Hi Everyone,

I was recently interviewed about the book cover process by author Nalini Singh for her blog. Follow the link below to check it out if you'd like.

thanks, Tony

http://nalinisingh.blogspot.com/2009/11/interview-tony-mauro-cover-artist-for.html

Max and Zoe are my 2 Welsh Corgi's. They were from different liters and were paired up to be a mating couple buy a breeder in Arizona. When people would ask me if they were brother and sister I would always say they're more of husband and wife team. I bought the dogs from the breeder when they were 2 years old after the breeder had suffered a stroke and decided to retire from breeding and sell the dogs. They never produced a liter. Originally I was only interested in purchasing one dog but the breeder told me she did not have the heart to separate these two dogs because they had been together since birth and were absolutely inseparable. She told me if I bought one she'd give me the other for free and if I wanted to sell one of them it was up to me. So I agreed and of course after seeing these 2 dogs together there was no way I could separate them either so I kept them both. The dogs were then driven to Los Angeles where they lived with me for the next 7 years. In 2005 I returned to my home town of Buffalo NY where the dogs saw snow for the first time. They loved it! I'll never forget the first time they saw the snow, they hesitated at first and then both jumped in started running around like a couple of kids on the first snow fall of the season. We lived in 3 different houses and 2 states over the last 11 years. They came to work with me at 3 different companies where they'd follow me around all day and sleep under my desk while I worked.
           14 months ago Zoe was diagnosed with Lymphoma and underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on her back. I was told by the vet that her life expectancy was 6-10 months from the time of the surgery. Getting this news was like nothing I can describe. The hardest part was Zoe never acted sick, she was active and happy and never really seemed like a dog that had been given a prognosis of 6 months. She was a fighter and bounced back from the surgery better than everyone expected and lived for 14 months before the cancer took over her body and she had to be put down on Wednesday of last week at the age of 12 and a half. In the mean time Max was showing the signs of age as well and was developing some problems with his hind legs and was having a hard time going up and down stairs and getting around like he used to. Outside of that his health seemed to be pretty strong. In the days following Zoe's passing I saw Max completely shut down, his hind legs completely gave out on him and he was unable to walk and he stopped eating and became very ill and lethargic. I started seeing blood in his vomit and stool so I took him to an emergency veterinary hospital on Sunday, only 4 days after Zoe passed away. The vet examined him and confirmed that his system appeared to be completely shutting down and her recommendation was to put him down as well. Needless to say this has probably been one of the most difficult weeks of my life. I still have both parents and have been lucky enough to not have suffered too much loss with my immediate family so a loss like this has been extremely difficult to say the least. The only thing that really brings me comfort is knowing that they are together right now. I always told people how I couldn't imagine one dog without the other.
My sister made me feel better yesterday when she said that Max did everything he could to tell me that it was ok and that he was ready to go too. I had never seen him so resigned and as much as he was hurting inside he appeared to be at peace on the outside and he just wanted to go. The life expectancy for a Corgi is 12-14 years and both dogs lived to be 12 and a half, so I don't feel robbed of any years and am given comfort to know that Zoe only had to wait 4 days before Max joined her again. These 2 dogs were the best companions anyone could ask for and will bring me a lifetime of happy memories.

-Tony

Hi Everyone,

It's that time of year again and I'm very happy to announce that I have been nominated for best cover in the alernative reality category at covercafe.com again. Last year I took second place in this contest thanks to all of your votes. If you'd like to vote and see the other entries use the link below. The book I'm nominated for this year is Sea Witch by Virginia Kantra. I've done 3 books in this series so far and all of them have been a lot of fun to work on. Thanks as always for all of your continuing support!

-Tony

http://covercafe.com/contest/2008/AR.html

I recently finished another James Patterson book called Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas. This passage was in the book and I thought it was really thought provoking so I figured I'd share it with everyone.


"Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends and integrity. And you're keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls- family, health, friends, integrity- are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered. And once you truly understand the lesson of the five balls, you will have the beginnings of balance in your life."

I want to thank everyone who voted for my cover for Changeling in the book cover contest. The results are in and I'm happy to say I came in a very close second place. Apparently there were only a few votes separating 1st and 2nd place in the competition.
Here's the link with the results:

http://www.covercafe.com/contest/2007/AR-res07.html

Thanks again to everyone who voted!

-Tony

Hi Everyone,

I recently found out that the book cover I did for Changeling by Yasmine Galenorn is up for an award for best cover in the Alternate Reality category at www.covercafe.com. Among your busy web surfing on this monday afternoon please stop by there and cast a vote for me.

Thanks folks.

-Tony

http://www.covercafe.com/contest/2007/

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries about purchasing prints of my fantasy art, so myself and another artist friend of mine have just launched www.posterpimp.net. You can purchase signed prints of all of my fantasy art images there. These prints come direct from the artists, no middle man, no mark-ups. They are real nice photo quality 16x20 prints. Custom sizes are available also, you can email me for details.

Thanks and I hope you’ll all go over there and check it out.

-Tony

www.posterpimp.net

Hey folks,

As a lot of you already know I have been doing all of Yasmine Galenorn's book covers for her Sisters of the Moon series. (see below) Well, I just completed 2 more character images for Yasmine from the same series. The first is Maggie, a baby calico gargoyle that is featured in Yasmine's books. The second is Smoky the dragon in his human form, also featured in the Sisters of the moon books. Both posters are available on Yasmine's website.

http://www.galenorn.com/

stop by and check em' out.

Thanks, Tony

Hi Everyone,

I just posted another album in my pics section with a small handful of my movie poster designs. Some of them you will recognize and some you wont. The thing most people don't realize about the movie poster business is that the studio will look at easily over 300 posters before choosing one to market their film. For us designers more often than not our favorite designs end up on the cutting room floor so to speak. So I posted some of my favorites that I designed that never got chosen or seen the light of day. I marked the ones that were ultimately chosen and used for the film by putting the word 'FINISH" under it. That's an industry term we use for when a poster gets selected and goes through the finishing process and becomes the poster for the film.

As always I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thanks for looking, Tony