The scene
Inspired by The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (1977), chapter 18. Fingolfin rides alone to the gates of Angband and calls the Dark Lord out to single combat. The giant looms out of the dark in a spiked iron crown, his face hidden but for two points of light, his great hammer trailing fire, and the tiny Elf-king stands his ground with shield and shining sword. An inspired-by print: nothing in it is taken from any film or game.
The style
A 17th-century Dutch drypoint after Rembrandt: needle-scratched lines, velvety burr, dense cross-hatching and plate tone, with the light left as bare, wiped paper. Black ink on cream, nothing else. Drypoint felt right for a scene that is almost all darkness.
The inspiration
After Rembrandt, The Three Crosses (1653), Metropolitan Museum of Art. I borrowed his technique and his famous beam of light falling through the dark. His crosses and crowds aren't here; the light falls instead on one small king.
How it's made
I design each scene and refine it until it feels right. It's a print of a digital artwork in the style of a Rembrandt drypoint, not a Rembrandt and not a hand-pulled original print. A typeset caption under the picture names the book, the scene and the work it follows. Each one carries my printed "Chapter & Scene" signature in the margin.