I really like David's work. He is always fun to talk with. I keep meaning to buy a Mouse Guard page but every time I meet him at convention, he has something else I'd rather have. I saw this in his portfolio and knew it was coming home with me. I mentioned it was a movie I had seen in the cinema when I was 11 and I remember it fondly. David had some fun memories of the movie including the following. He had first seen it on a Beta-max version taped off a TV airing of the movie. There is a whole scene where the young gelflings are taken in to Aughra's lair. In that scene they travel through a darkened tunnel until they enter her lair with all the spinning planets. The quality of the taping was so bad that the entire scene was black and for years that was the only version of the scene David knew of. It wasn't until it was out DVD and he watched it that he realized that this wasn't just a dark scene:) The other cool story that came out of this is that they have several of the Skeksis still on display at the Henson studios including having Chamberlain in their board room.
This piece was done in 2009 when Archaia Press got the rights to the Henson studios and to celebrate, David was asked to do this piece. It was used for a promotional poster which you can see below in the additional images. He liked and kept it for the past 5 years but decided it was time to let it go. Even before speaking to Daid about this piece, I could tell there was a love for the source material in the way this piece was composed and executed. The back stories just confirmed what I knew from the artwork.