Ravenloft: The Horrors Within Announced, Release Date Scheduled for June 2026

[Parmandur]

how efficient TSR were in supplying reference images to artists

"efficient" is not a word associated with anything at TSR, lol. As I understand it, the artists in that era were pretty much on their own, and we're not given very sensible direction.

 

[Kurotowa]

"efficient" is not a word associated with anything at TSR, lol. As I understand it, the artists in that era were pretty much on their own, and we're not given very sensible direction.

Minimal art direction was the standard of the time. Book covers for science fiction and fantasy novels were infamous for having little to no relationship with the actual material. And for how often the artist just recycled what they were familiar with, aka Star Wars or Star Trek, because all they were given to work with was a back of the book sized blurb.

 

[nyvinter]

"efficient" is not a word associated with anything at TSR, lol. As I understand it, the artists in that era were pretty much on their own, and we're not given very sensible direction.

Yeah. Elmore got his sketches for the Red Box refused several times, managed to get a meeting with Gygax — "special people or not, if he wants a cover for his Dungeons & Dragons then I have to see him" — and got a "I want something that reach out and grabs me." Which is useless art direction, so lots of props to Elmore who did the literal thing.

 

[Azzy]

I agree it doesn't look like Soth (and the bat wings are especially odd), but the full version of the picture seems like that scene from Dragons of Spring Dawning where Tanis kills Ariakas and takes the crown of power before Soth can (EDIT: there's some interesting stuff about this over on this Stack Exchange page):

Can I just add that I have never liked Easely's work?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Can I just add that I have never liked Easely's work?

I quite like that image. And I would really like the Crown of Epic Beards.

 

[Artamo]

I agree it doesn't look like Soth (and the bat wings are especially odd), but the full version of the picture seems like that scene from Dragons of Spring Dawning where Tanis kills Ariakas and takes the crown of power before Soth can (EDIT: there's some interesting stuff about this over on this Stack Exchange page):

Wow, you know I remember being mystified as a kid about who the skeletal guy was on the cover. Glad I wasn’t the only one!