When I was a young, poor, struggling artist, the idea of becoming a book illustrator seemed like a potential career possibility. With that in mind, I created a number of paintings inspired by stories for an illustration portfolio. This piece from 1978 was based on a scene from the short story The Tower of the Elephant by Robert E. Howard. The character depicted in my artwork is an alien being named Yag-kosha, who was betrayed, enslaved, and tortured by an evil sorcerer seeking his secret knowledge and magical powers. It was certainly an unusual and compelling subject for a painting.

The Tower of the Elephant is a Conan the Barbarian tale in which Conan encounters Yag-kosha at the top of the sorcerer’s tower. My aim was to portray the mysterious scene as described in Robert E. Howard’s story:

"He was looking into a large chamber with a domed golden ceiling; the walls were of green jade, the floor of ivory, partly covered by thick rugs. Smoke and exotic scent of incense floated up from a brazier on a golden tripod, and behind it sat an idol on a sort of marble couch. Conan stared aghast; the image had the body of a man, naked, and green in color; but the head was one of nightmare and madness. Too large for the human body, it had no attributes of humanity. Conan stared at the wide flaring ears, the curling proboscis, on either side of which stood white tusks tipped with round golden balls. The eyes were closed, as if in sleep.

As Conan came forward, his eyes fixed on the motionless idol, the eyes of the thing opened suddenly! The Cimmerian froze in his tracks. It was no image—it was a living thing, and he was trapped in its chamber!

Tears rolled from the sightless eyes, and Conan's gaze strayed to the limbs stretched on the marble couch. And he knew the monster would not rise to attack him. He knew the marks of the rack, and the searing brand of the flame, and tough-souled as he was, he stood aghast at the ruined deformities which his reason told him had once been limbs as comely as his own. And suddenly all fear and repulsion went from him, to be replaced by a great pity. What this monster was, Conan could not know, but the evidences of its sufferings were so terrible and pathetic that a strange aching sadness came over the Cimmerian, he knew not why. He only felt that he was looking upon a cosmic tragedy, and he shrank with shame, as if the guilt of a whole race were laid upon him."

Designing the strange room, its contents, and Yag-kosha himself was an interesting challenge. I began with simple flat drawings of each object, then plotted them in perspective. My experience with perspective was limited then, and I remember studying a few books to get a better grasp of the techniques. A friend photographed me posing for Yag-kosha’s body as reference, but I had to invent the elephant-like head from imagination. The painting process itself was fairly traditional, though I used an airbrush for the rising smoke, which gave it a nice effect. I signed the piece in an Arabic style to complement its exotic tone. Originally the painting was larger and included Conan on the right, but I wasn’t happy with how he came out, so I simply cut off that section! A drastic choice, but it improved the piece.

This painting was among the strongest illustrations I created during that period of my life. My dream of becoming a professional illustrator never materialized, as my animation career took off instead. In the end, that was for the best, since painting remained as my pure fine art, untouched by any further commercial influence.