What Remains – (unpublished – acrylic on Gessoboard) – As much as Hell is a place of unrelenting horror and savagery it is, too, a place of sadness. A tangle of streets beyond count, the city’s arteries are clogged with work-gangs of souls and demons of every description.

Built to commemorate those lost in the War with Heaven it also serves as the headquarters for Dis’ military. Sargatanas – (from Barlowe’ Inferno, acrylic on ragboard) – A former seraph and now a Brigadier General and Demon Major of enormous power, Sargatanas was a hero in Lucifer’s War with Heaven. Though corrupted, the Fallen Demons are angels still, aspiring to grace and beauty even in their exile. The visual idiom that I created in this piece, from the colors to the archi-organic forms to the look of the demons, has found its way into nearly every subsequent Hell painting I’ve done.

And so in this art, in the horror and cruelty and disregard of the sacred human soul, there is still beauty and striving.

And I also wanted to let the paint, itself, flow a little more freely to enhance the sense of dynamism this character has always had in my mind. The only solution that satisfied my world’s internal logic was to riff on the concept behind Agares’ steed as depicted in the INFERNO book. At its center rears Prince Beelzebub’s Dome, the largest domed structure in Hell, beneath which is its feared Rotunda, the Prince’s audience chamber.

These float about, sometimes leaving the city’s wards entirely, making their way into the darkness of the Wastes where they are never seen again.