Leo and Diane Dillon

These are two of the most impressionable book covers from my youth. The artwork of Leo and Diane Dillon is really fantastic. I love how certain aspects of these designs echo Japanese paintings illuminated like ancient European manuscripts. Through Leo and Diane's powers of illustration, you are preemptively thrilled by Lirael and Sabriel's strange and ambiguous danger. I was so eager to explore these worlds as a little girl. Maybe someday I'll pick these books up again. Also, how cool are those tunics and bandolier?

↑ 1995 (via)

↑ 2001 (via)

Smoke Bomb

      I would love to experiment with colored smoke bombs but, when you live on an island, using flares and distress signals for art will warrant a visit from the coast guard. Even inland. So, you know. Excitinnnng!

↑ Vita Cagnone for D-Mode Magazine by Antonella Arismendi

↑ Untitled by ▲ Levitsky

↑ Silence/Shapes no. 2 by Filippo Minelli

↑ Silence/Shapes no. 11 by Filippo Minelli

      Roger Moore's James Bond gets desperately creative with a smoke flare in A View To A Kill (1985)

So, like, PRETTY MUCH: During a snowy downhill chase, an orange Commie helicopter blows up Bond's orange stolen Commie snowmobile and he uses the broken ski from the now defunct Commie snowmobile to shred down the glacial mountain doing 'gnar tricks 'n cliff jumps (Tom Sims) while dodging Commie machine gun fire (all while wearing a white parka trimmed with fur and makin' it look, like, so easy) and when he gets to the bottom of the mountain the orange Commie helicopter is still raining bullets down so he grabs for his pack and draws out a distress flare and with a practiced hand shoots is straight into the cabin of the 'copter and the Commie pilots are pissed and they start spinning out of control in a beautiful haze of smoke, blaze orange against the white snow and blue sky, and then they BLOW UP. James Bond then makes his way to a submarine disguised as an iceberg where a beautiful scantily clad babe is waiting for him to make out with her.

Jusko's Fantasy

      MOSTLY NAKED BABES WITH SWORDS! OILY SHIRTLESS BARBARIANS WITH ARROW-WOUNDS! MARTIAN MONSTERS WITH POINTY TEETH! LARA CROFT! These illustrations by artist Joe Jusko are a treat, you know, like a giant spoon full of sugar - or maybe an entire roast chicken that you can eat with your hands?

↑ Lady Death

Morgan le Fay

      Clad in chain-mail, structured armor, leather, and lace, Kristen McMenamy broods like a hellion in W's September 2012 editorial "The Dame of Thrones".

I love how barbed wire and a conical Philip Treacy transparent head-piece (#4) give this Medieval Britain thing a whole Seam-In-Time feel. I remember hearing an interview with Monty Python's Michael Palin that a lot of the chain-mail worn in The Holy Grail was actually just knitted creations spray painted silver (sounds soggy). Craig Lawrence's metallic yarn chain mail shirt and pants (#3) are very convincing and wearable... something maybe Daphne Guinness would don to check out a litter of dalmatian puppies (or whatever it is that she does with herself). Her inspired silver glove by Shaun Leane (#8) certainly seems useful for glancing blows from little doggie paws.

mmm

Photography:  Tim Walker Styled by:  Jacob K Hair and Headpieces:  Julien d'Ys Makeup:    Val Garlande