The inspiration for this painting was to go back to my childhood days of D&D and fantasy novels. I’ve always wanted to paint a classic group portrait of fantasy characters, and since I’m not getting any younger, I thought I’d do it before I completely lose interest in old childhood fancies. The characters are partially in the shadows because the story I had written for them depicts them as villains in the beginning, but as the story progresses, we learn that none of them are evil, and all had noble reasons for doing what seemed to be unethical things. In the end, what people thought as evil deeds they were doing turned out to be drastic measures to restore justice and avenge the innocent--and overnight, they went from being notorious villains to celebrated heroes. Once again, I used both Painter and Photoshop. The tutorial for this piece was published in the d'artiste: Digital Painting book that I've co-written with three other digital artists.

 

 

Some close-ups: