THE WARRIOR LAIRD

This piece was done for Avon Books and very little information was given to me about the story, other than hair color, time period and location. This is hardly unusual. I did a bunch of small pencil sketches that tried out different designs. The blowing dress became a theme I wanted to go with. When we photographer the models, I had fans blowing so the dress moved, but not enough. So I had an assistant fan the dress out with her hand to make it look like it was blowing. Truthfully, I had to make it uo, as well as their blowing hair. People ask how much like the models the finished piece looks and I have to tell them, not much. I handle digital painting like I did when these covers were all oil paintings.

I wanted this image to have a wild, dramatic  look and placed them almost in the raging surf on the shores of Scotland. It's all misty around them, an unearthly light the color of fine scotch. I gave the girl the palest of complexions , to contrast with the more ruddy man. It's hard to see in the small version, but a lot of research went into his clothing. I like to be accurate with costume whenever I'm allowed to be, because it makes the image more interesting to have people dressed correctly for the period. THere is a convention in the romance cover industry that always had the guys in either open  or half-off shirts, or no shirt, black pants and high boots. Men hardly ever dressed that way, unless they were in a boxing match or were laborers.

I always try to convey genuine feeling between the two people and give the image a sense of timelessness.