Dee & Dee
Thinking about all this D&D history reminded me that my favorite first edition artist, Jeff Dee, is also probably my favorite D&D artist of all time.
I once contacted Jeff about doing illustrations for Polyhedron, when I was running that magazine in 2001. Jeff replied that he'd be interested in working for the magazine, but said something to the effect of "just don't make me draw guys with weird helmets and bellbottoms."
Since that was precisely what I was looking for, I decided to go another route, but I still like to imagine working with Jeff on something some day.
Here are a few of my favorite pieces from the site linked above. Click the link to get larger versions, and enjoy a look back at some of the imagery that made Dungeons & Dragons the success that it is today.
Rufus & Burne, from The Village of Hommlet
Cyclops, from Fiend Folio
Gruumsh One-Eye, from Deities & Demigods
Odin, from Deities & Demigods
Mindflayer attacks, from Expedition to the Barrier Peaks
Ghouls attack, from The Village of Hommlet
5 Comments:
Hey Erik,
Jeff was by far my favorite artist of the time. I used to sign all my art .C. '88 or something along those lines in high school (Yes geeky, but I was on the varsity football team so I had some room to be nerdy :) One of my main reasons for picking up Villains & Vigilantes was Mr. Dee's artwork. He was the UDON before artists used Photoshop. The last thing I heard he was doing some covers for Goodman Games.
Super nerdy correction to one of the captions:
I think those are zombies, not ghouls. They're in the pillar room, which I'm pretty sure contained zombies.
Maybe my recollection is bad, though
Man, what happened to Jeff's artwork? I looked at some of his most recent stuff and it doesn't look even similar to the 80's stuff.
On a related note the artwork in the LG Journal that has the Silent Ones is very similar. I forget the artists name but I really dug his take on Eli Tomorast. Ever think of using him for Dungeon, Erik?
Kalman Aranofsky, hope I parsed that correctly. The guy has some penciling skills.
I worked a lot with Kalman in the couple of years that followed that Silent Ones article (Kalman's first published work with WotC). He'd had the good sense to include several pictures of DC's Starman character in his portfolio, which immediately captured my attention. When the Living Greyhawk Journal moved to Dragon, I art directed the section as well as edited it, and worked with him on several occasions.
I think that of the artists I've worked with, Ramon Perez most reminds me of Jeff Dee. When Sean and Kyle and I knew him mostly as a superhero guy, he sent us a fantasy image of a really sweet-looking rogue, and the fact that the guy had bell-bottoms was what sold it for me.
I think it would be very, very interesting to pattern some D&D cultures after the visual styles of, say, Jeff Dee or Erol Otus. Jeff's art resmbles the "Nyrond style" of the Marklands, while Erol Otus's more baroque and grotesqe design sensiblity informs the architecture and fashion of the Empire of Iuz.
Very tempting.
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