The Windrider Saga

This is the final cover for Rebecca Minor's Windrider series.  That's her beautiful mug on the bottom left.  Becky contacted me and asked if I would be interested in creating a cover for the last book in her trilogy.  She said "Dragon" and I said "Dragon?  Yes please!"

Long story short...Becky and I were college roommates.  We were both RA's.  That's right, the ones who busted people for smokin' in the dorms.  Anyway, I remember several nights working on my illustration homework and hearing her lead DandD games with friends.  I got a kick watching the group transform and become so excited over a multisided die.  But then again I WAS hopped up on caffeine and inhaling turp in the other room so at that point anything would have been funny.

I jumped on the chance to work with Becky and to work with my first dragon.  It was a fun project and I really enjoyed sculpting and painting the dragon.  It's still on my studio desk watching every move I make.  Here's a close up of his pretty red nose....

This last book is a compilation of all three stories and will be available in print on February 29th.  I'll update with a link when it is on Amazon but for now you can click here and here for her first two ebooks.  Go ahead and get it for your kindle or ipad....you know you want to.

Good Old Dragon Maquette

Plasticine maquette for book cover project

I built this plasticine maquette in order to understand how light would fall on a dragon.  I started with a thick armature, wrapped tin foil around it, wrapped smaller wires around the tin foil so the plasticine wouldn't slip and then started adding the plasticine.  The wings are wires, hot glue and fabric (and my hands).  As I was working I realized that it became too heavy for my Styrofoam pyramid to sustain.  I went into the basement and pulled out a pasta drying rack and disassembled the horizontal rods in order to use the main pole as a base.

When I lit it I got some lovely lights and shadows that I never could have made up.  It didn't take too long (about 2 and 1/2 movies) and saved me loads of time in the long run.  I'll be posting the final illustration upon it's book release date which is in about a week or so.

Everything maquette I learned from James Gurney's blog and Joe Devito's Illuxcon lecture.  Masters I tell you!