Cockatrice

Here’s an illustration I did for a TV pilot. They’re not going to use it, though, so I think it’s safe to post it here. When the show goes to series and becomes terribly expensive and famous we can all remember that I am in no way a part of it.

The original is about 16″ x 24″ or so, and drawn with ink on textured paper. All those stains and variations in color are part of the actual paper itself, making the drawing a bit hard to accomplish. This is because there was a possibility that the drawing would appear on camera, and would have to appear to be a historical prop. Which, as I’ve mentioned, it was not.

Later, there was discussion about adding color to the piece, which I was fairly against doing. The piece had to look as though it was contemporary for about the 14th century. Options in those days would have been pen and ink, oil painting, or some tinted, watercolored print. So I went with the hues you see here. I totally cheated on the green – that would have been terribly expensive in those days. The rest of the colors would probably have been easy enough to come across.

Even so, the piece you see here is computer colored. The original is just pen and ink, and is now in the hands of my friend the producer, who lobbied long and hard to have it included! She will take MUCH better care of it than I would have.

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