At last... from the beginning of "The frost monstreme"

After e long wait, some penciled pages (first 9) of a brief "introduction" from the beginning of "The frost monstreme", the story that will take our adventurers out of Lankhmar to the icy seawaves around a certain northern legendary island...
In the end y0u'll note a new, more "tuned" version of charming Lady Cif, while Afreyt remained very similar to the initial sketches.
As for our heroes, artist Giuliano Giunta opted for a slight deformed version that he found more coherent with the picaresque beginning of the story, a version to be later "straightened" according the thematic changes.

On rogues, girls, monsters and vices...

After a long break (my so-called artist has to earn his living for the winter...) , here few more sketches of the facetious kind. Stay tuned: you'll hear from us soon (with more serious stuff!). Sorry for the "photocopied" quality of the last image. On it's way on the inking table...

Monster fighting sketches

I told my artist F & GM aren't quite the Conan type, but he won't hear me on that (I'll need to use the scourge on his back again!)

Ladies don't make faces...

Some very early and rough head studies for Lady Afreyt and Lady Cif from Salthaven. They'll need much refining (especially Cif, in my opinion). To catch on paper the vivid charisma and true appeal of these two feminine mirror images of Fafhrd (Afreyt) and The Gray (Cif) won't be easy at all...

Afreyt











... and Cif

In search of inspiration

Trying to get my eyes on all valuable iconographic sources on Leiber's duo I can manage to find (better scans, rarities, link suggestions and any such material more than welcome).

Two oniric covers by master illustrator Karel Thole (for the italian edition by Editrice Nord)














A complete series of "covers" by Andreas Martens (the images are linked from Dossier Andreas , a very rich site on this great german artist, father of Rork, Capricorne and Cromwell Stone


























Covers by Mike "seven wonders" Mignola, realized (along with some interior art I couldn't get my hands on yet...) for the White Wolf edition

Playing backgammon...

The curse of the smalls and the stars is one of my favourite stories, as you can easily guess...

The grey clad fencer-thief from Lankhmar...

Some early sketches of the Mouser.

I know... Leiber never wrote about The Grey having such errolflynnish facial hair features. True enough is that his heroes, during their adventures, had changed their look a lot (shaving bald, gaining and loosing weight, growing beard and moustache, loosing a hand...). Maybe we'll shave him later...

The northern barbarian from the Cold Wastes...

Some early sketches of Fafhrd.

In the beginning there was The Silver Eel...

"I am tired, Gray Mouser, of these little brushes with Death," Fafhrd the Northerner said, lifting his dinted, livid goblet and taking a measured sup of sweet ferment of grape laced with bitter brandy. "Want a big one?" his comrade scoffed, drinking likewise. Fafhrd considered that, while his gaze traveled slowly yet without stop all the way round the tavern, whose sign was a tarnished and serpentine silver fish. "Perhaps," he said. "It's a dull night," the other agreed.
[from The frost monstreme]

A work in progress. Hopefully our friends at Dark Horse will take notice and smile at us. All sketches and drawings by artist Giuliano Giunta. The guy's very talented but yet too dumb to propose himself seriously to some publisher... Till he put some salt in his head, I'll continue to use him as a skillful drawing extension of my own (and Leiber's) imagination. More sketches to come...