David Burroughs Mattingly (born June 29, 1956) is an American

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

and

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

, best known for his numerous book covers of

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

literature.

Early life and career

Mattingly was born in and grew up in

Fort Collins, Colorado Fort Collins is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality in Larimer County, Colorado, United States, and its county seat. The population was 169,810 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, an i ...

, and was inspired at age twelve to enter the visual arts, and discovered matte art. Mattingly first attended Colorado Institute of Art, then transferred to Art Center College of Art and Design. He left from there to take a job as a matte artist at Disney Studios. There he worked on the production of ''

The Black Hole A black hole is a region of extreme gravitational pull. Black hole or blackhole may also refer to: Computing *Black hole (networking), in computer networking, a place where traffic is silently discarded * Blackhole server, a DNS server that han ...

''. He also worked on films including ''

Tron ''Tron'' (stylized as ''TRON'') is a 1982 American science fiction action adventure film written and directed by Steven Lisberger from a story by Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird. The film stars Jeff Bridges as Kevin Flynn, a computer programmer ...

'', ''

Dick Tracy ''Dick Tracy'' is an American comic strip featuring Dick Tracy, a tough and intelligent police detective created by Chester Gould. It made its debut on Sunday, October 4, 1931, in the '' Detroit Mirror'', and was distributed by the Chicago T ...

'', '' The Watcher in the Woods'', and

Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...

's ''

The Stand ''The Stand'' is an epic post-apocalyptic dark fantasy novel written by American author Stephen King and first published in 1978 by Doubleday. The plot centers on a deadly pandemic of weaponized influenza and its aftermath, in which some of ...

'' miniseries. After seven years, he became the head of the matte department there. He later worked on the films ''

I, Robot ''I, Robot'' is a fixup collection of science fiction short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines '' Super Science Stories'' and ''Astounding Science Fiction'' between 1940 and 1950 ...

'' and ''

Hail, Caesar! ''Hail, Caesar!'' is a 2016 black comedy mystery film written, produced, edited, and directed by the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen. An American-British co-production, the film stars Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Alden Ehrenreich, Ralph Fiennes, Jo ...

''. After moving to New York, Mattingly was under contract at

Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. Ballantine was acquired by Random House in ...

. He has done more than 2000 book covers for Ballantine, Baen, Ballantine, Bantam, Berkley, Dell, Alfred A. Knopf, Marvel Comics, Omni, Playboy, Ace, Penguin, Scholastic, Signet, and Tor. He later took a matte art teaching position at the School of Visual Art, and then the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

, where he is an adjunct professor. He teaches digital matte painting and compositing at both institutions. Mattingly is the subject of the 1996 book ''Alternate views, alternate universes: the art of David B. Mattingly'' by Cathleen Cogswell. He currently works as an independent matte artist and illustrator in addition to his teaching.

Publications

David created 55 of 64 covers for

K. A. Applegate Katherine Alice Applegate (born October 9, 1956), known professionally as K. A. Applegate, is an American young adult and children's fiction writer, best known as the author of the ''Animorphs'', '' Remnants'', and '' Everworld'' book series. S ...

's ''

Animorphs ''Animorphs'' is a science fantasy series of youth books written by Katherine Applegate and her husband Michael Grant, writing together under the name K. A. Applegate, and published by Scholastic. It is told in first person, with all si ...

'' series. He also created covers for all of

David Weber David Mark Weber (born October 24, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He has written several science-fiction and fantasy books series, the best-known of which is the Honor Harrington science-fiction series. His first nov ...

's Honorverse science-fiction series. He has been the Artist Guest of Honor at a number of conventions, including Technicon 24 and

Loscon The Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, Inc., or LASFS, is a science fiction and fantasy fan society that meets in the Los Angeles area. The current meeting place can be found on thLASFS website LASFS is the oldest continuously operating scienc ...

42. He has also published a handbook on digital matte painting, ''The Digital Matte Painting Handbook.''

Books

* David B. Mattingly (2011), ''The Digital Matte Painting Handbook'', Indianapolis, IN: Wiley;

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mattingly, David Burroughs 1956 births American illustrators American fantasy artists Living people Painters from Colorado People from Fort Collins, Colorado American role-playing game artists American science fiction artists