Sweet Cover Art?

Psion · Sep 9, 2006

What's your favorite cover art for a gaming product? D20, non-d20, what have you?

No, no poll. Too many possibilities.

Olgar Shiverstone · Sep 9, 2006

Dragon magazine cover art from the mid-to-late 1E era.

My favorite:

DeBracy · Sep 9, 2006

The cover of GURPS CthulhuPunk sprang to mind pretty quickly: http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/CthulhuPunk/img/cover_lg.jpg

I'll also mention one of my favorite covers from the domestic games; "Tjuvar och lönnmördare" ("Thieves and assassins"), a supplement to Swedish rpg "Drakar och Demoner" ("Dragons and Demons"), which originally was a translation of the Rune Quest 1 or 2 rules I think. Cover picture should be familiar to some I think: http://web.telia.com/~u40403354/dod/tjuvolonn/15.jpg

Dark Psion · Sep 9, 2006

Let's see some of my favorites would be;

Nort and Scar from the 3rd edition Gamma World boxed set

All of the Eberron hardcover books

Unveiled Masters, the best looking Mind Flayers ever!

Monte At Home · Sep 9, 2006

I'm going to go with the original cover of Rifts by Keith Parkinson. it's just incredibly well-rendered bizarreness of a sort that really appeals to me. I still don't know what that thing (or things) is/are, and I don't really want to. Game stats would sully it, honestly. But Parkinson could really do no wrong.

Vault of the Drow (Erol Otis) is awesomely nostalgic for me. 1E DMG also gets the nostalgia vote. While these art pieces don't stand up to a nice piece by Brom, Keith Parkinson, or Todd Lockwood, they get props for shaping my young mind in weird ways. I've spent countless hours staring at them (and others from those days) and just imagining.

I'm awestruck by Komark's Spell Treasury cover and Targete's Arcana Evolved cover, but I don't want this to sound like an ad. Although while I'm on the subject, I honestly think the Ptolus cover is probably my favorite Todd Lockwood piece, right down to the embossed rat.

I'll also throw in Faces of Evil: Fiends from the old Planescape days by Rohb Ruppel. I must liked it, I bought the original. It's particularly cool because there's an omega symbol hidden in it, signfying that it was his last cover for TSR.

I'm sure there's stuff I'm forgetting. Like the first Dragonlance module cover by Clyde Caldwell, the chessboard series of Dragon Magazine covers, and tons more...

Ghostwind · Sep 9, 2006

Monte At Home said:
I'm awestruck by Komark's Spell Treasury cover and Targete's Arcana Evolved cover, but I don't want this to sound like an ad. Although while I'm on the subject, I honestly think the Ptolus cover is probably my favorite Todd Lockwood piece, right down to the embossed rat.

Ditto that. I'll also add Jason Engle's cover for Into the Green because of its depth and Tony Szczudlo's cover for Darkwalkers: The Evil Within. It is one beautiful oil painting.

Eosin the Red · Sep 9, 2006

Ghostwind said:
Ditto that. I'll also add Jason Engle's cover for Into the Green because of its depth and Tony Szczudlo's cover for Darkwalkers: The Evil Within. It is one beautiful oil painting.

I miss Tony's work. His BR stuff was soo dreamy.... ::::swooons:::

I don't know that I could pick a favorite cover. I'd have to say pick any of the early 7th Sea Country books (Eisen, Ussura, Vendel) by T. Nielsen and I'd be hard pressed to disagree. Her work is smokin.

Wik · Sep 9, 2006

Monte At Home said:
I'm going to go with the original cover of Rifts by Keith Parkinson. it's just incredibly well-rendered bizarreness of a sort that really appeals to me. I still don't know what that thing (or things) is/are, and I don't really want to. Game stats would sully it, honestly. But Parkinson could really do no wrong.

Don't buy RIFTS atlantis, then. I won't spoil it for you any more, though.

***

My personal favourite covers have to be from the old school dragons, too - I particularly like #220 or so, with the picture of the guy riding on horseback through the forest carrying a torch - really cool stuff, there.

The original 2e PHB was pretty cool, too - In fact, I love the paintings in that book.

I think the original and second BOOK OF LAIRS for 1e have to be my favourites, though - the first (involving a dragon in a treasure horde) is iconic D&D, and the second (a bunch of adventurers battling a dragon near a rift in the ground) is just very action-packed.

The old D&D art is just so much cooler at least thematically (if not technically) than the newer stuff, in my humble opinion.

Whizbang Dustyboots · Sep 9, 2006

Almost anything by Erol Otus, but the 1E Deities & Demigods was especially cool, with its unusual mix of colors -- how many purple books are there out there? -- and his always idiosyncratic depictions just really suited the material. The two gods battling on the cover really felt otherworldly and truly alien. Even the theoretically benevolent god looked like something a mere mortal wouldn't want to be around.

The 1E Fiend Folio cover is also tough to beat for iconic coolness. I used to stare at that githyanki's strange wrappings for hours, trying to imagine the alien culture that would be at once so ornamented and yet so stripped-down.

Freeport: City of Adventure has a cover that makes you want to play there now, which I guess is the whole point of such things.