The Evolution of Shadowtail's Appearance

Shadowtail's Illustration

The illustrious bad guy in The Ghost of Crow Cavern is Shadowtail. He is power hungry, ruthless and seemingly without compassion or empathy for others.

Your colony is now ours and we shall endeavour to use you and your resources to enrichen the imperial spoils of the Grey Empire

So, it was important that this character was illustrated in a way that represented him as the demonic character he is. The appearance of Shadowtail on the front cover of the book is nothing like what we imagined.

The image of Shadowtail is used on the front cover of the book but is nothing like I imagined him to look like. In this image illustrated by the publishers Shadowtail looks cute and would probably be a fitting image for Cheswick but definitely not our main villain. 

We accepted the publisher's efforts as we were keen to get the book onto the market and our plan was to bring out a second version of the book which would be fully illustrated.

So, it was left for us to find someone who would be capable of illustrating Shadowtail that would come close to the images of him that were in our minds.

For this we turned to Klibby www.instagram.com/klibby.art

This was Klibby's first depiction. We had to have some kind of start off point.  The clothes were too regal and his face although giving a distrustful expression did not show the emotional battle scars which Shadowtail has. But a great start off point.

Klibby's second depiction made a huge jump towards what we wanted. In this image Shadowtail has more pointed ears, he bears a scar across his left eye and has a more sinister snout. His clothes have become less regal.

In the latest illustration below. Shadowtail's scars now have worsened. He looks very dark and sinister. His ears are devilishly pointed and his posture is bent over and he is thin and sinewy.

Shadowtail is the darkest and most corrupted of characters. Is the above illustration sinister enough?