Focus on Cover Art
by Zabet Stewart

Philip Castlen is one of my favorite artists, and not just because he's the GM for one of the roleplaying games I'm involved in or because he's married to my friend, LYS owner, and fellow AntiCrafter Robyn Wade. (Full disclosure much?) However, due to the fact that I happen to spend a lot of time hanging out in his house, I've had a lot of time to look at his paintings and sketches and let them ferment in the back of my brain.

I love his insane attention to detail; the almost wood-block print style of his illustration; his unabashed willingness to be creepy, surreal, grotesque, and silly (often all in the same piece); and I admire that he won't do what he loves for money. So here is Philip's amazingly fantastic original artwork for the cover of this issue (click the small version to embiggen). The actual piece is quite large and had to be shrunk on a photocopier to fit our scanner bed, but you can still see tons of detail.

Thank you, Philip, for sharing with us.