&sig=OLsFYKKahW5RWHmB9T6tcy3i2vk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=20&ct=result Alien Worlds 2 cover on Google books]
* [http://io9.com/391090/ian-millers-geometrically+exact-surrealism Ian Miller's Geometrically Exact Surrealism at io9.com]
* [http://blog.kierankelly.net/2008/09/17/ian-miller-the-city/ An article on Miller on a sci-fi blog]
* [http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuilleton/2008/05/18/the-art-of-ian-miller/ The Art of Ian Miller on a blog]
* [http://ski-ffy.blogspot.com/2008/09/ian-miller-2.html More Ian Miller artwork on a fantasy and fantasy art blog]
* [http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2471 A partial list of Ian Miller's credits on an RPG gaming site]