Behind-the-Illustration: The Three

“The Three were among the first dragons to walk the world. The Red is a living engine of destruction. The Blue is a sorceress, perhaps even the original mother of all sorcery. The Black is queen of shadows and assassins. Unlike the Great Gold Wyrm, who must fight alone, the Three have learned to join forces.”          –From the 13th Age icon teaser description.

Behold The Three digitally painted by Lee Moyer.  Not only are these mamas ancient, they are also enormous.  Look for the Where’s Waldo Priests for a sense of…”scale” (sorry).  This behind-the-illustration post gives you a much closer view of those guys, but they are ultimately inconsequential in comparison to the awesome majesty of The Three!

My pencil drawing (after receiving Lee’s request for plenty of “crunchy pencil detail.”)  You’ll notice that my choice of color for the dragons was different than the final.  Decisions, decisions – all part of the process!

And here’s the promised closeup of our dark priests, Larry, Curly and Moe:

As an extra bonus here’s an early thumbnail where I happened to accidentally not draw most of the dragons’ anatomy.  Hmm…you’d think I was hesitant to draw thousands of scales or something.  I haven’t confirmed this with Lee, but looking at this image and the final, it’s my guess that he may have appropriated this version of the Blue sorceress dragon in the final.  Ah, Process, you are the Black dragon cloaked in vague shadows until you strike as quickly and decisively as a deadly assassin!