Post your Top 20 D&D Illustrations of All Time!

[Klaus]

For some reason, these picture resonates a lot with me. I loved all of Elmore's Endless Quest covers, but these two are the ones that stay with me to this day:

 

[Yora]

Say, does sblock work here with pictures?

[sblock]

[/sblock]

It does!
This has proven to be a very good way to handle picture threads in other forums, as the pictures can get quite annoying when you want to follow the discussion. Especially when people quote posts with pictures in them.

So I would appeal to everyone here to use the [sblock.][/sblock.] tags around the pictures you post. And if you are feeling especially generous, you may also add them to posts you already made. Thanks a lot for that.

 

[Naszir]

The cover art on Dragon Magazine was at times just awesome.

Some of my favorites:

 

[Naszir]

For some reason, these picture resonates a lot with me. I loved all of Elmore's Endless Quest covers, but these two are the ones that stay with me to this day:

I loved those chose your own adventure books!!!!

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm not really trying to be snarky, but I don't really have that many favorite artists and illustrators. For me, only three of them really stand out. Everything else is just, well, everything else.

Jeff Easley: by far my favorite artist. His work will always embody "what D&D means to me." Especially his pencil illustrations in "CM1: Test of the Warlords." (check out Page 17 to see what I mean.) Simply awesome.

Larry Elmore: my second-favorite. A lot of people complain about his "cheesecake" style when drawing female portraits, and I can totally see that...but it has never bothered me any more or less than anyone else's work. Fantasy art is exactly that: fantasy.

Jeremy Jarvis: his art brings a slightly more "modern" feel to the fantasy genre, without hijacking it and throwing it down some bizarre anime rabbit-hole. Plus, I've actually met this fellow, and he's a stand-up guy.

 

[steeldragons]

I loved those chose your own adventure books!!!!

Seconded!

I was going to post some of those as well...but thought my list of 20 already had enough Elmore in it. But yeah, he's a big fave and those covers pulled me in every time.

Just as a slight aside, that may or may not be relevant to this particular "importance of art" discussion, though I think it a point to keep in mind...

But these books, through their art sparking my interest/imagination, and D&D in general REALLY got me into reading when I was younger. Moreso than any class assignment or anything. Think I was 10 (?) or so when I first picked up Tolkien and dove through it. 8-12 years old and I was picking up every D&D (or other fantasy) book I could get my hands on.

B'anywho...here's some more of these fun fantastic images...
[sblock]

Elmore did like his White Dragons, din'te? Or, rather, guess it was the authors since he was just making images for what was in the story.

And yes, for those who don't know, the Rainbow Dragons cover is by Easley, not Elmore. But that was the forst one I ever had/read. So it's got a special place in my nostalgic heart.
[/sblock]

 

[JohnSnow]

I'm not really trying to be snarky, but I don't really have that many favorite artists and illustrators. For me, only three of them really stand out. Everything else is just, well, everything else.

Jeff Easley: by far my favorite artist. His work will always embody "what D&D means to me." Especially his pencil illustrations in "CM1: Test of the Warlords." (check out Page 17 to see what I mean.) Simply awesome.

Larry Elmore: my second-favorite. A lot of people complain about his "cheesecake" style when drawing female portraits, and I can totally see that...but it has never bothered me any more or less than anyone else's work. Fantasy art is exactly that: fantasy.

I can't say I disagree with you on these three being the standouts. Although, as I said, I really like that picture of Daniel Horne's I put up. It's very reminscent of Elmore though.

And I dunno about Elmore being cheesecake. I mean, sure, sometimes - there's a reason he was the artist tapped for "Chicks in Chainmail."

But Avalyne the Life-Giver is hardly cheesecake. Nor are any of the women in "Dragonslayers" in particularly skimpy outfits.

Part of the reason artists draw both women and men in less than full clothing is that it lets them show off their ability to draw musculature. It's the same reason superheroes wear tights. And I'm okay with that.

 

[Klaus]

That Daniel Horne image is great, and it reminds me a lot of Keith Parkinson.

 

[Scribble]

I posted this in another thread, but I think I figured out why I like a lot of the images I do. The ones I like best have a lot more attention to things like contrast/ and hightlights/shadows...

A lot of art these days feels "flat" to me, so it kind of feels a little weird.

 

[steeldragons]

And I dunno about Elmore being cheesecake. I mean, sure, sometimes - there's a reason he was the artist tapped for "Chicks in Chainmail."

But Avalyne the Life-Giver is hardly cheesecake. Nor are any of the women in "Dragonslayers" in particularly skimpy outfits.

Part of the reason artists draw both women and men in less than full clothing is that it lets them show off their ability to draw musculature. It's the same reason superheroes wear tights. And I'm okay with that.

I have to say, I've been wanting to say the same in a post since the art threads began. I mean, I've gone to the man's online gallery, and yeah, he can do skimpy. ANY good artist can do skimpy.

But when I think of Elmore, "cheesecake" is not what comes to mind. Tika from the Dragonlance, yeah ok, she was pictured as scantily clad. But she was also, in the books, described as being clad in "piecemeal armor" cuz she was basically taken form the home-village and thrust into the role of "warrior" with all of these "experienced adventurers." Goldmoon? Had breaches and a full covered chest from the Chronicles cover on down. Kitiara was always fully armored. Heck, in the first cover of "Dragons of Winter Night" I didn't even know/couldn't tell that was a female!

You want "cheesecake" look to Caldwell! I don't think he's painted a female adventurer with pants/without bare legs and low-cut thrusting bazooms EVER! Look, even, to Easley. Just about every female he's one, even fully clothed, seems to have a chest waiting to burst through the cloth covering it.

Not a problem. I mean, look at the history (nothing, even art, is made in a vacuum). They're coming from a time of the "pulp" novel/art. The woman was the "damsel in distress." Or, if she wasn't, she was a sexy-toy thing, a la Red Sonja. Did ANY of Franzetta's females ever have tops on?

But Elmore as the "Lord of Cheesecake"/getting all of the flack he does just never made sense to me.