Is Larry Elmore still popular?

[Sundragon2012]

man what?

DiTerlizzi's art is in the great tradition of fantasy illustrators like Arthur Rackham. It's fairy-tale art. Far more evocative than the imitation Hildebrandt plasticy awfulness of Elmore and Caldwell.

Fairy tale is a good way to describe it. Fine, but then it belongs in a game dedicated to fairy tale imagery such as Changeling the Reverie where the art looks like that because it is well a game with that vibe. IMO there is nothing particularly fairy tale about Planescape core D&D or any other D&D setting for that matter. Fairy tales are a genre within fantasy tales, but fantasy overall is not fairy tale.

I believe that including art that is so stylistically attached to a style outside of the overarching look of heroic, high fantasy is to change the entire sense of the setting and shift in that direction. I don't believe that most DMs and players consider their games to have much of a fairy tale setting outside of having some fey in it.

I guess considering this, I would say that DiTerlizzi's work is simply more suited to a game or setting with a fairy tale feel or maybe a setting with the feel of the movies Dark Crystal or The Labyrinth (with David Bowie), or the Neverending Story. I enjoyed these movies very much but I see D&D as havine more in common themetically with Sinbad, Conan, Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Beowulf, and others than it has with these movies.


Chris

 

[Sundragon2012]

That's crazy moon talk. Technically, Otus is very very proficient. He has a great command of colour. You might not like his style, which is something he consciously chooses to do, but he's not an incompetent illustrator. That would be like criticizing Picasso 'cause his heads look funny.

Fair enough, I have seen many illustrators choose particular styles that don't reflect their full proficiency. DiTerlizzi, for example, is capable of some really gorgeous painting despite the fact I loathe 88% of his D&D illustrations.

Also, to note, I find the Hildebrandt brothers as....... bleeecchhh

There are no words.


Chris

 

[Henry]

Erol Otus' art is a double-edged sword, as I realized two days ago, leaving my 1st ed. AD&D in the back seat of my car.

While his style is evocative, and definitely can tell a story with few pictures, I didn't realize until then how.... well.... CREEPY it looked to the average non-gamer.

http://minipainting-guild.net/eo/eoart2.html

When looking at his, Dave Sutherland's, and Dave Trampier's early work, it struck me that, while I was always in total opposition to the B.A.D.D. groups, the anti-D&D lobbies, etc. I can't deny that those early Original AD&D books did look eerie enough to fit in with Anton Lavey-style satanic imagery...

P.S. before anyone thinks otherwise, I know that the cover of the PHB was Tramp's work...

 

[The_Magician]

To me, no other piece of art has managed to capture the spirit of companionship between heroic adventurers as Elmoore's dragonlance piece, showing the dragonlance saga heroes around the camp fire. I get inspired whenever I stare at that one.

 

[Sundragon2012]

With Otus, I see my childhood. Being 10yrs old with my first D&D books. I think that the daw to Otus is that sense of the memories of the fun we had. Technically it is rather silly looking. I checked out the link Henry gave to Otus' art and see nothing of particular quality and nothing I would ever want to see in modern gaming books, not because the style is "old school" or some such tripe, but because it is rather unsophisticated and very cartoonish.


Chris

 

[S'mon]

I like the old cheesemeister.

 

[Aaron L]

The creepiness of Erol Otus is what I like about his art the best! It really drove home the "medieval but not quite Earth" feel of 1E Greyhawk for me, and the illustration of the Son of Yog-Sothoth carrying off a fairytale princess in Deities & Demigods is one of my all time favotites.

 

[Henry]

To me, no other piece of art has managed to capture the spirit of companionship between heroic adventurers as Elmoore's dragonlance piece, showing the dragonlance saga heroes around the camp fire. I get inspired whenever I stare at that one.

Agreed - and I don't get inspired, I get sad.

The shot clearly shows Fistandantilus' night-blue spellbook that Raistlin recovered in Xak Tsaroth. That moment, before travelling back to Solace (which they discovered plundered and burned) was the last time that Raistlin ever really "fit in" with the rest of the companions. From that point, he increasingly became the power-hungry soulless mage that he was born to be, and the rest of the companions' lives would be changed forever. In a way, it's like the time just before the Fellowship of the Ring enters Moria - a shattering of stasis and innocence, as it were. That's why I've always loved that particular art by Larry.

 

[Sundragon2012]

To me, no other piece of art has managed to capture the spirit of companionship between heroic adventurers as Elmoore's dragonlance piece, showing the dragonlance saga heroes around the camp fire. I get inspired whenever I stare at that one.

I agree. Though Larry isn't my favorite fantasy painter any longer, I love that picture. It is a picture of a party of adventurers dressed like folks would IMO dress looking like they would look. They aren't covered in spikes and buckles or posing like super-heroes they look good because they look believable given a standard western fantasy millieu.


Chris

 

[WayneLigon]

I still think his stuff looks good. Yeah, it has some similarity but then so do many artists after you see lots and lots of their work done in a close proximity of time. And I'm positive that he gets things like 'Make it like that awesome Dragon/book cover you did' from art directors. You do what you gotta do to pay the bills in that business.