There was that photo of Myles Kennedy (who sings with Slash these days) in a magazine and I thought that it made a good basis for Elric. So I did various sketches until I got the main drawing for this.
One of the sketches. Bit on the classical side.
The original photo can be seen here
The finished lineart. Trying to take things to the darker side... Caring less about being realistic.
I am still not really sure about the final result as such, I don't do photomanips usually except for texture because it's extremely hard to get right. And this seemed too much like cheating even to me who is open to all sort of creative meddling. But obviously it worked.
When Dave, who bought a print of this drawing told me it reminded him of Elric, I didn't even remember the whole process at first but then it came back to me and I was rather pleased to see that what was just dabbling in the dark actually made more sense than I had imagined.
Elric of Melniboné is one of these characters I keep going back to. Until last year I had only ever read one of the books. I must have been around 15 and it was my first contact with fantasy literature, I think (outside from graphic novels that had been shaping my world for a while already). But that character always haunted my brain and I've drawn him countless times.
Even more so after buying two of Rodney Matthews' art books when I was at Uni. If you are not familiar with his work you really should, he has done a lot of illustrations for his friend M. Moorcock, and my image of Elric is indissociable from his. No other illustrator has influenced me as directly as Rodney Matthews, even if it might not always show (I think it does).
Well here you go, sometimes these things take strange paths.
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