Illusion in the Desert Cover Art

And here we have it: "cover art" for my upcoming fanfiction, "Illusion in the Desert", co-written by the very very awesome .

I had a lot of fun drawing this, although it was still a ton of work and got to be tiring at times. But hey, it was worth it. Now for some general info about this picture (I'll try not to give any spoilers ).

Anyone who knows of the upcoming fanfic will know that the Rovers, along with an archeologist named Walter Vincent, are searching for the statue of Anubis, the Egyptian jackal god of death.

According to legend, Anubis would weigh the hearts of the dead on the "Scales of Justice" against an ostrich feather, which is supposed to depict Ma'at, the Egyptian goddess of truth. If the heart proved lighter than the feather, the person whom the heart belonged to would be brought into the next life. But if the heart was heavier than the feather, it would be devoured by Ammit, a creature who is half crocodile, half lion, and half hippo.

Now, concerning the pose of Anubis and Ammit in this picture, I was very much inspired by this picture of them: fc04.deviantart.net/fs70/f/201… Only I made a few obvious changes, such as Anubis' wardrobe (at first I considered putting him in a traditional Egyptian skirt of sorts, but then I thought, "What am I doing? I want him in a speedo!" And so, without resisting any further, I drew him how I wanted to draw him, lol), having Ammit be a croc/lion/hippo instead of a croc/lion, and changing up how the scales work.

In this picture, the Scales of Justice are merely two golden scales that appear below Anubis' raised arms. Even though they hover and aren't attached to anything, they still behave like real scales, and can be summoned at a moment's notice by Anubis.

As you can see, Anubis is currently weighing a heart on his scales... and you may also notice that the kneeling, crying Blitz has his hands over the place where his own heart should be. ^^

Also, Colleen's outfit is supposed to be reminscent of Laura Croft. The idea is that, as soon as the Collie found out that they were going to be searching through an Egyptian temple looking for "buried treasure", she immediately created a makeshift Laura Croft outfit for herself, before gleefully telling her comrades, "Let's do this!" (You can bet the male Rovers gave their approval on this decision, heh-heh.)

You can also see MDT's OC, Walter Vincent, is in this pic too, and that he's got a hold of the statue of Anubis (no, I won't tell you how he gets it or what happens when he does). I didn't quite like how he came out in this pic, though I think that mostly has to do with his pose. It just doesn't seem dynamic enough compared to everybody else's. But oh well. I just hope MDT thinks this pic of him looks good enough at least.

Road Rovers (c) WB
Walter Vincent (c)