Most of my sketches for this cover dealt with the interrelationship between the protagonist Killashandra and the black crystals she has a special affinity for. Unlike my other concepts for this book, this scene features the protagonist, Killashandra, front and center, in an emotionally charged scene where she is transported into a sort of harmonic ecstasy via the black crystal.

The pose is interesting in its own right and, in fact, proved to be something of a challenge to the model I hired. As the position was extremely difficult to maintain, we resorted to photography in order to capture it in detail. Even so, she held the pose for a remarkably long time, and I imagine she had some stiff muscles the following day!