I recently came across a sheaf of character concept drawings that Russ Nicholson did for my gamebook Heart of Ice. I thought these were as lost as one of those Patrick Troughton episodes of Doctor Who that the BBC wiped to make room for Some Mothers Do 'Ave Em, but then they turn up in a video library in Hong Kong. (Metaphorically, I mean. In this case, they were actually under a pile of dusty old Dragon Warriors posters in my attic.)This concept stage is typical of the meticulous level of work that Russ puts into a project. Many artists would just send you the illustrations they were paid to do, but Russ takes the trouble to nail the costumes, architecture, etc. And the finished work stands as testimony to that care and attention he puts in, making him surely the pre-eminent illustrator of fantasy and science fiction gamebooks. Anybody who wants to argue with that is going to have to take it up with the redoubtable Sikh warrior Vajra Singh and his mantramukta cannon. Rather you than me.
