Commissioned interior illustration for "The Caves of D'Anath" ~ author Bill Johnson.
A delegation of Himba women, their companion Dogs, and their native wingless Dragon are enroute to an Earth conference to save the world from destruction. Here, the Dragon is cooking a small animal (a goat, perhaps?) for their evening supper. The Dogs, while slightly alarmed at the sudden fire activity will certainly stick around for some charbroiled chow.
Author, Bill Johnson, had a great idea for a book: to ask artists to contribute art with an imagined smaller story line that was not specified in the author’s writing. Essentially, to add a mini-drama idea within the broader story. This not only gave the artists a whole lot more flexibility to create really cool paintings of women! dragons! and dogs! but it also allowed the artists to become co-creators in the story, adding nuance and local color to the overall narrative.
After I completed The Meeting, Bill asked me if I’d create a second image for the book and I gladly said yes. We’d discussed the idea that in this alternate Earth-world, it is perhaps the dragons who taught humans how to use fire to cook food. A lot of scientific ideas, intriguing theories about early human history pepper the smaller stories within the trilogy.
People have noticed that I didn’t put wings on the Dragon. When I was drawing it, I really liked the snakelike curvature of the dragon’s back and the pinecone-like scales. It reminded me of a pangolin, a ground variety of anteater with scales which has a largeish range in northern Namibia, right where the Himba people live.
I’ll update this post when I find out more about the date of publishing this high color, glossy, hardback art volume(s).