Commissioned interior illustration for "The Caves of D'Anath" ~ author Bill Johnson.
At the end of IlluXCon 2010, where I was an exhibitor, I heard through the grapevine that author, Bill Johnson, was looking to commission fantasy artists for an upcoming glossy, hardback, high quality art book, heavy on imagery. The story involves the women of an alternate Earth-like world needing to come together to prevent an ecological disaster. These groups of 3 women each would travel from far flung places with varying climates and bring their dragons and their dogs to a central location whereby they would collaborate to solve the problem. I was really intrigued by the feminist premise of the tale and I sought out to meet the author, Bill Johnson, and his partner, Diana Johnson. I told them I’d heard about their project and was really excited about it and asked if I could be considered for it.
The really fascinating aspect of the project was that each artist was assigned a particular real cultural group to research. However, the artist was free to imagine and create a little story or mini-drama within the broader storyline. This gave the artists free rein within the story parameter to make the image as interesting as possible (I mean, women, dogs, and dragons!) and that extra input gave the author more ideas with which to develop the story.
But the actual meeting event would be a bit different since it would include as many different kinds of physiological types, ethnicities, and cultures of people, dog breeds, dragon types as I could possible cram into one image. And it would require a whole lot more research and time to develop. And so, this piece, The Meeting, was discussed, designed, and created within a year. Bill and Diana were very helpful to my envisioning this juncture in the story line.
Some of the art had already been created for the book and so I needed to at least approximate the look of some of the dragons and people. And I enjoyed putting the elder women at the center; varying skin tones, costumes, and such.
I’ll update this post when I find out when it’s due to be published!
(PS You get extra bonus points if you can spot the woman who’s pregnant.)