This is a piece of art I drew as a tribute to one of my favourite books of all time: Running with the Demon by Terry Brooks. Running with the Demon, which was first published in 1997, centres on Nest Freemark, a young girl in 90s America, who finds herself in the middle of a supernatural battle between good and evil. I guess it can be best described as a dark urban fantasy, as it has elements of both magic and horror. The story can get bogged down in overly-meticulous detail once in a while, but I think its great strength (which I believe is true for all of Mr Brooks‘ books) is its wonderfully fleshed-out characters, in particular Nest herself.

I’ve seen several covers for Running with the Demon, but as far as I’m aware, only one (from the Japanese edition) actually features a prominent illustration of Nest. I guess that is what initially inspired me to draw this mock cover. I did the rough sketch a few months ago, but I only finished it last week so that I could submit it to Shannara Con, an online event for Mr Brooks that took place last week, The organizers of Shannara Con asked people to send in fan art that would potentially be used during the con itself, but since I was unable to watch the livestream, I don’t know if my artwork was used or not.