10 Cover Artists I Can’t Get Enough Of

I know that a lot of fantasy readers have a fondness for the 90s era covers, which are largely out of style nowadays other than the Stormlight Archive books. Personally, I’m more of a fan of the illustrative style that kids books have been championing for years, and I cannot stand photographs of real humans on my books. The romance genre is guilty of this, and nothing could interest me less than a generic model torso. I wish I could say that covers didn’t matter for the books I pick out, especially since self-published authors are much less likely to have the budget to throw at a professional cover artist. However, I know I’ve avoided books for years that ended up being favorites because of bad covers (shout out to Red Dot by Mike Karpa!)

Because I’m not talking books, I’ll talk about artist names and link book covers to their websites instead of the Goodreads pages. Similarly, I’m limiting myself to novels only. Comic covers are a whole different beast, with traditions completely seperate from the prose books.

  1. Weston Wei – my new obsession. His sense of color is unique, and I’m entranced by everything this man has created.
  2. Simón Prades – his cover for The Spear Cuts Through Water is a perfect cover for a perfect book. He’s got a wide variety of styles, but his use of perspective and scale always impresses me!
  3. Michah Epstein – there are so many book covers I could have chosen here, but his work on The Deep shows the emotional depth and stillness that runs through much of his work. He also did the Subterranean press Jade City editions, which are incredible.
  4. Feifei Ruan – I feel like her covers constantly border on too crowded, but she manages to create focal points within chaos that guide the eye through her covers.
  5. Marcus Whinney – I can’t say that I’m in love with every cover Whinney’s made, but this man created the best epic fantasy covers of the last decade. His work on Bloodsworn Saga is a masterpiece. Look at the itty bitty human next to the dragon!
  6. Alyssa Winans – has a mountain of great covers to pick from. I could have gone with Singing Hills, Floating Hotel, or Polk’s new novel Feywild Job. I chose her Forever Desert work because of how symbolically intense it is when taken in conjunction with the stories themselves.
  7. Yuta Onoda – she mostly works in the kids lit space, and her covers are always dynamic and full of movement. Truly a feast for the eyes.
  8. Sam Weber – Sam’s done a variety of cover styles, including Mistborn books. However, I think he’s at his best leaning into hauntings and horrors with his cover art. I haven’t read Prosper’s Demon yet, but the cover is unfortgettable. Sadly, I couldn’t find a website for him that I was 100% confident was his.
  9. Patrick Léger – His covers are simple – the Fox Wife is one of his more complicated ones – but I find they pop because he excellently manages his foreground characters. These aren’t flashy, but they resonate with me a lot.
  10. Charis Loke – she also does a bunch of mapmaking for fantasy books. Mostly, after the horrible covers for Greenbone Saga, I was happy to see her tackle one of the short story collections with something more evocative.

Who are some of your favorite cover artists? Do you notice when a style pops up on multiple books you’ve read?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.

16 thoughts on “10 Cover Artists I Can’t Get Enough Of”

    1. I’m trying to do a better job of crediting cover artists when I bring up the art in my review. I thought I was at a point where I could recognize an artists work, but there were a few surprises where I didn’t realize a cover artist had worked on several covers I adored!

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  2. I absolutely love that you chose to highlight cover artists I’m such a big fan of giving cover artists the flowers they deserve especially in this AI-filled hellscape. I agree that I really don’t prefer real people on my covers either and that I prefer stylized illustrations! You picked such great ones too, I adore The Deep and it has an excellent cover! The covers for The Monk and Robot Duology are some of my absolute favs too! A bunch of these are on my tbr, I’m especially curious about Proper’s Demon and that black and white, smoky cover is incredible.

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  3. Yes! Yes! Yes! I love how you tackled this week’s theme. We need to show more love to the talented artists that make these books so memorable and special for readers! Thank you for putting these books on my radar. (｡•ᴗ•｡)

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    1. I agree! They’re the unsung heroes of book sales! I feel for self-published authors who aren’t (usually) making the type of money to pay proofreaders or this level of professional cover artists, but I’m sure I’ve passed over some absolute masterpieces because I found the cover unappealing. There’s just too many books out there to screen them all, let alone read them. I’m trying to find the right balance

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      1. I feel the same way about screening books! So many books, so little time… I’m also a bit too judgy when it comes to covers, even though I know better haha. In these past years, I have tried to give books a chance based mostly on the blurb and reviews. That’s also a hard task, since lately a blurb consists of 10 quotes of praise instead of a synopsis.

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  5. I cant resist a stunning cover but I’m terrible at remembering whose designed them 🙈 I really need to start following some of my favourite ones on Instragm thinking about it. I love the colours on the first two covers that you’ve shared and I agree that the Bloodworn covers are epic. Alyssa Winans would be one of mine too as you’ve said she did the Singing Hills books. As I said in your other post I’m a bit wary about buying novella but think I’ll make an exception for those ones as they’re utterly divine so I kind of want them in print to try out. I’ll have to check out the links in a second and see more examples of each artists work. Two others with designs I’ve loved are Tran Nguyen and Jason Chuang

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    1. Tran’s covers are so good! He almost made this list, and I’m thrilled that he’s up for a Hugo this year. I hadn’t heard of Chuang at all, but I love his style! The style is so pretty looking at a glance, but there’s such an unsettling tone to the content of his work.

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  6. I love this topic so much! I adore the Gwynne series so much!! The covers are all amazing too. I mean all of them are on here. Jade Shards is a cover that I need to get my hands on in print!

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  9. I agree about the cover of Prosper’s Demon: unforgettable. I’ve wanted to get a copy for the longest just because of the cover.

    Some of my fav cover artists: Will Staehle, Kazu Kibuishi, Yuko Shimizu.

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