Like any self-respecting admirer of Celtic myth and legend, I was of course eager to have a go at depicting Cernunnos, the antlered god. (I often sit with one of my (many) books on the subject and look longingly at the reproductions of the Gundestrup Cauldron and other Celtic paraphernalia. La Tène, by the way, is just a few miles down the lake. The site is now occupied by a rather commonplace campground, alas.) I also admit to considerable influence from fantasy author Robert Holdstock and his revisitings of traditional Celtic mythos.

Occasionally I’m lucky enough to have a real person and a character in a book coincide. The real Tom Badgerlock was a strongman in a travelling street circus in the South of France. When he had finished breathing fire, breaking chains and rolling on broken glass, I asked if I could take some photos. Several years later, when illustrating covers for Robin Hobb, everything fell into place: I had my Tom Badgerlock.

This painting was originally planned for an illustrated retelling of Beowulf, but I ran late and out of time, and an existing illustration was dropped in and sent off to proof. I was so eager to do the picture I proposed it as a case study for the Fantasy Art Workshop. (In the end, it actually did make it into the Beowulf book, just under the wire. That doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a moral to the story, by the way – meeting deadlines properly is by far the best policy.)