This cover was painted a few months ago for Jaron Osiar’s Southern Alliance, the third book in their Vastus series. It was great to come back to a series for which I’d already painted a cover (Dragon Warriors, the second book): the main character also featured on the cover, but her dragon was barely visible in the background… now he’s bigger, and he’s ready for some acrobatic flying!

At the author’s request, this illustration was inspired by traditional fantasy paintings, with a battle between a dragon and dragon rider and a swarm of pterosaurs flying between the clouds. I don’t get to paint dragons fighting pterosaurs very often (for some unexplained reason), but it made my little nerdy heart so happy