Dregoth At the Gates

I was contacted in early December by the folks at Athas.org [link] to create a cover for their release of the first part of the long awaited, "lost" Dark Sun adventure: Dregoth Ascendling. This piece is the result of two weeks of work, under a deadline (that happened to coincide with my finals for the semester). I utilized Photoshop and my Intuos tablet, as well as some work in Poser for something to sketch character poses from.

The illustration depicts the undead dragon-king, Dregoth -- his skeletal form is cloaked by illusions -- near the gates of the city-state of Raam. He is drawing the life-energy from some of the city's citizens he and his army have captured, and some of his dray stand nearby, watching and cheering. To really tie this to the game world, I placed Athas' black sun and two moons in the sky above (and yes, Athas' sky is olive-colored). The city wall you can see stretching into the background was inspired by actual middle-eastern architecture.

I am actually quite happy with this piece, even though I feel it doesn't have the same vague sort of abstraction to it of many of my other pieces. It is, possibly, one of the most realist-method pieces I have ever done, mainly because I initially went the abstracted route and the producer did not like the look for the project. (If there is interest, I can put the abstract base up for perusal as a scrap.)