These two illustrations were killers! I’m really excited about both - I decided to do the last one as a kind of two-page spread grand finale.
Adrian Ryan's Island Ruckus:
Adrian had a vision of two warring parties of elves, and was inspired by ACKS non-traditional setting to give them a Polynesian flair. And by flair, I mean some really specific and informed references and a good amount of background. I should put more of his info here but my brain is buzzing after a full day of inking… Trust me, it was a pretty epic order - thanks Adrian!
Mark Nagel's Thief Lord:
This one, being the last Visionary Illo, became my finale piece. It was a big order so I made it a two-page spread - you need to click on it to see more of the detail. Mark had the idea of showing a Thieves’ Guild Boss/Crime Lord character overlooking ‘his’ city whilst all kinds of hijinks are taking place in small frames superimposed on the landscape. This has been one of my personal favorite aspects of ACKS and thought it would also be an excellent tip-o-the-hat to the designers, just for kicking butt and all. Excellent!!! This is definitely my new favorite, though it and the last one about killed me.
So - I think that’s it for Visionary Illos - I’ll do one last check to see if there are any that were lost or wandered off or just haven’t contacted me, but I’m fairly certain everyone has at least been contacted. Now on to the rest of the art! There will be a lot of smaller illustrations fleshing out the rest of the book which I won’t be posting here - so if you like what you’ve seen so far, pre-order and you’ll get more when the book is done! The rest of the art won’t take as long as these full-pagers, so I’m hoping to churn out a lot before I run out of time. Thanks everyone!