Kings and Queens

I felt extremely honoured when Jeannette Varberg from the National Museum of Denmark asked me to be the illustrator of the large Viking expo at the museum in 2021. It's an awesome feeling when you get to work with the people behind every book you have ever read about your ancestors.

The first jobs I had as a professional illustrator was coloring comic books and history illustrations for my friend Christian Højgaard. Later I quit being a colorist and started to do the illustrations myself. For the first 7 years as a professional I was earning a living doing educational historical book illustrations. That meant painting a lot of vikings, farmers and kings; the bulk of our Danish history. When I became a full time fantasy artist I was able to use this huge visual vocabulary of historical equipment and clothing, making my fantasy characters feel more real.

It was my job to bring these viking kings and queens to to life, while collaborating closely with the experts, making sure the visual representation passed through the very narrow eye of the needle of historical correctness.

We don't really know much about what these eight kings and queens really looked like, so the most important part of my job was to give them personality and character. Turned out I knew way less about vikings than I thought I did. But I learned so much in the process.

First of: Viking is a verb not a noun. Viking is something you do. The age of the vikings was between 800-1050. These four kings and queens only represent a small selection of the rulers from this period.

Godfred, death 810 and queen Tjodborg (we only know of her from a runestone left by Godfred)
King Gorm den Gamle (ruled till aprox 958) and queen Thyra Danebod (died aprox 950)
Knud (2.) den Store (ruled 1018 - 1035) and queen Emma af Normandiet (died 1052)
Svend (2.) Estridsen (ruled 1047 - 1074) and queen Gundhild af Norge (dead after 1060)

The two first kings and queens believed in Odin, the last two pairs where (at least on paper) Christians.

I was invited to the opening of the viking exhibition by the living breathing Danish Queen Margrethe II. I was introduced as the artist of her ancestors and she said: ”that must have been a very difficult task, I imagine?” I bowed and said: ”Yes, very. But also a lot of fun” … And that was my encounter with our amazing queen. I was nervous and sweating in my hands. Queen Margrethe is the ruler of the worlds oldest Kingdom, and she is also a painter and an illustrator herself. She has corresponded with Tolkien when she was illustrating the danish version of the Lord of the Rings. That's double up on royalty in my book. Awe is the only feeling that could describe that day for me.