It was obvious from the word go that Jimmy Blake (the biker at the start played by stuntman legendary Buddy Joe Hooker) had to be in the painting as his demise was the basis for the whole story.
While it’s Caitlin’s debut story, the late, sorely missed Lance LeGault was for me the standout performance of the episode. Very few actors were as good at doing mean & moody as he was (coming straight after the 1st Season's "TO SNARE A WOLF" as the similarly named 'DG Bogard'). The pose of him pointing the gun at the poor, fallen biker says it all.
In an earlier version of the painting I did in 2006 (a high-resolution Fuji LightJet version of which was framed on Lance LeGault's living room wall until his untimely death in 2013), I had painted in both the lions and the hunters but in retrospect it was overkill. I now always try to keep a character limit of 4-5 persons these days. I made sure Airwolf was there too prominently blowing the hell out of the Pope County Sheriff's dept at the end, and to achieve it I got access to the best possible reference for it… with original, on-set photographs (see the 'Airwolf Extended Themes' cover booklet) provided by the show's talented Aerial Cameraman, Stan McClain.
Hawke was the most difficult character to paint though as he was sweating profusely in the mid-summer Texan heat during the episode (in reality out at Desert Center, California) and I found it really hard to get his look right.
This was the third attempt at this painting I’d done but I finally nailled it. Note how the gun is slightly out of focus now, a nice touch I was pleased with which I’d tried before on the earlier versions but was never happy with.
If you look really closely at Airwolf coming out of the Lair's crater, it is actually fully realised and detailed (based on the late matte artist Bill Taylor's magnificent work on the show) too.