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The Sir Niles Gallery

Justifiable arachnaphobia! I am terrified of spiders; Jen knows this and I think she had just a bit too much fun with the First Quest. This is how ALL spiders look to me. The picture is a composite of a painting of a tarantula, a sword from an ad in a magazine, and the cover painting of Sword & Sorcery, a terrific little fantasy fiction magazine (despite the name) which is published 4 times a year, not nearly often enough. And, of course, DHP's patented look of shock. The idea is he heard the hissing and is just about to turn round and discover it's source. I like this sort of storytelling in a picture better than someone flat-out charging at a monster.
This is the most complicated composite I've done so far, with 20 sepreate layers (counting the airbrushing as one layer). You wouldn't beleive how impossible it was to find a picture of a peasant - or a pig! I ended up cutting out two textures and warping them around the figure to simulate sack cloth. This is a nice, depressing, gray picture in an environemnt about as far away from Niles's normal haunts as you can get.
Dragonslayer Along with Bed of Roses, this is one of my favorites. The dragon is cobbled together from 4 different paintings by 3 different artists. I replaced the figure's head with DHP's, even though he's looking away - that bradycephalic little blonde head is unmistakeable. The Awakening is also, I think, one of my favorite parts of the story, even though it meant the end of our wonderful collaboration.
Sir Niles in armor, with his charger. I chose this woodcut to use because the armor matched almost exactly what I pictured Niles wearing and described in the text. It's state of the art, circa the 11th century. There was originally someone riding the horse who had to be painted out. I also altered the soldier's face so it would look more like Niles, altho you can hardly tell.
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