Favorite RPG Artists

What I Like in RPG Art

Tony DiTerlizzi

Probably best known for his work on Planescape in the 90s, his use of exaggerated anatomy, DeTerlizzi has gone on to his own post-DnD career, illustrating a ton of books that don't have game rules in them.

Jez Gordon

Dynamic, heavy scratchboard illustrations with both a strong sense of mass and motion. Jez is one of the newer artists I have noticed. Not to mention his work as a cartographer and a designer of great-looking books.

Russ Nicholson

I encountered Russ Nicholson's art both in the Fiend Folio and in pages of White Dwarf back in the 1980s. Russ' intense line work, dark and moody texture and generally grungy feel struck me deeply as hitting an aesthetic that better reflected the sword and sorcery (e.g., Robert E. Howard) and the dark fantasy (e.g. Micheal Moorcock) I liked in my teens. As my tastes have evolved, grungy, dirty and complicated still has been part of my favored art aesthetic.

Erol Otus

What initially turned me on to Erol Otus was his work in the Fiend Folio depicting the Cthulhu Mythos as well as some spot illustrations, but a lot of his work over the years with TSR and Arduin made me love his clean lines, freaky people, and non-traditional fantasy characters as well his deeply disturbing take on monsters.

Liz Danforth

Editor and main artist for Flying Buffalo's Tunnels and Trolls, Liz's black and white work, in particular, has a strong sense of texture, with her use of hatching, fine line work, and realistic expressions and appearances. Her work reminds me of fantasy book illustrations when that was a thing in fantasy novels, and creates a strong sense of what to me embody the literary roots of swords and sorcery.

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Monster of the Week: Fish Wife

Monster of the Week, February 18, 2020 Weekly, system-agnostic monster. Fish Wife Appearing as ordinary women with pale, clammy skin and the heads of fish, fishwives appear in seaside villages and approach single men seeking to woo them as husbands. As disgusting as they appear, they promise to care for their husbands by cooking, caring for the home, and even bearing children as ordinary wives, and it is said that they are loyal and dedicated wives. That said, their great fishy heads and great fishy smell are overwhelming, and they will never live far from the water. If a man denies a fishwife marriage, she may curse him for a moon and during that time he will suffer minor calamities. If a man marries a fishwife and is disloyal, the see will disgorge a school of strange fish with the legs of beasts or men and huge teet, and the fish will pursue the man until they or he are dead, then those that survive will return to the sea. The weeping fishwife will then haunt the city wi

Monster of the Week: Masked Haunter

Monster of the Week, April 14, 2020 I guess I am continuing to put these things out on the Internet. Masked Haunter Those who read through the play The King in Yellow are known to go mad, particularly if they read beyond the first act. But madness is not the only fate of those who meddle in the forbidden text. Sometimes, the text causes the world to warp. Other times, the text serves to open a door to other worlds, particularly when the play is performed. It is said that the Masked Haunter is native to the shores of Lake Hali, and that it is not unknown to the inhabitants of Carcosa. Called by the play, the Masked Haunter is transported from the Hyades to our world, where the alien beings are able to manifest and feed upon the minds of their prey. Hidden normally behind porcelain masks that conceal their brain-like bodies and loose flesh and tentacles that move them as they hover near the ground. They negotiate the world primarily through psyching senses; they feed o

Monster of the Week: Gluttony Beast

Monster of the Week, May 12, 2020 They just keep coming. Gluttony Beast When someone lives a life using others' suffering to become wealthy, becoming gat off the work of others' labor and suffering, the cries of the oppressed are sometimes heard by the gods or the spirits of the magic realm and the oppressor is punished rather than being allowed to die. Such cursed individuals lose all of their faces but their mouths; their bodies become gelatinous masses of adipose tissue their libs become a mass of soft, slithering tentacles, and their intelligence becomes subsumed by hunger to eat riches and wealth and overcome by a desire to live in their own filth. However, the gluttony beast quickly becomes a curse to the communities in which they are reborn as well. They are ravenous, foul, and spread a miasmic and dolorous stink over the land, which poisons and sickens the land. They themselves are surprisingly quick. Though blind, their sense of smell helps them find pr

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