D&D General One Piece of Art IV (Races)- What D&D Art Inspired You to Love a Race (Lineage, Ancestry)

[Snarf Zagyg]

Welcome to part three in the art appreciation series- One Piece of Art! Prior columns can be found here:
Part I (Classes)
Part II (Monsters)
Part III (Magic Items)

Today's topic-

What D&D Art inspired you to love a race?

Now, for purposes of this thread, a necessary disclaimer. Please construe "race" to mean linage, ancestry, or other preferred term. This is meant to be welcoming, so any playable race can be considered and used if the art inspired you.

Now, with that out of the way ... please note the following rules for the thread-

1. ONE piece of art. You shall count to one. If you do two, you've gone two ... um, too far.

1a.- FURTHER EXPLANATION. Some have complained about this "ONE piece of art" requirement. There are a few reasons for this- first, requiring a person to really dig down and pick a single thing tends to focus the mind. Second, if you don't make a limit, people will just spam art.

2. It has to have inspired you to "love" a particular race. Now, love in in this context is totally up to you. Maybe the art inspired you to love D&D in general. Maybe it inspired you to want to play as that race (Hey, it's Legolas XCVii). Maybe that piece of art always shaped how you view that race. Maybe that art comes alive at night and steals one out of every two socks you own. Whatever, man, I'm not going to define your love! Feel free to explain why this particular piece of art (depicting a RACE) is so meaningful to you.

3. Explain the art source (incl. artist if known), the magic item, and why you chose it. Please!

As I started the thread, I will go first. As always, I like to go a little idiosyncratic....

Artist: Erol Otus
Source: The Rogues Gallery 1980
Race: Human

Reader, meet Valerius, the neutral good fighter tucked away at the back of The Rogues Gallery. Valerius, meet ... oh, you don't care, do you? Sure, maybe it's just a dude who lost his other two Musketeers, but he provides an example of why I love the infinite variety that humanity provides.

Beside, I'm assuming that there won't be a whole lotta humans in here, so we needed a dandy rapscallion like Valerius, right? Humanity, represent!


ETA- Was Valerius the Joey of the 80s?

 

[grimslade]

As a wee tyke, I came across the Jeff Dee illustration of Phoebus, a human fighter reincarnated as a lizard man in the Rogues Gallery. I was determined to play a lizardman character. So Semris, the lizardman assassin was born in ~1984. I have loved Lizardmen since the heady days of dying to giant weasels in SInister Secret of the Saltmarsh and Danger at Dunwater, but the Dee image cemented the Lizardfolk as a playable race to me.

Artist: Jeff Dee
Source: The Rogues Gallery 1980
Race: Lizardman

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I respect that lizardfolk's boot game!

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

Artist: Jim Holloway
Source: Monstrous Compendium Volume I
Race: Gnome



Imma cut you.

 

[Laurefindel]

There is one that immediately comes to my mind. You've seen my answer in the other threads. Guess who drew it?

That'd be the aasimar from the Planescape monstruous appendix II (i think?), by di'Terlizzi of course. I didn't know about aasimars before and this one fit right into the plane-punk style that I liked so much. This one isn't as grotesque as some other di'Terlizzi (male characters often were) and this one is... well it's a chick from the outer planes with a huge sword! What more could an adolescent ask for?

 

[Enrico Poli1]

Artist: Larry Elmore
Source: Mentzer Red Box 1983
Race: Dwarf, Elf & Halfling

 

[Yaarel]

This 4e eladrin Wizard blended wizard, elf, and ufo space alien.

I have loved eladrin ever since!

 

[DND_Reborn]

The Drow from AD&D Fiend Folio...

 

[overgeeked]

Dwarfs. By Brom.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I wonder if all this is going someplace, like a game of Clue...

I pick the Drow Paladin:

Playing with the Displacer Beast:

Using his +2 Backscratcher: