Games as Works of Art

Yep, as a kid, I owned the Dragonmaster and Dark Tower. Both were given away many moons ago when I ventured off to college. I miss them now. Today, I stumbled across a copy of Dragonmaster for less than $2 bucks. I couldn't resist buying it because I absolutely adore the artist, Bob Pepper, who worked on both of these two games. His artwork makes me feel like the cards from Dragonmaster were copied from an ancient deck of tarot cards or lifted from rubbings made from fallen stones circling a stone henge.

My favorite artwork from Dragonmaster appears below. Most of the images in that game though seem to have so much personality.







What game related artwork do you like?

I read the thread title, and I immediately thought - BOB PEPPER.
Great stuff. Interestingly, Pepper had much more fun and insight into Dragonmaster though he's more notably recognized for Dark Tower.

I adore Heroquest and it's card illustrations. Black and White beauties!

There are a few games that stick out in my mind from my collection:

Gentlemen Thieves - I'm a sucker for the French art-nouveau style.
Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre - I would hang these spell triptychs, sans game mechanic text, in a game room.
Duel in the Dark - Such a beautiful map of the England/France/Germany section of Europe.

I'll second Epic Spell Wars.

I'm a fan of Paul Alexander's paintings. Starting in the 70's he illustrated a lot of sci-fi book covers for Ace, Ballantine, Del Rey, etc., and he painted the covers for Screaming Eagles and the exemplary, kinetic image on the front of the US version of Thunder Road. Last year I contacted a company online that's selling his originals but they only had a few left, not including the Thunder Road original, so it's probably long since passed into the hands of a private collector. I don't even want the orignal, I'd be satisfied with a copy that doesn't have the text or the photographic inset in the corner.

I had never heard of Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre. The art is amazing!

Epic Spell Wars art is fantastic. Other notables off the top of my head:
- Dungeon Command card art
- I haven't played it but the art from Ashes looks pretty awesome
- Cthulhu's Vault has some nice pieces in it

We certainly have to mention CAVE EVIL for its stunning artwork or we'd all surely be slain by necromancers and cultists from Colorado.

Mushroom Eaters is even more stunning.

Most game "art" is total garbage. Can you even name a recent game illustrator? The Scythe dude is good, but he's a painter. Most of it just washes over, registering as either soullessly competent (I.e. All of FFG) or hilariously incompetent (Defenders of the Last Stand). Very little taste, currency or inspiration.

Look at Blood Rage...most would say that it looks "awesome". I think it looks professional and well executed but it is totally heartless. I look at it and shrug. Even all the Star Wars stuff...oh wow, good SW illustrations. Big fuckin' deal. My SW wallet had more graphic design creativity than any SW product published by FFG.

Doris Matthaus's stuff had heart and soul...so much more than whatever is on a CMON box.

You can't beat Bob Pepper, that guy was AMAZING.

John Blanche is great, we know this though.

Whoever that guy is that did the art on Police Precinct, Flash Point and Hostage Negotiator is doing probably the ugliest, most inept work in games today, barring Paul Niemeyer.

Battle at Kemble's Cascade (remember that one?) was bad but he illustrations and design were good.

TL;DR- art is rare in gaming.

stoic wrote: I had never heard of Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre. The art is amazing!

superflycircus.com/2015/06/epic-spell-wa...trash-game-in-years/

SuperflyTNT wrote:

stoic wrote: I had never heard of Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre. The art is amazing!

superflycircus.com/2015/06/epic-spell-wa...trash-game-in-years/

Thanks Bro! I must have missed that one.

Of the games I own, my favorite 2 on the art department is the original Battlelore (which is so whimsical) and Android. There isn't that much art in Android really. Just the character pictures, map art and box art.

Stoic, we used to do a feature called 'The Critic' where we voted on game art. search around for those threads, you should find them enjoyable.

Yes, Bob Pepper, Gary Chalk, John Blanche, etc the greats. It'd be easy to also throw in a name like Sergio Aragones, but that feels like cheating as he's a known artist outside of gaming.

Games that are a work of art themselves though...I've always thought that the Basic D&D Erol Otus red box and hardback editions of Shadowrun (2nd), Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (1st) and Warhammer Fantasy Battles (3rd) are some of the best works of art in gaming. Even if you don't play those games, the art, layout, covers, flavor text, etc are fantastic in these three and should be on every gamer's shelves.

EDIT: Of course, we must include the Dungeon Crawl Classics book, but that too feels like cheating. They set out to go gangbusters on the art.

With boardgames, I've always felt that the John Howe/Reiner Knizia collaborations are works of art. Incredible illustrations married to fantastic game design. LotR:Confrontation (1st), LotR (co-op), and Beowulf all fit in here.

Mr. White wrote: EDIT: Of course, we must include the Dungeon Crawl Classics book, but that too feels like cheating. They set out to go gangbusters on the art.

I purchased the DCC book a few weeks ago having never before looked at it. I must say that I had heard how cool the art was and was still totally unprepared for my face to melted off page after page.I think its the finest example that can exist for this thread.

On that note, the price for the softcover book is well worth the art alone even if you will never play the RPG.

Been reading the DCC softcover in preparation to play and the art is certainly enjoyable.