Julie Dillon


Julie Dillon is an American artist specializing in science fiction and fantasy art. A freelance illustrator, Dillon has created images for games, book and magazine covers, and covers for musical albums. Dillon's work has been nominated for the Chesley Award five times; she won the 2010 Chesley Award for Best Unpublished Color for "Planetary Alignment", as well as the 2011 Chesley Award for "The Dala Horse" in Best Interior Illustration. She was nominated for the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist in 2012 and received the Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist in 2014, 2015, and 2017. She also received two Chesley Awards in 2015 for the Best Cover Illustrations for a magazine and a hardback book. Dillon lives and works in California.

Biography

Dillon received a BFA in Fine Arts from Sacramento State University in 2005, with continued education at the Academy of Arts University in San Francisco and Watts Atelier.
In a 2009 interview, Dillon highlighted Alphonse Mucha, Jon Foster, John William Waterhouse and Andrew Jones as artists who have influenced her work.
Dillon produced art for the Llewellyn Worldwide Astrology 2014 calendar.
In 2014 Dillon successfully ran a Kickstarter campaign to fund self-publication of a fantasy art collection titled Imagined Realms: Book 1. In 2015 Dillon successfully ran a kickstarter campaign to fund self-publication of a second collection with a science fiction theme, titled Imagined Realms: Book 2.

Awards and nominations

YearAwardCategoryRecipientResult
2010Chesley AwardsUnpublished Color"Planetary Alignment"Won
2010Chesley AwardsBest Magazine Art"Honeycomb"Nomitated
2010InterGalactic Medicine ShowBest Cover Illustration"The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola"Won
2012Chesley AwardsBest Interior Illustration"The Dala Horse"Won
2012World Fantasy AwardBest ArtistJulie DillonNomitated
2013Hugo AwardBest Professional ArtistJulie DillonNomitated
2014Hugo AwardBest Professional ArtistJulie Dillon
2015Hugo AwardBest Professional ArtistJulie DillonWon
2015Chesley AwardsBest Cover Illustration - Magazine"Analog"Won
2015Chesley AwardsBest Cover Illustration - Hardback Book"Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology"Won
2017World Fantasy AwardBest ArtistJulie DillonNomitated
2017Locus AwardsLocus Award for Best ArtistJulie DillonWon
2018Locus AwardsLocus Award for Best ArtistJulie DillonWon

  • Winner of Best Color Work, Best Artist, and Best in Show at ArmadilloCon Art Show
  • Included in Spectrum 17, Spectrum 18, and Spectrum 19
  • "Artificial Dreams" featured as the cover art for Corel Painter 12’s 20th Anniversary

    Notable covers

  • "Snow, Glass, Apples" by Neil Gaiman
  • Crossed Genres, Issue 12
  • "Honeycomb", Clarkesworld Magazine
  • "The Never Never Wizard of Apalachicola", by Jason Sanford - used in Issue 20 of InterGalactic Medicine Show, as well as on the cover of InterGalactic Awards Anthology, Volume I, both edited by Edmund R. Schubert and Orson Scott Card
  • "Nautili", Clarkesworld Magazine
  • "Gold Sea", Lightspeed Magazine
  • "Under the Surface", by Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Issue 25, InterGalactic Medicine Show
  • "Planetary Alignment", Clarkesworld Magazine
  • "Breaking Through", Clarkesworld Magazine
  • Luck of the Draw, by Piers Anthony
  • The Dark is Rising, by Susan Cooper
  • Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History, edited by Rose Fox and Daniel José Older
  • Stranger Things: Kamchatka issue #3, by Michael Moreci and Todor Hristov, variant cover