Linares Dragon completed March 29th, 2002 I had only a very vague notion how I wanted this picture to look when I started on it. Basically, I wanted to draw a picture of an environment with characters in it. Prior to this all my pictures have been just focused on the characters depicted, and most of the backgrounds have simply been afterthoughts. After I'd drawn in the falls and the cliff with the tree, I didn't know where to go. Only after a series of rough sketches did I realize how much I wanted to draw a dragon. Not all was complete, though, I still needed someone on the cliff to be interacting with the dragon. I debated.... a brave knight? A powerful wizard? A dragon tamer of some sort? I put this drawing aside for a few months, when one day it came to me. I'd draw a man playing chess with the dragon. All that was left was deciding where to put the pieces... Ultimately I used a newspaper clipping my friend gave me. The setting of the pieces is from a game between Gary Kasparov and Michael Adams that took place in Linares, Spain. I know the pieces are barely visible, but I still get some satisfaction knowing that the game depicted is a real game. Okay, so I'm twisted like that. =) By the way, the dragon is playing Kasparov's position.