I recently acquired several original issues of Exposure Sheet magazines and wanted to give the internet a good quality scan of this never-again used promotional image for Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp, which ended up being the third and final video game project produced by the Don Bluth Animation studio.
Beautiful illustration of Dirk the Daring and his wife the Princess Daphne cruising through space aboard the sentient Time Machine while the evil wizard Mordroc looks on (the game's story is somehow both tritely simple and hopelessly convoluted, but I love it).
The caption mentions the game's production having been placed "on hold" due to distribution deals falling through. Cinematronics, who had distributed the laser disc cabinets for the original Dragon's Lair (1983) and Space Ace (1984) had run into financial problems and was working through bankruptcy. The Time Warp game didn't get released into arcades until 1991 under the banner of The Leland Corporation, well after the hype for laser-disc video games had died down, making it hard for this quirky and expensive sequel to find its audience.
As a game, "Time Warp" leaves a lot to be desired, but as a piece of animation, it's one of my favorite things of all time. This promotional drawing might even be my favorite, far superior to the official cover art utilized on Digital Leisure's DVDs or the menus of "Dragon's Lair Trilogy."
