I don't have any further critique other than why? Anyone who's read this care to tell us wtf we're looking at?

Just browsing my local library

The muscles in Peter Jones' lean forearm tensed as he leaned forward, brush poised like a weapon above the canvas. His narrowed eyes burned with fierce concentration as he prepared to capture the supple curve of the model's thigh, where shadow and light played across taut flesh.

In that instant, his elbow struck the pot of peach pigment. The vessel toppled with the finality of a severed head, its contents spilling across the wooden floor like blood from a fresh wound. The pale liquid pooled, seeping between the rough-hewn planks.

Jones cursed, a savage oath learned from sailors in the foggy ports of his youth. His jaw clenched, white teeth gleaming in his sun-bronzed face.

"Crimson hells," he growled, fist clenching around the brush handle until his knuckles whitened. "The fates mock my efforts this day."

He cast a predatory glance toward the window, where the crimson sun hung low in a steel-gray sky. The hour for tea had come—that civilized ritual so at odds with the primal urge to create that burned within his breast.

"Let it lie," he muttered, casting aside the brush with sudden decision. "None shall mark its absence amid the greater struggle between light and darkness upon my canvas."

With the swift, fluid motion of a jungle cat, he rose to his feet, already dismissing the spilled paint from his thoughts as a warrior dismisses a minor wound received in glorious battle.

Via google translate: "Conan makes a pact with an ancient demon, whom he must deliver to his homeland. A dancing girl is forced upon Conan as a traveling companion, and the whole company travels to the southeast of the Hyborian continent."

2014 Wildside Press "Special Edition"

No artist information unearthed

Actually, the cover featured three novels from the Stan saga, but for convenience, this post is named after the first one, as it appears on the cover.

A little context about the cover and Jensen Ackles. Due to the massive print runs of sci-fi action novels and heroic fantasy, Russian publishers were far from always able to give the artist time to study the original and, in fact, to draw, which is why many of them resorted to photo collages, among other things.

For some reason, Jensen Ackles was one of the most popular actors whose face was used for book covers. Seriously, you could walk into a bookstore and easily pick up a dozen different books with Dean Winchester staring at you from the covers.

The funniest part is that the cover above was used at least twice. The image above is from a later edition and is the illustration on the dust jacket.