Picture Thursday 15: "Roll for Initiative…" by Jon Hodgson

I really have nothing to say about this piece which it does not say itself. A majestic landscape, a threatening beast, and a party who looks small and terrified in the face of this great danger. (But none the less resolute to find themselves some god damned treasure)!

Jon Hodgson is a talented artist who does a lot of work with this kind of composition. Large, dynamic pieces with a lot going on. It’s no surprise his work has appeared in The One Ring RPG. I’m very grateful he allowed me to share this piece with you, and I encourage you to browse through his Deviant Art gallery. There are dozens of gems to be found there!

Picture Thursday 14: Sandwich the Drow Paladin by Slants

EDIT: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

This was probably the most verbose entry in the Picture Thursday series I’ve ever written. Most of the time I just put up a 200-300 word assessment of the art. For this piece I had written some 600+ words on why it’s not a cliche, what the piece means to me, and the history of the character. Everything was fine last night, and I checked the post several times. Yet somehow when the post went online this morning, everything but the art itself was gone.

I honestly can’t rewrite what was here. I could try, but by the time I was off of work and free to do so, this post would be 10 hours old, and it’s doubtful anyone would see the revisions. Plus it would make it more difficult for me to get Tomorrow’s post written.

I’m sorry about this. Perhaps I can share Sandwich’s story some other time; for now you can explore her origins on her 1d4Chan entry.

If I can find the missing info, I’ll update this post again.

Picture Thursday 13: Worm That Walks by Wayne Reynolds

The best monster artwork is an inspiration to GMs. When we look through the monster manuals and bestiaries, we instantly know which monstrosities we want to feast on our player’s corpses. And for me, the Worm that Walks from the Epic Level Handbook has always been inspiring. It’s a fresh take on the physical corruption of magical pursuits. One distinct from the lich. If the monster has origins outside of D&D, I don’t know them. All I know is that they haunt my dreams, and I want them to haunt the dreams of my players as well.

I’ve actually repeatedly found the D&D 3.0 Epic Level Handbook to be one of the best supplements ever produced for 3.X. It is one of the very few supplements which focuses less on player options, and more on helping GMs to run their games better. The generator of 100 quest hooks, for example, is very good! The monsters presented are top notch, even if many of them are more powerful iterations of lower level monsters.

I’m kinda surprised I made it 13 weeks without posting anything from Wayne Reynolds before. That dude is prolific, and influential. Pathfinder goblins are his bath sponge.

No, really, they are.

Picture Thursday 12? Webbed by Jeff Dee

Okay, so, I realize that this edition of Picture Thursday is, in fact, going up on Wednesday. That’s my bad. But I have a super good excuse, I swear.

See, as you may have heard, Wizards of the Coast recently released a massive amount of their back-catalog in PDF form. Which includes many (or all, I’m not sure) of the modules produced by TSR in the ’70s and ’80s. Which means I finally had a simple means of acquiring modules G 1-2-3, D 1-2-3, and Q1, which have always sounded like a blast to me. Upon purchasing them, I promptly spent the entire evening reading them. Leaving me no time to compose a post for you all.

This piece, “Webbed” by Jeff Dee is on the back cover of Q1, “Queen of the Demonweb Pits.” And while the character’s pose is a little ridiculous (as my ladyfriend commented, he’s drawn in the kind of spine twisting ass-boob pose often used in sexualized art), I still have no end of love for the piece. I feel the character’s peril. Not only is he trapped on the web, but those tiny red spiders are terrifying, and he’s no doubt moments away from his doom.

Interestingly, about a year ago, Jeff Dee ran a relevant kickstarter. Apparently all of his original art from “Queen of the Demonweb Pits” had been destroyed, and he needed funds to re-create the originals. In the year since he’s completed a lot, including a reproduction of this very piece. Though I find I like this older print better. It seems less…shiny?

Also relevant, Jeff Dee has another kickstarter going, which you may want to check out if you’re a fan of Empire of the Petal Throne.

Me? I’m going back to reading about the giants. I can’t wait to run some players through this thing.

Picture Thursday 11: Inheritance by Eeliskyttanen

I first encountered this piece while browsing DeviantArt at random. I felt compelled to find an image which presented a fantastical world for the viewer to explore. And that’s precisely what this piece by eeliskyttanen, titled “Inheritance,” does.

I don’t really have a lot to say about it. I, like the tiny warrior, merely stare at it and wonder what awaits me in these pristine edifices of forgotten kingdoms.

Picture Thursday 10: Death from Below by Samwise Didier

I like warcraft. I like the RTS games, I like the MMORPG, and I like the style of art. I love the oversized shoulder pads, the ridiculous swords, and the pink haired gnomes. Because fantasy is make believe. I enjoy realistic swords and armor as much as the next grognard, but that doesn’t preclude me from enjoying the over-the-top style of Samwise as well.

What I particularly love about Samwise drawing style (and, by extension, the Blizzard art style he helped to define) is that even though his characters have grossly exaggerated muscles and preposterously bulky armor, I’m able to suspend my disbelief and become engrossed in the fictional reality of the drawing.

I particularly enjoy the energy in this piece. Running, swinging, cutting, falling. And at the center of it all a gnome with pink pigtails. Beautiful.

Picture Thursday 9: The Iron Orb of the Duergar by Scott Burdick

I had hoped to find a copy of this image without the Dungeon magazine logo, but unfortunately there were none available. In fact there were no high resolution images of this cover at all, and I had to scan in my own copy. Fortunately there’s not a lot of clutter, so I thought the image was still worthy of posting.

As I grow older, I find that I’m more drawn to painted artwork such as this piece by Scott Burdick, as opposed to more intricately detailed digital art in the style of Wayne Reynolds (who created the artistic style which Pathfinder uses in all of its books.) Which isn’t to say that Reynolds’ work isn’t remarkable, but I wonder if my mind doesn’t just interpret the abundance of detail as clutter, and ignore it. While here, there is a distinct lack of fine detail, my mind instead fills in the blanks. Take the woman’s face for example. Did you notice she doesn’t have one? I didn’t, until I spent several minutes examining the picture.

The painting has a lot going for it aside from simply style, too. I love the way so much space is given to the environment, while the characters occupy perhaps 25% of the space. The room doesn’t have a lot to look at within it, but you get a sense of the cavernous depths which these adventurers find themselves in. And, as always, I love depictions of faceless characters on an adventure. Fantasy art is filled with character portraits and remarkable creatures. It’s a little more rare to find scenes like this where the characters aren’t the focus–their adventure is.

Picture Thursday 8: "Cultural Misunderstandings 2" by 'hibbary

The very talented ‘hibbary of DeviantArt graciously allowed me to share this short comic with you all. She has some fantastic artwork available for viewing, and I strongly encourage anyone who enjoys fantasy art to check out her gallery. Much of what she has posted there is actually much more technically impressive than this. Colors, shading, all of that jazz. But I thought this comic (one of several exploring the relationship between LotR’s Gimli and Legolas) was a particularly good fit for Picture Thursday, because it eloquently demonstrates a point which I myself have tried to express before. Albeit with a less elegant approach.

Namely, that every fantasy race is going to have a unique and profoundly different worldview from that of humans.

‘hibbary makes the same point earlier in Cultural Misunderstandings 1, but I preferred this piece. Maybe it’s because the joke is better executed.

Or…ya know. Maybe it’s something else.

Picture Thursday 7: Ogam Thorton by Gus L.

Having friends with artistic talents has ups and downs. The downside is that I hate them for making my shitty doodles look even worse by comparison. The upside is that they still love me, and they make me lovely drawings like this one. Oh so many lovely drawings.

This particular piece is from Gus L., esteemed author of Dungeon of Signs, and my adventuring companion in the Vaults of Pahvelorn. During many of our games, Gustie plays while working on drawings. At the start of a recent game, he asked that everyone in the party write a brief description of their character’s appearance. He then proceeded to sketch each of our characters during the course of a 3 hour game session. There were four of us there that day, which means Gustie completed each of these sketches in less than an hour. That may not be too impressive to someone who does a lot of art themselves, I don’t know. But it’s damned impressive to me. And Ogam looks way cooler than I ever imagined!

I highly recommend you check out Gustie’s blog, for more of his art, his play reports, and generally awesome bloggie goodness.

Picture Tuesdays 6 – Castle Grayskull by Ralph MaQuarrie

When it comes to fictional worlds, first and foremost in my affections will always be Star Wars. I can’t even number the ways in which that universe has shaped my artistic sensibilities, and my life as a whole. And when it comes to the men and women who gave that world life, few can be given more credit than artist Ralph McQuarrie.

Ralph McQuarrie rarely worked on fantasy projects, though I was able to find a few pieces he did relating to He-Man and the Master’s of the Universe. (A franchise others are far more familiar with than I). I particularly like this sketch of Castle Grayskull. The way that the castle is largely generic in construction, with only the skull shaped entrance to mark it as unusual, is very interesting to me.