"The Basilisk" Classic Fantasy Illustration for June 2020: Drawing and Concept Art (Patreon)

Thank you to everyone who voted in our poll for this month's Classic Fantasy Illustration! The Basilisk narrowly edged out the competition by just one vote! So that will be this month's illustration. 

Here is my concept art for the image thus far:

Story-wise, this image is loosely related to the St. George legend. A village is offering sacrifices to this creature in the belief that it is a god and will give them a plentiful harvest or stave off natural calamities. So there will be a lot of allusions to that civilization and this practice in the scene through totems and carvings. The goal is to capture the horror and tragedy of this practice, but also, to communicate a bit of why people could be might be taken in by such a belief by making the creature so incredible and powerful-looking. At its core, it is a problem that will take the light of science and reason to solve, just as much as it will take a warrior willing to confront it. I want there to be a tension between these things in the final image and I want it to be a challenge to the viewer. (Let's see if we can manage it!)

The location is based on a place I visited when backpacking near Glacier National Park almost 10 years ago now, and have been looking for a chance to use ever since! So I am really eager to get into painting the background and environment.  Color work coming soon! And if all goes well, we will be painting a bit of it on Twitch later this week.   

As for next month!: 

Next month will be Castle's Fall and we will work from there. So don't despair if your vote didn't win! I really want to do some of the others here as well and we will be getting to a lot of these in the coming months (possibly as bonus content!)