By Jesper Ejsing

This illustration is for a special Magic card set, where you fight against a Hydra. I was asked to do a painting showing the moment right before you die. last thing you see are the multiple heads of the Hydra all fighting together, snapping right at you.

I love the hydra monster, but thought it was very important that the heads were very different. As if they have different aspects. One is more intelligent, one is for brute force and so on.

I turned the angle so that it you look up at it, as if you were already lying on the ground. I also chose to fill the whole frame with heads, cropping the ones at the edges to give the impression that they are so close you cannot see all of them.

I had one thing a bit different with this painting that perhaps is only something i notice. i painted this after having done a whole lot of digital artwork. Coming back to acrylic I felt very spontaneous and loose in painting the skin textures and sort of just threw the painting dots down. I experienced, that the freedom of digital painting seeped into my mind, fooling me into believing I could alway cover again or go back or whatever safety issues the digital technique has. It meant that the whole richness of the colors and texture of the painting came out much easier and more effortless than usually.

Unified Lunge, Magic the Gathering

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