Magic mirror - sketch 1

This is a rough sketch that was done for the new 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The illustrations for these books were commissioned by publishers Wizards of the Coast.

First they send me a description of what the picture should look like and from that I prepare a sketch. The text for this picture said that an elven wizard is looking into a magical mirror where he see a dragon in its lair. However when the art director saw the sketch she said that the dragon should not know that he is being watched and so this compostion would not work. This is why the sketch stage exsists - so any problems can be corrected before starting on the final painting. I obviously try and get things right first time but being flexable and making changes is all part of the job of being a freelance illustrator.

You can see how the final image turned out in my main gallery [link] .The format also changes so that it was a more horizontal image.