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January 2007

To Chain the Beast

by Justin Gerard

To Chain the Beast was featured in Spectrum 11, a collection of the best fantastic-themed artwork of the year. Justin painted the piece to illustrate the epic moment from Scripture when the angel binds the dragon — symbolizing Christ’s defeat of evil demonic forces.

¹Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. ²And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, ³and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

Revelation 20:1-3 (ESV)

In the Artist’s Words…

I have always been fascinated by the apocalyptic imagery from the book of Revelation. This is one of the pieces that I wished I could paint all through high school. When I began this piece I did about a dozen or so thumbnail sketches to work out in my head how the composition will flow and arrange the elements in a way that will be powerful and evoke a feeling of awe. Here, I wanted to convey the power between the two figures in the piece and the epic nature of this end of the world conflict. When I find a thumbnail I like, I do a slightly larger sketch only a few inches tall and colorize it with Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos3 tablet. At this stage I resolve most of color issues, light sources, and the balance of contrast. I also figure out what painting method I will use. For instance, for this painting I did the clouds first, then moved on to the shadows on the characters, then worked in the forms from dark to light (just as in traditional oil painting) and finally painted in the details. I gather a lot of reference materials to make sure the piece is convincing and that the details — such as the scales of the dragon, clouds in the background, and the armor for the angel — are correct. I wanted this piece to have the classical feeling and the warm toning of a painting from the Late Renaissance. The piece will change somewhat by the time it is completed, but will generally carry the feeling of that first thumbnail. If that first thumbnail is not inspiring to me, I end up wrestling with the piece during the whole project. More likely than not the results will not be inspiring either. The thumbnails are always closer to what is actually in my imagination than the final piece. It is an adventure for me every time I start a new piece. I know essentially where I want to go but the trip is often more fun than the destination. There is nothing like the feeling of being in the middle of a piece that is coming together. It’s like the waterfalls you stop at along the way to the top of the mountain.

This artwork has been made available through special licensing from Portland Studios.