Clyde Caldwell

I didn’t know Jim too well, though I’ve worked for Baen Books for over 12 years. Most of the time I would just read a manuscript and send in a couple of sketches. Jim would pick one of the sketches and I’d do the painting. Sometimes he would have changes or modifications to the ideas and I would incorporate them into the finished work.

The first painting I did for Baen was for Holly Lisle’s “Minerva Wakes”. Jim didn’t like the face of the model I used and made me repaint the girl’s face. He kept telling me the type of model he was looking for. So the next time I had to use a female model for a Baen cover, I got an extra catalog from the modeling agency I was using, and let Jim choose the model he liked. After that, he never complained again about any of the models I used.

One of the paintings I’m including for the art tribute is “There Will Be Dragons”, a cover for a John Ringo book. When I submitted the sketches for this one, Jim sent me an email and asked if I would make a change. He had drawn in a tiny spaceship in the background of the sketch. He said that the distributor wanted to add a SF element to the cover. I reluctantly put the spaceship into the painting, even though there were no spaceships in the book.