Ha! Love the new version of the old "epic party takes on Surtur" pic!
Cheers Alzrius amigo! I'm happy how it turned out.
Is that Thrin in the foreground?
Sort of. I didn't get the swords the way I wanted (split razor blade* - swords of sharpness) simply for quality purposes. Technically also Thrin has blond hair - which is a little tricky to do when the light sources are all behind the character.
I also had the eyebeams in place but it sort of unbalanced the picture and I couldn't get the epic dwarf done to a satisfactory level.
*Although I doubt it was noticeable in the original anyway.
The Tarrasque is the epic Druid shapechanged - made up character.
The Dragon Riding Sorceress should be Darra - an old PC played by a friend of mine who now lives in Australia. Couldn't get the figure exact but its so small on the image hopefully you won't notice.
The hidden character is the Assassin-Fighter Mirv Sheelan - played by a now Firefighter former school friend of mine.
The original Epic Dwarf Cleric in the gold armour with the anvil-hammer is a made up character (I just wanted a character with a hammer).
Other images also include a half-orc Barbarian Fangor (as you'll see in the new 5E books) - which is a PC played by another friend in Scotland.
In the original Ascension art: Thrin fights Orcus, Darra fights Druaga, Fangor fights Bwimb, The Dwarf Cleric Fights Anthraxus, a made up epic monk fights Ygorl and a made up epic female ranger fights Primus. I was probably planning to do an illustration of Mirv Sheelan at some point.
I think the other characters made it to Demigod rank (only S'mon would remember for sure), whereas Thrin made it to Lesser God after personally defeating Druaga (a MUCH tougher version of Druaga than the one in Deities & Demigods I should point out) and permanently slaying him.
In the new 5E material there are multiple images of the party fighting. Usually Thrin, Fangor, Darra and the Dwarf.