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This was the cover for Dragon Magazine #113, from September 1986. The original was oil on masonite, 17x22 inches.
Back then, the cover wasn't required to have anything to do with the content. We just painted whatever we felt like painting, and hoped the art director would like it.
This particular image had been haunting me for years, so I got two of my friends, Tom and Leslie, to pose for me, and got it out of my system.
By the way, I had to paint that sword several times. I kept doing it, and it kept coming out as a dagger, not a sword, so I would scrape the paint off the gesso and paint it again. After the third or fourth time, I finally figured out that the problem was the guard was too small! So I made it bigger, and that one was successful.
I'm sorry; we are currently out of this print. I'll be putting it up in my Zazzle store soon. If you need one, let me know (information is below) and I'll put one up there, on whatever you would like to see it on. Thanks for understanding, as we go through this transitional phase.