Here it is! The cover for my first of three books of monsters being published by Lethe Press. You can here preorder on the Lethe Press site. If you know my work you won't be surprised to find a skeleton wizard with their familiar summoning a basilisk in this illustration. The serpents surrounding the wizard are all featured in the book: the Norse Jörmungandr, the Greek Python, the Mayan Kukulcan and the Phrygian Sabazios. The creeps at the bottom are a Ghoul based on a description from Ahmed Al-Rawi's The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture, the Egyptian Goddess of war Sekhmet and a Russian demon or chort.
The overall layout was inspired by the medieval bestiary Wonders Of Creation by Zakariya al-Qazwini and, like many of my pieces, Kabbalah tree of life diagrams....there's a little Jack Kirby in there too :)
I'm really excited about this book and I've maybe been TOO excited. I've redrawn a bunch of monsters and even a few brand new ones for it. I also had a bit of a block with the cover and it took me a long time to get started but once I broke through and finished it I was extremely happy with it. It may be one of my favorite illustrations I've done. Anyway, I hope you guys preorder it and share the hell out of the cover!
