Release date: 2.09.10 - Robert E. Howard's Desert Adventures featuring El Borak, Kirby O'Donnell, and Steve Clarney is a book I'm massively excited about. I contributed near 70 illustrations in glorious, powerful black and white for this edition which also features brand new paintings by Jim and Ruth Keegan. The Desert Adventures is the stuff of great passion for me, pulp adventure in the grandest sense, penned by the MASTER of the craft. Howard is also the creator of Conan, Solomon Kane, King Kull, and the dark King of the Picts, Bran Mak Morn.
I was very fortunate when searching for a model to portray El Borak, the always accommodating star of Hung, Stander, The Mist, and The Punisher, Thomas Jane himself answered the call and donned the khakis (even put spurs to a horse!) in service to our undertaking. The photo shoots themselves were a blast of epic proportions. Hopefully that shows in the illustrations. The book itself is littered with them. Click the link above and check it out. Grab your scimitar, your Lee Enfield rifle, and the trusty steed of your choosing and come join us won't you?
Whooo boy!
My favorite era, favorite mileu, favorite artist, favorite author.
Posted by: Jim Cornelius | January 23, 2010 at 08:24 PM
Rock on! You humble me, Sir. Hope you dig the book when it comes out. One thing I know for sure is that the stories are absolute dynamite!
Posted by: Timbradstreet | January 23, 2010 at 10:26 PM
Oooooooo. I can't wait. I love the El Borak stories. Your illos should change how people look at them for years...Fantastic. (Man, I gotta go lay down.)
Posted by: Bob Garcia | January 24, 2010 at 08:25 AM
Tim, please tell me you didn't ink that horse using only hatching and cross-hatching. I've been looking at this image for the past hour and I've come to the conclusion that its the only way you could have created those small white spaces on the image.
Am I right?
Posted by: J.E.Cole | January 24, 2010 at 12:14 PM
I am really psyched for this collection for 2 reasons, far as I know Tim hasn't really done to much of Howard's stuff and I've never read ANY of Howard's Arabian adventures! Sweet looking stuff!
Posted by: Patrick J. Kennedy | January 24, 2010 at 08:30 PM
@ J.E. - The very wispy textures that look like blowing sand are created from a texture I cooked up by swiping gesso on a thick board. Scanned it, then inverted (reversed) it, then screened the gessoed texture over the piece. So there is a digital layer on this. The rest of the fat hatch, crosshatch, white strokes and dry-brush stuff is all a part of the actual illustration.
The screened texture added a unique atmosphere to the desert images. I wanted a layer of chaff to add guts to the environment and this was how I solved it graphically ;)
Posted by: Timbradstreet | January 25, 2010 at 09:54 PM
I just received this book and what a wonderful surprise! A complete collection of El Borak stories is great to begin with, since Gordon is one of Howard's most interesting characters, but you've presented a fresh interpretation that really brings them alive. Fantastic stuff!!
Posted by: John Mercer | March 10, 2010 at 05:09 PM
I like the bare-headed look on El Borak. He's often shown with some sort of headwrap, a burnoose or even a pith helmet and it has never quite looked right to me. Can't remember what the texts have to say about his headgear but he looks good without a hat.
Posted by: Michael Gage | March 11, 2010 at 05:27 AM
No one goes bare-headed when traveling in Afghanistan (or any desert), nor would men as desert-wise as El Borak or Kirby O'Donnell have done so....Nice work, though....
Posted by: Lowell | May 20, 2010 at 05:16 AM