At the Gates of Winter is based on the Angel of Winter, Attaris - a cold beauty that waits in a silent snowfall to unleash the frigid cold upon the earth. I wanted to capture that half-human, half-angel look that comes to mind when you think of angels, except darken it up a bit - not warm and caring, but cold and frigid, with a tinge of humanity mixed in.

After coming through a busy personal holiday season, I was anxious to start a new piece. I happened across a model named Julie (xjuliex.com) and was hooked on her look. Distance modeling can be tough, because you're dealing with models and photographs and not ever truly being able to direct a photoshoot - it can be limiting. In this case, fashion photographer Rick Opiola (check out curveshots.com for absolutely stunning photography work.) had taken some very good photographs that had a lot of potential, and he was gracious enough to trust me with his work. The end result is this piece that was inspired by the bitter cold winter these past few weeks.

This piece was a perfect example of my artwork creating a life of it's own. I started this piece without really knowing the direction I was going. After working with images and colors, it began to take shape, and it took off from there. Quite often I illustrate with a specific topic, but never knowing exactly how it's going to turn out. I had no idea where I was starting with this piece, and what kind of story I was going to tell - but that makes it for an interesting illustration, one that I had a lot of fun with.

I hope everyone can take a few minutes and have a look around at Julie's site (xjuliex.com) and Rick Opiola's site (curveshots.com) - you won't be disappointed!