Les Edwards | Dragonslayer-Network

Commissioned by Transworld for their reprint of the Corgi paperback edition of this novel by Anne McCaffrey

A private commission for my fencing buddy and frustrating opponent Kurshid Kahn, a D&D gamer. The characters represent members of his gaming group and I wanted to put a portrait of Kurshid in the painting but he wouldn't let me. I had fun with this one.

Cover for a novella by Steven Erikson and published by PS Publishing.

Commissioned by Transworld for their reprint of the Corgi paperback edition of this novel by Anne McCaffrey

Spot artwork used on the cover of a novel by Chris Wooding, published by Scholastic.

Cover for the UK edition of the Anne and Todd McCaffrey novel, the third in the series. Published by Bantam. In this illustration for the Pern novel I've made a few alterations to the dragon based on comments from Todd McCaffrey and several Pern fans. Can you see what they are yet?

Cover for a collection of stories by Ian R. LacLeod published by PS Publishing. The book cover doesn’t have the monster on the left hand side which is nothing to do with the story. I added it later as I felt that there was a rather large, empty area there. I was surprised at how much it changed the picture, giving it an improved sense of depth.

This was commissioned by the US publisher and consequently used on the UK edition. I think it has a slightly different, more decorative feel to some of the previous Pern covers that I've painted, due in part to the arrangement of the dragons. I'm not sure if this is an accident or is because of a difference in approach between UK and US Art Directors. Also used on the US Audio book.

copyright © Les Edwards, 2004 Cover for the new novel in the Pern series by Todd McCaffrey, published by Bantam in the UK and by Del Rey in USA. Todd McCaffrey takes over from Anne for this novel. This idea came to me quite quickly and the Art Director let me run with it. Although there's a lot of work in it it's still a simple image which adds to the drama.

A personal piece. Used on German book cover and on the US DAW cover for My Favorite Fantasy Story, edited by Martin H. Greenberg. Also used by the Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery as a poster to advertise their Fantasy Art Exhibition in 2001.

This is the artwork for the most recent Pern novel by Todd McCaffrey, commissioned by Del Rey in the USA and used by Bantam in the UK. My original sketch had the dragon facing the other way but the Art Editor asked me to turn him round. I was rather dubious but it turned out he was quite right and the eventual illustration is much more dramatic.

copyright © Les Edwards, 2000 Hardcover and paperback cover for latest Pern book in the series by Anne McCaffrey. Published by Corgi. If someone offers you the job of painting the cover of an Anne McCaffrey book you don’t really say no. I was pleased with the sense of drama and the author was very complimentary about it.

This artwork was commissioned by Orbit and only used for the first printing of this book by Chris Bunch. Orbit then commissioned another artwork for future printings

A personal piece. Used on the promotional material for a Fantasy Art Masters exhibiton at Blackburn Art Gallery. I don’t know where this image came from. I suppose it harks back to Fairy Tales and the great victorian illustrators. I daresay a Giant lives here.

copyright © Les Edwards, 1998 Paperback cover for a book by Barbara Hambly, published by Voyager. Sequel to Dragonsbane. When the illustrator of the first book was unavailable I jumped at the chance to do this. The challenge in painting a creature that is totally imaginary is to keep a sense of animation and I like the way this dragon looks as if he's going somewhere. I had a lot of fun with the background too.

copyright © Les Edwards, 2004 Commissioned by Gollancz for the 2005 Terry Pratchett Discworld Calendar. For some reason I don’t often get to paint animals so this was an unusual excursion for me. The bat hanging in the doorway was a last minute addition.

copyright © Les Edwards, 2001 Hardcover and paperback cover for a book by Mark Chadbourn, published by Gollancz. I tried hard to make the wings on this dragon look as if they actually worked and to keep the beast animated. The cathedral in the background is part of the story too. As you can probably guess I'd just bought a book on Gothic Architecture.

Cover for a novel in the Pern series by Anne and Todd McCaffrey and published by Bantam in the UK. I started out with the idea of making this look like a WWII dogfight but the dragons just wouldn't stay in formation!

Cover for an omnibus of two books in Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series (Dragonsdawn and The Chronicles of Pern: First Fall). The artwork was commissioned and published by The Science Fiction Book Club in the USA. The publisher gave me a completely free hand with this as long, of course, that it showed a dragon. As it does not illustrate any particular story, I just tried to make it as dramatic as possible.