David A CherryRoc FightImage size: approx. 16 x 12 inches
Framed size: approx. 26 x 22 inches
My good friend, Bill, (William B. Fawcett) hired me and our close mutual friend, Teresa Patterson, to help him create a coffee table book, The World of Shannara (2000), as a guide to the works and worlds created by Terry Brooks. Teresa, who had written The World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, was to research, collate, and write this new "World of" book, and I was to illustrate it. Roc Fight is one of the interior illustrations for the book. It shows a lone Roc rider in desperate combat with an ambush of enemy Shrike cavalry, like three dimensional chess, Shannara style.
My sister knew how much I wanted to leave legal practice and become an illustrator. She wanted to encourage me and created a situation to do that. The great and kind Donald M. Grant had approached Carolyn to do a novella for him. She offered him Ealdwood - on condition that I have a chance to audition to do the interior art and the cover. He accepted me, I did the work, and I was hooked. I loved doing it and wanted to get better so I could attract more work of that kind. Later, DAW Books asked Carolyn to expand Ealdwood into a trilogy. The first novel was to be called The Dreamstone. Having done Ealdwood, I wanted my vision of Arafel on the cover, so I did an unsolicited painting and sent it to DAW. To my surprise, they used it.
Daughter was the cover for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress Vol. X. My assignment was to depict a professional warrior, admirable, but truly deadly. Unfortunately, my model had never handled a sword. She weilded it like a tennis racket. So, I put her in fencing gear and taught her about swordplay. A quick study, she was soon scoring points against me. On a break in the action, she relaxed into the pose you see, comfortable with the blade, proud of herself, and self confident. I took up my camera and said, "OK, now look me in the eyes and lean toward me. Look like you mean it." It was perfect. Jennifer, my favorite model - she always got it done.
Image size: approx. 15x22 inches
Frame size: approx. 22x29 inches
Medium: acrylic on gessoed double thick watercolor board
Copyright 1994 David A Cherry
Beginning at around age 12, David was an avid fan of the stories of Andre Norton. His favorite publisher to work for was The Science Fiction Bookclub. They allowed David to exercise his artistic judgment and also allowed a fair amount of time within which to complete each project. So David was doubly thrilled when the art director of Science Fiction Bookclub called to say that they were preparing to bundle three Witch World Stories into one volume (to be called The Annals Of The Witchworld) and that they wanted David to do the cover. This was a dream come true for David, so he quickly agreed.
Image size: approx. 20 x 15 inches
Framed size: approx. 29 x 23 inches
This was the original artwork that was done for Thor for Ensemble Studio's game Age of Mythology. At 6pm Thursday, evening, I learned that we would lose the cover and large interior article of an important magazine if I could not deliver a top quality painting by 9am the following Monday. Because of that, I forwent the background and went straight into drawing the character himself, based on the Thor sketch that was done by my fellow art team member Mark Sinclair. This is why the sky that he is usually seen against is not in the painting here. I put in over 80 billable hours, but it got done on time, and in splendid fashion.
