Artist Feature: Rachel H. White

As part of our celebrations of the re-opening of TFF to fiction submissions in the next few weeks, we're going to be running features of some of our fine artists and illustrators. We kick off with a brief look at some of the work of Rachel H. White, who has blogged about her experience of illustrating for TFF at Odes to a Dark Future.

Rachel, who also writes dark fantasy and is working on a graphic novel, has illustrated three stories for us in the past (including the image we used as the cover for TFF 2009.16), and has displayed an impressive range of styles.

In issue 13, she illustrated the whimsical and inventive, almost childlike fantasy story with a very dark twist, Suburban Alchemist: her artwork was appropriately simple and storybook-like, but tellingly reflected the dark edge of the work. (Click through to see in full size; it really is worth it.)

Then in issue 16 she illustrated Galatea's Stepchildren, a dark and highly allegorical cyberpunk story of artificial people, abuse and the processes of (de)humanization, and in the process produced what is one of my favorite pieces of TFF artwork ever (which we used not only as the issue cover but also as an inside centrefold).

Finally in issue 19 she illustrated a rollicking scifi adventure story, Daughters of Hralln (it is this story she describes in her blog post linked to above). For this piece, which involved sumptuously described alien huntresses on a frigid world, she turned to a more cartoon-like style perfectly suited to the material.

We all look forward to seeing more of Rachel's art in future issues of TFF.