Fullview for details....
EDIT: DA also seems not to show pic at all... DA is being evil again...
EDIT 2: Follow up pic: [link]

While talking to on msn last year, we talked about his character Drachea...
and his story really touched me... and inspired me...

Drachea Rannak story (by Malcolm himself):

"Drachea is a very ill noble, aristocrat. He have a disease similar to cancer, but it's contagious by blood, tears, saliva etc.
So he never had physical contact with anyone.
Of course, no one knows he is sick, only his family.
So everyone is under impression he thinks he's better than others and keeps distance. He show himself as a showoff , vain, self centered person, so no one will want to get close to him.
Tho... he want to become a hero before he dies, so no one will forget him and he'll make his parents proud.
It's a sad and tragic story.
No one knows of his pain, so he doesn't make a lifestyle out of it. At the contrary, he endure it and never shows any sign of weakness. He would be devastated if someone knew. His best quality is he can endure pain, in fact that's why he can keep going even when stronger people can't."

Story behind the picture's concept:

it's a surreal, dream like, concept... not realistic... World where Drachea live is somehow like Greek mythology personalized by Malcolm. So it kinda fit under fantasy concepts.
The concept itself is Drachea's dream...
Living in a cold, yet beautiful world, he gazes upon the planet he yearns to save and prove his life was not in vain.
He's looking at it from afar, because his goal is so distant and hard to reach.
Wings represent his wish to be free, so he can fly towards his goal.
He's naked in the water cuz that makes him so fragile and vulnerable.

Why "Golden Fingerprints" ?
Golden... cuz every time I see Drachea in his original pictures I think of gold... he have golden hair... usually dressed in yellow/orange... he's so golden...
and fingerprints... represent the concept in which he tries to leave his fingerprints in history and be loved and never forgotten.

Technical stuff...

Took me forever long to make this BG... Drachea himself was an easy job... but BG... killed me... I was working on it for almost 2 weeks... and I'm not really satisfied...
But I just HAD to finish it... this pic was so big and detailed and complicated it made my photoshop die few times a day...
Oh so many details got lost by resizing the pic to fit for net purposes...
Photoshop CS3... bazillion layers... many many hours...

Hope you like it Malcolm...
And I hope you guys like it as well...
I'm thinking of making a tutorial how to make such wings... anyone interested?

Some of beautiful Drachea pictures by

[link]
[link]
[link]
[link]

Now you understand why "gold" ....