Darin Shuler's Awesome Stranger Cover

This is way cool! Darin Shuler, who did the back-cover artwork for my D&D adventure, The Purple Worm Graveyard, is the cover artist for this week's Seattle Stranger! Go, Darin!

Random Dungeon Generator that is a Dungeon

Paul Hughes has this awesome project on Kickstarter: Random Dungeon Generator as a Dungeon.

It's a 36" x 24" poster that is also a walkthrough of the random dungeon generation rules in the classic Dungeon Master's Guide. I already happy to own Paul's poster of the wandering monster tables, and it is pure awesome, I assure you. This is the kind of amazingly cool thing that can exist today because of people like Paul, who have an awesome vision and are able to take hold of the tools to make it happen. I can't wait for this project to ship!

Microsoft Art Collection - Melissa Manful

One of the benefits of doing contracting work at Microsoft is that I get to travel around to a lot of different Microsoft buildings and see the artwork there. Today I ran into this gorgeous piece by Melissa Manful. It's a reminder to me that there are an awful lot of artists out there making interesting art.

Art Inspired by Games: Oilfurnace

I love it when games lead to really cool art. Check out Oilfurnace a Dwarf Fortress by the artist of the much-linked Boatmurder. The isometric infographic/map of the Fortress is worth the full price of admission alone.

Don Kenn and the Awesome of Post-It Notes

Don Kenn makes fabulous drawings on Post-It Notes. I mean it’s really fabulous stuff with monsters and places, and barely-hinted characters. It’s kind of like Edward Gorey and the Monster Manual and some other stuff thrown in.

There are these pictures of these horrible monstrosities just on the verge of devouring, cursing, or carrying away the hapless human denizens of Kenn’s world.

His technique is gorgeous. The gesture of the drawings is perfect. But what really gets me is the subtle way in which each picture shows something happening. It’s kind of subtle at first, but it’s never just a picture of some monster, next to some thing. It’s a monster reacting to that thing, with an expression that might be ravenous, but might be something else, like sorrow, or longing, or dread. Each picture sets up a relationship and a story.

I love this stuff. I just had to say that. Go check out his blog for more!

Josh Angle

Josh Angle, AKA Shag, draws these weird mod tiki landscapes. I've always loved them. I've heard people complain that Shag's work is repetitive and unimaginative, but for me, it's always been on the cutting edge of imagination. The simplicity of his pictures is deceptive, like snapshots in a complicated and subtly menacing story of desire and loss. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Anway, his new stuff is really cool and kind of a departure for him. I like it.

Picture stolen from Hi Fructose

Lost Breugel Uncovered

"The painting was beautiful, just not admired. Then suddenly, after more than four centuries, it was." Check out this NY Times article about a lost painting by Breugel. This guy is one of the great masters of fantastic art. He made some amazing paintings of the Tower of Bable that you may have seen before. If you like his stuff, check out Jacek Yerka, who paints today using similar techniques. Or, if you want something a little more modern and funky, check out Mattias Adolfsson.

Blown Away

Every now and then (like about twice a week), I see art that really knocks me off my feet, makes me question my vocation, and sends me off to my sketchpad to re-group. That's where I've been with Zak Smith's artwork ever since I found his online sketchpad. Like this really appeals to me, just as a painting. And this totally blows me away from a D&D gamer point of view.

Your Red Box has Better art in it than Many Professional Galleries

Something interesting and important is going on right now over at The Mule Abides, where Tavis is talking about D&D and contemporary fine art. Maybe this conversation has been going on around the art/game world for a while, but I’m just becoming aware of it.

Tavis asks, pointedly “what is the alleged difference between commercial art by Dave Trampier, Ian Miller, Gary Gygax, et. al. and gallery artists take serious at all?”

It’s a self-evident to me that the distinction between the kind of art those artists made and contemporary fine art is vanishingly small. Erol Otus could walk into half a dozen Seattle galleries today and get his art hung, no question.

Compare a recent Erol Otus:

Hackmaster Basic cover by Erol Otus

To these gallery-worthy works of art:
Why Do I Do What I Do? by Tara McPherson

Wishes for the Wicked by Scott Campbell

Art by Andrey Mayorov


They’re on a par, at least in enough ways to matter. What’s more interesting to me is how we got to here.

Here’s some art from Magic: The Gathering, circa 1994-ish.
Hymn to Tourach by Scott Kirschner

Mana Vault by Scott Tedin

Necropotence by Scott Tedin

I really dig that Hymn to Tourach (top image). What the hell is going on there? Who is that guy? What's going to happen if he drinks that cup? Don't drink the cup, man! Don't drink it!?

Anyway, this is art that stimulates the imagination. It gives you enough to start you feeling, but then leaves you to complete the journey on its own. It’s interesting, exciting, and evokes a range of emotions including wonder, interest, and enjoyment. By the way, these experiences all work in a direction that’s oblique to the business interests of the company publishing the game. They’re unnecessary.

Here’s some art from Magic: the Gathering circa now:
Auriok Edgewright by Mike Bierek

Auriok Sunchaser by James Ryman


Abuna Acolyte by Kieryluk

It’s generally of a higher technical quality. It’s highly art directed and carefully produced. It’s also utterly soulless. There’s no question posed that can’t be answered by buying a comic or a novel or something. There’s no experience that can’t be harnessed as an engine of the business. It’s unquestionably some of the best game art out there, but “fine” it is not.*

I submit that old-school D&D art and contemporary art that employs gamer sensibilities is looking better and better because commercial art has pulled away from it in an altogether less inspiring direction, leaving the good stuff standing alone.

Yeah, I think that’s one of the most important functions of good art today: to make the distinction between commercial and creative crystal clear. That’s why tattoo art, graffiti, flash mobs, lowbrow, pop culture, outsider art, folk art, and brute art are everywhere these days.

* Hey, business is a great thing! After all, Erol Otus got his start drawing for a business, right? I’m not slamming commercial illustration here. It can be greatly awesome.

Edit: Added picture credits

Doomslangers at Allegra Viola Gallery

More Dungeons & Dragons in art! I was just pointed to this page for the Doomslangers exhibition at the Allegra Viola Gallery (showing right now in NYC).

This show is a spectacular grab bag: character illustrations, real-life magic items, conceptual art, humor, and some thoughtful academic pieces as well.

It brings to mind an obvious question: why should we care if some D&D stuff gets shown in an art gallery? Does that bring any benefit to us as gamers?

My take on it is this: as gamer, designers, and players, we're creating every day. That creativity doesn't belong in a bushel basket. It belongs out in the world where people can experience it. I'm not saying we should take our character sheets out of our notebooks and hang them on the wall. What I am saying is that D&D players are everybody: they're artists, parents, students, IT managers, salespeople, and politicians. If playing games enriches their life at all (and I think it's pretty obvious it does), then it's enriching these activities.

So I guess what I'm saying is that good games teach us to create, and there's no reason that creativity should be restricted to the game.

The Dungeon in Art

Wow, this is way too cool not to instantly post: there's a panel on Dungeons & Dragons in Contemporary Art in New York this Saturday. Seriously, I wish I could fly out just to see it. If you're in the area, go! The lineup is spectacular to say the least.

The Art of Minecraft

BRT5470 is the artist who created this beautiful minecraft music video (and previously the enchanting 8-mile railway video). This is abundant proof that even with the simplest and strangest of materials, you can make art.

More Purple Worm Art

I just got some more Purple Worm art from Seattle painter Darin Shuler. Actually, Darin is formerly of Seattle, now of South Carolina. When I told Darin I was putting together a D&D module he got very excited and contributed an awesome Purple Worm God image for the back cover. It's weird, surrealistic, and spectacular and not what you expect (in a good way). I'm not going to post it now, though. I'm going to make you all wait until the final is done. :) Also, I probably owe you a preview of the interiour art by Ed Heil, whose work I have admired since the days of Trollbabe.

Arcologies and Megadungeons

I went down to Portland last weekend with the family and was lucky to find a real gem at Powell's Books: Paolo Soleri's Arcology.

Soleri pretty much coined the idea of arcologies, gigantic self-contained cities that fulfill the material and spiritual needs of their citizens. The book includes many gorgeous drawings of prospective Solerie Acrologies.

Soleri's diagrams are full of little notations like "city center", "light well", or "neighborhood", as though they were real blueprints, and not speculative drawings. The closer you look, the more detail you see; all these little shapes and diagrams that start to look like stadiums, parks, discotheques, and comfortable homes. You start to feel like this is a real place.

These put me in mind of fantasy maps, like megadungeons or megacities like Ptolus or The City of Lankhmar. I can't help but try to imagine these cities as megadungoeons. Can you imagine the Mutant Future or Metamorphosis Alpha campaign you could set in one of these?


These Arcologies are a lot like the best of fantasy maps: they put you in a magical place, they express certain ideas as an imagined place, and they apply a lot of the mapmakers art to the presentation. Actually, I think these are a lot better than fantasy maps. I can only think of 1 or 2 maps that come up to this level. This kind of art really raises the bar for fantasy art, and in a good way. I'm starting to imagine a megadungeon map that works on this scale and in this style.

Fugitive Art

Home of: Richard Kimble by Mark Bennett is one of the greatest pieces of fantasy map art I’ve ever seen, and I encountered it hanging inside a Microsoft office building.* It’s also featured in Katharine Harmon’s book The Map as Art. Fantasy art and cartographic art get around.

I spent a little time before writing this trying to categorize this artwork using Wikipedia. It doesn’t fit Wikipedia’s description of lowbrow art; it’s not outsider art; nor is it truly naive art, since it clearly exploits an established body of technique. I guess the art world hasn’t yet gotten around to categorizing fantasy cartography, which is fine by me.

I want to talk about this picture a bit, just because I love it so much. It’s a map of the United States full of places which (presumably) really exist, ostensibly included as part of the fictional Richard Kimble’s real FBI file. And apparently Richard Kimble really got around, visiting every state except Mississippi and Hawaii. The map chronicles his adventures in those states. If you’ve watched every episode of The Fugitive, you’re probably more familiar with this fantasy United States that you are with the real one. But the fantasy United States isn’t pure fantasy. It’s deeply informed by the iconic regional experiences of the real United States:

“Cornell, ID. […] The Max Henderson Ranch (Mr. Kelly ranch hand) Eludes Sheriff Morgan Fallon and his posse on pack mules”

“Black Moccasin, NB. Ted Krumer’s new mechanic (Ben Rogers tractor driver) must flee to Bright’s Farm (Tyler County)”

“Crawford Farm (Mike Johnson field hand) protects Lt. Gerard from deadly pitchfork thrown by fellow fieldhands during storm”

So it’s a map of a TV show, but it’s also a map of our United States. In that sense, it’s as much a portrait of our world as, say Bruegel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus is a portrait fo Breugel’s world.

The map is also a technical triumph by any cartographical standard. It is executed 100% within the strict conventions of a functional map. It’s dense with detail. Each entry includes location, Richard Kimble’s alias at the time, the names of major protagonists, and the involvement of law enforcement in the scene.

But the map also purposely strains the limits of legibility. The closer you look, the harder it is to really make sense of the story. The entries are dangerously cramped in certain areas. The faint dotted lines that presumably mark the progress of the chase of Richard Kimble disappear behind the text, challenging you to follow them. When you look this close, the illusion that this map is a bare representation of fact begins to break down. You start to see disjunction between the real United States and the progress of a fictional journey.

But the illusion never breaks all the way. The map stays right on the line between the factual and the impossible, and that’s what makes this a really great fantasy map. It’s fun to look at, dense with information, flawlessly executed, thoughtful, and deeply informed by its subject matter: a truly great map.

* Microsoft has a spectacular art collection, including some stunning works that I'd call fantasy cartographic art.

Update E. Tage Larsen points out in the comments that this form of art can be properly termed Information Graphics or Information Design!

Daniel Reeve: Master Maps

It's not every day that you stumble upon a map that literally takes your breath away. This morning I was doing a Google Image search for maps of Moria (because I do that kind of thing), and I stumbled across the cartography of Daniel Reeve. These maps are beautiful master works, every single one.