One of the biggest challenges in any story is making a truly memorable antagonist. As I gain more and more experience writing, I have learned that having the bad guy be as powerful and dark as possible is not a good idea. Rather, to create a truly intriguing villain, it is important to give readers a flesh and bone character, often with a complicated and broken backstory. Bad people do not just become bad for no reason. Often it is because of poor upbringing, or some wound that has manifested itself over time, and made the person bitter, scarred, or angry. Other times good men and women become complacent and no longer battle to stay on the path of virtue, resulting in a downward spiral of greed and selfishness. Both of these things are the fate of the true villain. There are exemptions to the rule, and it would seem one of these was the monstrous antagonist on the cover of Leon's Son. The sea serpent, which has become the iconic symbol for the first book and the entire series, is the essence of pride, a truly destructive force, bent on destroying all that is good, for no apparent reason. Yet while the dragon himself might seem a rather rudimentary, clear-cut villain, symbolically he represents the darkness and wounds of the other characters in the book. Essentially the dragon that wages war on the kingdom is a matured version of other individuals' demons. In him, we find the hesitance of Leo, the pride of Ramel Malak, the hatred of Sir John, the bitterness of Ariella, and the sadness of Sir Oliver. All of these things come to haunt and threaten the people throughout the story, leading to the climax, in which the king faces them head-on.
From the very beginning, from day one I had made one thing up in my mind about Leon's Son; I wanted the monster in the climax to be truly massive. Throughout the drafts and concept art, I always would make the sea serpent as big as possible. Originally it was going to be even larger than what is now seen on the final cover. It became clear at some point to me that to make a true character and not an unfathomable brute, I would need to downsize a bit. He is still massive, but not as big as planned, and to be sure that was a good decision. Another thing I felt was important is how old he appears. When you look at it, the dude looks like he has been around for a long time and is probably as old as Athnan itself. I imagine him just sleeping at the bottom of the lake for centuries, all the while brooding, in sleeping malice, awakening only to feed, and destroy all he perceives as a threat to his rule of the planet.