Games as Works of Art

Mad Dog wrote: Been reading the DCC softcover in preparation to play and the art is certainly enjoyable.

Cool. Hopefully we can get an AAR and your thoughts.

RPGs and miniatures games will always have the upper hand over board games when it comes to artwork, CCGs too, for that matter. John Blanche, the sketches of Jes Goodwin and Wayne England for Games Workshop. John Howe's Lord of the Rings artwork for games. Moebius for Netrunner. There's lots of good art to be found in Magic the Gathering. Doug Kovacs and crew absolutely kill it on DCC. The classic D&D red box of the swordsman and the dragon is really iconic.

I think this though is one of the best in game art history. The thieves prying out the giant rubies in the eye of the idol. How the idol is light by the flames and almost seems to come to life. IS it coming to life? Will it devour the party? So much tension in there for me.

Yeah, that is one of the definitive pieces of gaming artwork. So evocative.

I love the box art for some of the old GW games that weren't product lines; specifically The Fury of Dracula, Warrior Knights, and Blood Royale.

The first time that I opened a Magic booster pack, I got a Shivan Dragon with Melissa Benson's art on it. I read that flavor text so many times.



I was only ... 9? So I might not have known anything about art but it was pretty memorable. This was one of my uncommons...



And to this day I tend to play Red!

That Blood Royale cover was done by Christos Achilleos(sp?). He has come a long way since that cover.

Jexik wrote: The first time that I opened a Magic booster pack, I got a Shivan Dragon with Melissa Benson's art on it. I read that flavor text so many times.

I was only ... 9? So I might not have known anything about art but it was pretty memorable. This was one of my uncommons...

And to this day I tend to play Red!

I got that Shivan Dragon in my starter deck when I was 13-14. It's not that great of an illustration, but for me it's also iconic. I've also alway leaned red.

the_jake_1973 wrote: That Blood Royale cover was done by Christos Achilleos(sp?). He has come a long way since that cover.

What has he done recently? Seems tough to beat his Blood Royale and Talisman 2nd lids.

What about Blue Moon? Magic mention is reminding me of it.

Two more examples of famous artists' illustrations in boardgames:
Corto - Hugo Pratt
and very much looking forward to
Inis - Jim Fitzpatrick

I had no idea jim Fitzpatrick was doing up a game.

He did some classic Thin Lizzy album covers in the 70s.

Wow, I didn't know that either. He is probably quite a bit more notable for designing THAT Che Guevara poster, one of the iconic images of the 1960s.

Mr. White wrote:

the_jake_1973 wrote: That Blood Royale cover was done by Christos Achilleos(sp?). He has come a long way since that cover.

What has he done recently? Seems tough to beat his Blood Royale and Talisman 2nd lids.

I didn't realize he did the Talisman box art.
His wiki.

Yeah, that Inis game looks fucking beautiful.

That being said, there aren't too many games out there really rise above 'average fantasy' art. What's worse is that most illustrations that are done in games now seem to be homogenized and afraid to be unique. Most stuff that comes from big publishers tends to have a similar look and feel. None of it stands out.

I was always a big fan of the garish artwork of Ascension, but most gamers hated it. It might not have been technically sound, but man it made me feel something when I looked at it. I could spend minutes just staring at certain cards. It was incredibly evocative and worked for this wonderfully weird setting they seemed to be going for.

Also I think The Bloody Inn is as equally as interesting, unique, and cool....despite being so odd. Still I'd take stuff that looks like that 9/10 times instead of how Mage Knight or Cry Havoc looks.

I always really liked the looks of the Simmons Games line. The rectangle blocks on the boards done up to look like regular maps really nailed the feeling of being a general peering down at a battlefield planning map. Even better if you go the extra mile and make everyone push things around with sticks.

Oh man, how did Ascension not get mentioned yet. The Ascension art is AWESOME. It is as close as we have to a Bob Pepper style thing, and I bet you dollars to donuts that guy would call Bob Pepper an influence. That stuff looks so striking and ORIGINAL.

But yeah, I remember hearing about how "terrible" the art is...but here's the thing. Don't trust the taste or aesthetic values of a class of people that think that Hawaiian shirts and fanny packs look good. Or that can't be bothered to pull their pants up over their ass. >>>MANY BUT NOT ALL<<< gamers have traditionally had awful taste and little class.

I see most of the "corporate" art on the big fantasy/SF games and it just kind of washes over. Very little worthy of note. It's only when we get a Nexus Ops, or Cave Evil, or Bloody Inn or whatever that I take note that it's something FRESH.

Have you seen Hit Z Road? Pete just reviewed it for me at MM...they did a really clever thing with it, they made the whole thing look like a midcentury travelling game called Hit the Road but "defaced" in to Hit Z Road. It looks really neat.

Problem is, we have way too many game illustrators influenced by Todd McFarlane, Larry Elmore and manga/anime in general. And not enough influenced by Bosch, Rothko or Bacon.