Given that I've revealed the cover for Perchance To Dream and then promptly made a just-for-fun trailer featuring all Jason's concept art, it's only fair that I invite the artist himself to sit down for cupcakes and a chat.

Lisa: What have you been up to (professionally and/or personally) in the last year?

Jason: Aside from painting book covers, I also work full time in the games/entertainment industry at Massive Black. I also make art for Wizards Magic: the Gathering trading card game. Personally, I've been spending a lot of time traveling lately. As a kid, I never really traveled outside of California, with the exception of Navada, so I've been taking every opportunity I can to see the world.

Lisa: The response to the cover for Eyes Like Stars was pretty spectacular. Almost everyone who reviewed the book mentioned the cover art, and it was featured in a fairy-themed article for the New York Times Book Review. That's got to make you feel warm and cozy on the inside.

Jason: It does! I am very happy to hear that people are enjoying the cover. I am probably my own harshest critic, so it's good to know that the paintingis being well received. It was definitely fun for my to create, as well. The character, Beatrice, was really fun to paint and the fairies were fun as well. Growing up, I used to paint a lot of fairies as gifts for my mom, so being able to include them was a plus!

Lisa: A lot of people mentioned an anime-feel to the cover art. Do you feel your style is reminiscent of anime, or is there a better way to categorize it?

Jason: As a teenager, I was a big anime and video game fun and that was a big drive in my art. I started to grow away from that in college, but that interest and inspiration is still there to a degree. I guess my style has grown from that so there's no surprise to me that there is an obvious anime influence in my work. Maybe we can call it a fusion?

Lisa: Did the success of the ELS cover put added pressure on you when you went in to sketch ideas for Perchance To Dream?

Jason: Oh, definitely! Not from the publishers, of course, but just from myself, personally. I really wanted to try and do something that would stand toe to toe with the first cover and really feel like the next chapter in that story. So beyond just making a successful cover, I really wanted it to feel related, if that makes sense.

Lisa: Were there any differences this time, working on the cover for PtD? (ie time spans, methodology, directions issued by the art department, etc.)

Jason: We had much more time to work on the second cover. I was also given some initial ideas for the image from the publisher this time around to get started. This allowed me to spend more time coming up with cover ideas as well as the opportunity to try ideas from other people's minds. Overall, much more time was spent in planning this time around.

Lisa: Given total artistic freedom, can you describe what you would have drawn for the cover?

Jason: That's hard to say. For personal work, I tend to paint much simpler andstiller compositions and try to just create a striking read instead of telling too much story. Given the chance, I may have taken that route, but it wouldn't really say much about the story except that Bertie was in it!

Lisa: Any chance there will be a Jason Chan Art Calendar in 2010 or 2011?

Jason: No 2010 calender, unfortunately. Too early to tell for next year, though!

(Note: Since conducting this interview, Jason has made giclee prints of the ELS cover available for purchase!)

Lisa: And now, a few questions from readers and fans! The first reader asks: what other covers have you generated for Macmillan? And are you the same Jason Chan who was a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger?

Jason: I have done the cover work for The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme series and of course Eyes like Stars. I have a couple of other covers done foryet unreleased titles. And no, I was never a Power Ranger, unfortunately. :)

Lisa: And the second reader asks: could you speak a little bit more about your technique?

Jason: Currently, I work exclusively in Photoshop. I believe the Lost Journalsof Ven Polypheme covers were painted in Painter, but I have since switched to Photoshop. I agree that it can be a little harder to mimic paint with Photoshop, but it can be done. One way to do it is by learning how to create custom brushes. I can't really give a tutorial about it here, but there are plenty on the web. It is possible to create some very nice brush tips that mimic real media. Another trick I like to use is to take scans of paint and texture and incorporate it into my work to make the digital image look more tactile. Really there is no one way to do this and you can find a lot of tricks just by playing around with the program and really trying to think of ways that you can use it as a tool beyond what it tells you in the instructions.

Lisa: Thank you Jason, for doing the interview and being so madly talented! The tens of millions of Theatre Illuminata fans thank you! *G*