Kai Lord
Hero
I never used them but loved the cover art and (like we've discussed previously in this thread) they were still fun to read.
D&D 2E On AD&D 2E
ValamirCleaver
Ein Jäger aus Kurpfalz
Kai Lord
Hero
Most definitely! Hence the "among others" of which they are at the top of the list.
R_J_K75
Legend
I always thought that the 2E Players Options Books, at least Combat and Tactics (as well as Alternity) were the predecessors of 3E. In hindsight, those books were a good indication of what D&D was to become.
teitan
Legend
How I started was finding the old stuff or my friends finding the old stuff at yard sales, we didn't have book stores so we had 0e and 1e stuff so for me art wise it is the oldest D&D guys like Otus, Holloway, Tramp, Sutherland, Dee, Willingham and when I got into 2e finally I really liked Easley & Elmore but D'iterlizzi had that quirkiness the old guys had. Easley & Elmore were all sorts of refined. Easley had a lot of energy to his work too. I loved the other guys too but it was with 2e that fantasy in general really moved into a generic, vanilla space and that space was AD&D2e. Fiction, video games, artwork. It all started to take on that same feel, sort of like how all Lord of the Rings art now is very much inspired by the movies and is samey outside of a few artists. Early D&D still had that variety of fantasy art styles going on. While the game didn't really support these variety of game styles with the magic system being married to arcane/divine split since the earliest days, the artwork really did punch it up there.
You could sit a piece by Otus, Holloway and Dee beside each other and have three wildly different approaches to fantasy but each was grounded in its own reality. Easley, Elmore all had this "these are the same world" feel to them which helped unify the game and also sell 2e, especially, as that tool kit game they wanted to push. Forgotten Realms art looked like the Realms, Dragonlance looked like Dragonlance etc. You even had disparate styles of artists on Planescape but they all felt like Planescape. It was a benefit and a curse of sorts because D&D became so... vanilla because the art was so goooood. Then 2e core just got UGLY with the revision.
But for me, those older artists are still what makes D&D. Erol Otus evil sorcerors and cultists are what evil sorcerors and cultists look like to me. Holloway's adventurers are adventurers. That's part of why I like DCC so much, the artists capture that feeling as much as the rules do.
You could sit a piece by Otus, Holloway and Dee beside each other and have three wildly different approaches to fantasy but each was grounded in its own reality. Easley, Elmore all had this "these are the same world" feel to them which helped unify the game and also sell 2e, especially, as that tool kit game they wanted to push. Forgotten Realms art looked like the Realms, Dragonlance looked like Dragonlance etc. You even had disparate styles of artists on Planescape but they all felt like Planescape. It was a benefit and a curse of sorts because D&D became so... vanilla because the art was so goooood. Then 2e core just got UGLY with the revision.
But for me, those older artists are still what makes D&D. Erol Otus evil sorcerors and cultists are what evil sorcerors and cultists look like to me. Holloway's adventurers are adventurers. That's part of why I like DCC so much, the artists capture that feeling as much as the rules do.
ValamirCleaver
Ein Jäger aus Kurpfalz
teitan
Legend
Yes I know them. The Hildebrandts are the 70s and 80s. They predate the movies. But just about everything you find in stores looks like the films. Lee and Howe we’re concept artists for the films. I know these so I’m trying to figure out why you’re responding to me with them? They’re great artists. Still doesn’t change all the art since that isn’t them that is LOTR related looks like their work.
Kai Lord
Hero
Your post is a great example of why I can love Otus, Sutherland, Trampier, et al just as much as Elmore, Caldwell, Parkinson, and Easley despite the latter four being arguably technically more accomplished illustrators.
With Elmore or Caldwell paintings I look at them and can easily think I want to be that guy, rescue that girl, or live on that countryside. But with Otus and Sutherland and the others they're so good at injecting that deep sense of dread and fear of the bizarre unknown, which in turn adds a compelling sense of adventure, conflict and stakes to those worlds that I otherwise want to vicariously inhabit and whose NPC's I want to meet, fight alongside, or rescue.
1E just had that perfect blend of all of those elements IMO.
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Kai Lord
Hero
One of my very favorite RPG illustrators. Not just for D&D but also Star Frontiers and Paranoia.
R_J_K75
Legend
I did read your full post, but I think this quote sums it up. We just started playing 2E again last Sunday after 22 years and my friend and I who used to play together back then thought, eh we'll wing it at first, it'll come back to us, it did somewhat but it was rough at points. The other player who has only played 5E is somewhat confused. I just started reading the PHB over the last few days and I'm astounded how much I forgot, how many rules we probably never used to begin with, how much we probably had wrong, and how different the game truly is from 3E forward. It really is a different game.
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