Art Submissions Guidelines
We are still commissioning new artists to illustrate stories for the magazine, and we plan to continue to showcase the work of some new talent. However, we’ve had a lot of interest, and we can only take on a very limited number of new artists. If you want to sell your art-work to Universe, which, yes, is one of your best chances to have your work on display with the writings of a stellar group of authors, this is what you need to do:
- Write to Dave Freer, artdirector@baensuniverse.com. We’re an
electronic magazine, and we only accept electronic communications to
the art department for practical reasons - one of which is that the art
department is in Africa.
- If you have any relevant sf/fantasy art-publishing credits tell us
about them. We do not care if you drew pictures for advertising
campaigns or if you design web-pages for toothpaste manufacturers.
While this probably means you can draw, it is not relevant to
illustrating sf/fantasy. The sample-work you show us will tell us if
you have the requisite technical skill.
- Show us examples of what you can do: ideally by pointing us to a
website. If you are going to e-mail pictures, confine yourself to
relatively small, low res examples, specifically .jpgs not more than
600 pixels square. You can tell us that you have higher res examples.
We may ask for them. But blocking the busy e-mail pipe will not make
you popular. By way of examples we would like to see the range and
depth of your talent - don't send us fifty faces done in Gothic horror
style, or fifty cute kittens. We'd like to see how you handle action,
exotic backgrounds, people, and some of the typical elements of fantasy
and sf art. Robots, aliens, warriors in combat, starship battles,
dragons, lasers, princesses, vehicles... that sort of thing. We're
looking for artists who can do both literal and insightful
illustration.
- We don't really care what medium you work in. We don't buy
originals, we buy the first publication rights to the image in
electronic format. Put another way: We buy bits, not paint and canvas.
Those remain yours.
- Warning: We won't be buying too much of any one thing, however, and
we do see a lot of electronic/photoshop art. Unless your work is
exceptional be aware that there is a huge amount of competition for
roughly 2 slots per issue. We also prefer color, although we may very
occasionally buy outstanding black and white illustrations. Color helps
to break up the text, and, well, we can do bright and colorful better
than most print medium magazines.
We pay first time artists $150 for 2 pictures, a full page and a 'spot' illustration. If we decide to commission you for a story, we provide you with an electronic advance reader's copy of the story. While we prefer our artists to select their own material to illustrate from these stories, they should be well spread (ie. not all from one part of the story) and we will require you to submit roughs for approval.