Swords Against! sword & sorcery fiction magazine is LIVE on Backerkit right now. Go show your support and share it with anyone you think would appreciate some great sword & sorcery fantasy fiction.
I’ve followed Rick Hershey for years. His clear and active style is beautiful and iconic, but what trips the switches for me is the depth of the characters – each one is unique. Facial expressions, actions, and even the small things hanging from their belts or in the background. Every one of his images tells a story. A story that you want to imagine yourself in.
I tapped Rick to do the cover of our first issue of Swords Against! because I knew we also had some unique characters. Oh sure, they’re archetypes you’ve read in other stories, seen in movies, and maybe even played in a game, but each one of the characters in our stories will surprise you. And you’ll want to imagine yourself beside them.
I’ve probably raved enough about Dariel’s Orhan Timur, but he’s the subject of the cover – dashing through a marketplace, hand-in-hand with some heroine, facing off against yet another group that’s trying to kill him.
Rick did a fantastic job of capturing the action, emotion, and feel of this scene (and it’s just a sketch!).
Sketch by Rick Hershey
