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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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