Black Gate

Art Evolution, the continuing study of a single iconic character as imagined by the greatest fantasy RPG artists in the past thirty years continues, but if you want to view previous artists, you can begin here.

‘Dragonlance Lyssa’ was complete, as was a personal dream. I’d managed to get Larry Elmore, and was continuing down my list of incredible talent. As I’ve mentioned several times before, I like to read old issues of Dragon Magazine, and you can’t possibly do that without stumbling over an issue with a Den Beauvais cover.

This is also a good jumping off point in itself, and that is the very important role Dragon Magazine played in the landscape of the RPG field. In its original incarnation, ‘The Dragon’ was first published in June 1976, predating even the module series we’ve seen thus far in this article. Even its founder, Gygax, didn’t believe it would have the lifespan or impact that it did for gamers across the globe, but in its finality that print version of Dragon lasted thirty-one years.

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As we enter week twelve of the Art Evolution project, I’m going to have to take a moment and digress. If you’re looking for the project’s beginning, you can find it here. Or you can click to see my ‘Groovy Lyssa‘ from last week.

In 1984 I was thirteen years old, in junior high school, and had managed to maintain the appearance of being a ‘C’ student when I truly couldn’t read above the very rudiments of the written word. I absolutely hated the idea of reading, and I’d done everything in my power to prevent the school-driven establishment from making me do so.

I’d managed to slip through the cracks, a lost student, presumably one who would end up failing out of high school — or just getting the minimum scores needed for a base diploma, with no hope of a higher education. I was fine with that, and although my clever ruse of literary competence was eventually discovered by my mother (who spent a summer tutoring me to some semblance of reading ability between sixth and seventh grade), I still hated the prospect of books.

This continued until the middle of my seventh grade. One day while on a field trip to Indianapolis with my class, my malcontent view of books changed forever. I was in the big city, and big cities had bookstores, and this particular one had a Waldenbooks [R.I.P. Waldens, I miss you each time I’m forced to go to a mall] with a large fantasy book section.

I stood dumbstruck by what I saw there that day, and a friend of mine pulled down a copy of Dragons of Autumn Twilight and said, “This book was awesome.” Because unlike me, my friend Jason could read…

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Art Evolution, 1979-2009, continues as we journey back in time to the founding days of the RPG genre. For those of you who have missed what’s come before, you can catch-up here.

The year was now twenty-ten, I had my ‘Iron Kingdoms Lyssa‘, and I was deep in the process of expanding my vision of true Art Evolution to a full-blown epic. Ten artists down and I was ready to move on to the second half of my dream list.

The first name on that slate was Brom. Pressed by Tony DiTerlizzi, and with other artists clamoring for this gothic-genius to be included, as well as my own love of the Dark Sun universe, I sent out my appeal him. Unfortunately Brom turned me down, nicely, to be sure, but he didn’t have the time to commit.

I took a breath, tried to find my Zen center, and placed images of a Brom Lyssa on hold. As in the cases of Erol and Clyde, it’s very tough to give up a dream, and I determined that if I kept these wonderful artists in the project loop, there might be a chance for a change of heart before all was said and done.

Putting my Dark Sun boxes to the side, I pulled forth one of the great TSR modules of all time, B2: Keep on the Borderlands. This cover was done by Jim Roslof, someone I’d seen on Facebook, and although he was long and again retired, he had been the Art Director at TSR when they went from black and white to full color. This was someone who mattered, and I needed to include him.

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Art Evolution, the project to catalogue great fantasy RPG artists over the past thirty years depicting a single character, began here, and the tenth master is detailed below.

With the inclusion of a ‘Battletech Lyssa‘ I’d done it, landing nine of my ten artists and only Erol Otus still holding out. What to do next? I emailed Erol, told him I had a venue for market, all nine other artists signed on, and we only needed him to complete the project. Erol promptly denied me again…

Still, nine representations put me over the moon. I looked back at my bookshelves and decided to try and live inside the mantra of my own lofty dreams. It was time to break out of the boundaries of money and convention and just go for it.

I pulled down Iron Kingdoms and rediscovered Matthew D. Wilson, a favorite of mine since the day I first saw TSR’s Forgotten Realms supplement The Unapproachable East. I broke out my D&D 3rd Edition Players Handbook and tripped over myself for not already including the works of Todd Lockwood. Going with Tony DiTerlizzi’s advice, I dipped into the early nineties with my collection of Dark Sun boxed sets and decided Brom was an absolute must.

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Art Evolution, the collection of role-playing artists spanning thirty years and genres creating a single character, begins here and continues with this week’s ninth representative.

Okay, now I had a ‘Pathfinder Iconic Lyssa‘, and life was good, but the more I went over what I wanted from this project the more it became clear I couldn’t just do ten artists. There was no way ten artists justified the true landscape and epic scope of RPG art during the past thirty years.

I was at the tipping point, and it was then, in the depth of winter that I decided I’d include everyone who’d not only impacted my life, but the life of gamers all over the world.

If I somehow had the power to collect those already in the project, then asking was no longer an issue, and the sting of a rebuke wasn’t a deterrent against the joy I already felt at the process.

Taking a lead from Dragon Magazine reading, I starting rolling out every name I could think of. Instead of thinking about two representatives from each Era, I’d go for four, and I looked deeper into all the art I’d seen since my youth.

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The Art Evolution project is now in full swing, with every era of RPG art — beginning in 1979 and ending in 2009 — represented in the previous articles here.

My ‘High Draconic Lyssa‘ by Easley was complete, and Tony DiTerlizzi was encouraging me to join Facebook because he thought I could connect with other artists on the site.

I reluctantly did so as Tony had also become a mentor as the process grew. He was always asking questions, wondering why I wasn’t including names like Brom and Tim Bradstreet.

Jeff Laubenstein thought the same thing, but they hadn’t seen my overall list and I couldn’t put out spoilers. I mean, I was asking myself how big could this thing really be? Each new artist I included seemed to want another artist involved that was their inspiration or friend. I pushed such considerations aside and continued with the plan I already had in place.

I intended to ‘domino’ Easley into Larry Elmore, but Larry was a tougher cookie because he had what I called a ‘gate keeper’, which is to say a personal assistant who monitored his email. I wasn’t getting anywhere with her as I put out feelers, but I did get a hint about contacting Elmore from a random Easley email.

Jeff was headed to Illuxcon in Pennsylvania. Elmore would also be at the convention, so I asked Jeff if he might mention the article to Larry and see if he was interested.

This was another step in the waiting game, but I was heady with my current string of success. I wanted to push the envelope, and that meant going for the pinnacle.

The ‘evolutionists’ I currently had were huge names, but none were currently appearing on mass market RPGs in 2009. I wanted a current champion of the industry, and for that purpose there was only a single name that stood out, Wayne Reynolds.

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Art Evolution continues, this week’s image coming from a member of the later days of TSR. The character is yet another in a shared project representing a single figure created in many famed RPG artists most recognizable style. The project began here.

So I now had five, the newest of which was an ‘L5R Lyssa’. Half my list down and seemingly half to go, assuming I could flesh out my article with other greats I’d fantasized about since I wore parachute pants.

Sitting back, I took stock of all my memories on gaming, tried to picture the art that moved me the most, and I came onto some really profound names like, Larry Elmore, Jeff Easley, Tony DiTerlizzi, Wayne Reynolds, Todd Lockwood and Erol Otus just to name a few. Yeah, this was getting very real very fast.

These people were more than RP artists — they were industries unto themselves. Wayne Reynolds doesn’t take personal commissions, Jeff Easley’s email isn’t exactly public knowledge, and Tony had transformed from TSR ‘pit’ artist to award winning and New York Times best-selling children’s author and illustrator.

What these artists brought to anything they were involved in was profound legitimacy, something I had very little of at this point. Still, I needed something binding, something tangible to offer up to these artists. I was a writer with no credits to my name, but I could still list myself as a ‘freelance’. That was a truth, and it is always better to provide honesty than fiction, especially when dealing with an established and intelligent clientele.

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