Tarzan cover art (Friday Art Attack)

I've been looking in to some of the brands and trade dress and cover artists who were popular in the field when I was a kid and teenager, really getting in to fantasy and science fiction (but especially fantasy. Although keep in mind that through the 80s, they were not actually branded as two different things yet.) The traditional publishing industry has become incredibly cancerous; it can't seem to publish anything that I really want to save its life--literally; the industry is dying on the vine--but in the 80s that was not true. Not only was it publishing a lot of stuff that I liked, but in the used book market, I was still finding stuff that had been published in the 60s and 70s. Not to mention the fact that some of what I bought in the 80s were second (or more) printings of what has originally came out in the 70s. Some of my favorites:

TSR was a surprisingly prolific, or at least it was surprising to me, of fantasy novels in the 80s, and some of their novels, like the original Icewind Dale trilogy by R. A. Salvatore and the original Dragonlance trilogy by Weis and Hickman, were genuine best-sellers. Because of this, the TSR in house artists became very well-known in the fantasy world; Larry Elmore did the Dragonlance covers, as well as the first Icewind Dale book, although Clyde Caldwell and Jeff Easley did the third. Elmore did all of the Dragonlance books.

Tor Books published the Conan pastiches during the 80s, including by many of them written by Robert Jordan. Jordan later turned Tor into a real fantasy powerhouse, of course, in the 90s with his Wheel of Time series. Wheel of Time, of course, had the Darrell K. Sweet covers. He was one of the most important fantasy cover artists of the 70s and 80s, and you could hardly pick up a random half dozen or so fantasy books during those decades without getting a Sweet cover or two. He was so prolific, that estimates of how many of his pieces ended up in print are over 1,000 and up to nearly 3,000. Not only these, but he did the 80s versions of Lord of the Rings, Thomas Covenant, and many more; some of the most popular and well-known works in print. The only cover artist who may challenge him for recognizability is Michael Whelan, but even then, I think Sweet was more easily recognizable and iconic, and the books he did were bigger than ones Whelan did. Not that that's a slight on Whelan; he did the 80s prints of the John Carter books, which I love, for instance, and he did the Pern books, which while kind of forgotten today (it seems) were extremely popular in the 80s.

Ballantine Books, which was owned by Random House but operated as a more or less independent brand since the early 70s, published a lot of my favorite books in the 80s. They also developed the Del Rey brand specifically for genre works, but not everything I have was Del Rey. Lord of the Rings was, at least the version that I grew up with. But the Tarzan books were notably published by Ballantine.

That's what I'm warming up to, actually; The black label Tarzan reprints by Ballantine, which started in the mid to late 70s and remained in print throughout the 80s are some of my favorite "fantasy" covers, and I absolutely love them. I don't have the full set, but I have many of them. Neal Adams was originally contracted to do all twenty-four Tarzan covers, but it became clear that the deadlines were too aggressive, so they split the series, and Adams ended up doing twelve and Boris Vallejo--another very prolific 80s artist--did the other twelve. Today, I'm going to post all twelve Adams covers as a Friday Art Attack. Wow, these were just great. I miss the trade dress and branding of the 80s. I don't feel like modern books really sell their content with the same gusto. Which I wouldn't do either if I were trying to sell that kind of woke slop that is much of what's getting published. I find that I'm honestly more interested in chasing older books in older printings most of the time. The time where publishers, cover artists, and to some degree even authors are strong brands in their own right seems to be over, and it's all a sea of sludge nowadays. 

"Photorealistic" AI renditions of WAR's vampires

It's Saturday, not Friday, but I spent some time asking Grok to convert some WAR images that I had to photorealistic versions of themselves. It kinda sorta did so. In any case, I'm happy with the results, so I'm going to call this a slightly belated Friday Art Attack; a series that I haven't done regularly in years, but which I should continue to do...

I called them vampires, but one of the images is of a nest of ghouls, of course, taking the corpse into the well. Given that I've said ghouls are like proto-vampires, though, I don't care. The one below is a ghost.

And below, is the demon lord of slime as shown by Paizo... which in Paizo's version is Jubilex, not Juiblex. I'm not sure where the deliberate slight mispelling came from, but the Tome of Horrors has Jubilex, so maybe that's the one that's open content.

Some AI image dumps (Revecca and Gloomwrought)

Just a few image dumps.

First, some new concepts for Revecca von Lechfeld, one of my favorite NPCs, and one that I think has a big role as an almost pseudo-PC. Or rather, I see her as a romantic interest for a PC, whether by PC I mean an actual player, or just a protagonist character.

Revecca is also kind of the iconic pseudomage a little bit later in her career, after no longer wanting to be subject to being the helpless damsel in distress. Here's some images of her sneaking around in the black market of magical items, and her also using some.

Here's an image from Ben Wooten that I've always liked. I believe it's from the 4e Shadowfell book.

For the heckuvit, I thought it'd be fun to see if I described the image what I would get from ChatGPT. Here's my first pass.

I actually really quite like it. But I decided to ask it to swap out the clock tower for something more Medieval (a wizard's tower) and add some ravens. For some reason, it completely redrew everything from a new angle. Not at all what I asked for. Fine result, but not what I wanted. When I called it out, I got the "you're right, I totally did something that you didn't even ask for. Ask for it this way next time instead. Also, you're out of image generations now." If ChatGPT were a person, it's behavior would be super toxic.

I also find it curious that this composition is, however, much more similar to the Wooten picture. 

I also did another fork where I deliberately asked for a different angle, a different kind of ship, and a lighthouse instead of a clocktower. Probably as a nod to Freeport.

One with and without the ravens. Some of the ravens are still out of scale; the gigantic one on top of the lighthouse is bigger than a large eagle.

Before I looked at the Ben Wooten image again, I had forgotten the greenish tinge of the lanterns and the ravens both, so I have some earlier drafts that have neither. My first draft didn't even get the fog right; it was more dark clouds in the sky rather than fog over the scene.

Now, it wasn't really my intention to try and recreate the image; if I wanted to do that, I'd just have uploaded it and asked ChatGPT to make it photorealistic. What I wanted was additional exploration of the same theme. So even the ones where I don't have all of the details right, like the greenish lanterns or the ravens; who cares? I'm very happy with all of these results.

From my old read-through of Manual of the Planes when I got it new (before 3.5 even came out) the Plane of Shadow was always my favorite of the alternate planes, and I saw lots of potential in the concept. If anything, 4e's Shadowfell book made it even better, adding the city of Gloomwrought to it, instead of just making it an Upside-Down or tel'aran'rhiod reflection of the regular world, but kind of a weird destination in its own right. My own Realm of Shadows plays on this idea considerably, although I'll be honest; I haven't quite figured out what to do with it yet other than a place where some of the Heresiarchs hide from each other and plot. Jairan Neferirkare is explicitly there, and in the final act of Darkness in the Hil Country, the PCs could even go face her there, although I don't honestly recommend it. They'll be unlikely to be successful at defeating her. So I still need some additional reasons and rationale to explore the Realm of Shadows, and maybe even some more development of it. I'll create a REALMS OF SHADOWS tag in part to remind me to do that when I have some time and mental energy for it.

Which I do not have today or probably even this week. I just got back late last night from an unexpected and unplanned work trip to Mexico, which after I arrived I had to change the schedule of and stay through the weekend. Before I even got anywhere close to getting back home, my white collar sweat shop boss was already "pushing" me on other work unrelated to my trip, as if I hadn't been completely occupied with the reason I was there the entire time I was there, including both days of the weekend. What a toxic environment this has become the last few months. I pushed back and took a sick day; not only am I exhausted from all of the travel and not being able to turn off for the weekend, but I think I picked something up in Mexico. I'm ignoring my work phone today and not turning on my laptop. It's just insane. 

But I did get another unexpected message from someone in my D&D group. Apparently there's demand once again for a one-shot for a portion of the other group that was full so I couldn't join it. As cool as that sounds, I'm not sure that I've got a one-shot in me with practically no notice. They want to play tonight. I'd like to do it, but I find the whole situation a little bit of a whiskey-tango-foxtrot, honestly, and I'm not 100% sure that it's feasible. On top of that tonight, my wife scheduled something for us tomorrow night while I was gone, and Friday night. All things that I should do and want to do... but sometimes when I'm just exhausted, mentally and emotionally if not always necessarily physically, it's hard to get excited about.

Other personal stresses and frustrations are mounting as well, on top of professional ones. This really, really has not been my year so far. Once again, if some independently wealthy patron or donor would like to fund both my current and future lifestyle, i.e., pay me like this is my job and  retirement, to make world-building and RPG content, outdoor content in the West, and maybe occasionally asides in other hobbies, with just a hint of social and political commentary on the side, I'd blog three times a week, have at least one YouTube video every week, and keep going into perpetuity until old age and/or senility makes it impossible to continue. If you're sitting on a multimillion dollar trust fund that can fund me professionally as a patron, you know how to reach me! Well, actually maybe you don't, because I'm fairly private online. But this blog and my YouTube stuff is part of my google account, and I use my Gmail all the time. How hard can it be?

One more image. This was generated by someone else entirely, but it looks like the same girl that I used as my model, so hey, it's Revecca again! Dressed in pseudo-Arabian Night's like gear, kind of like Princess Jasmine if she were undercover as Aladdin's "Street Rat Version" partner. Old Night doesn't really have a Middle East analog per se, but this could pass muster perhaps in one of the Baix Pallars cities, which are really more Spanish pirates than Middle East, but y'know. Kinda sorta close enough. Plus, it's a pretty cool study of the character in a different kind of look. Only minor quibble is that her hair is too short. I like long hair on girls. It looks feminine.

Delayed Friday Art Attack

Man, I haven't done a Friday Art Attack in a long time. Because I just finished my Freeport Trawl, I thought I'd highlight the Wayne Reynolds covers that he did for Freeport. Because I have all of the products, I do—after all—have all of the covers. 

There is actually one more WAR cover piece set in Freeport; the Fantasy AGE 2e cover. It's set in Freeport, but it's not a Freeport product. And I don't have it, so... eh. It's a pretty nice piece. A little too grrlbossy for my taste, but otherwise not bad. It's also readily available, since there's a pdf of the Quick Play rules available for free that includes it. A PDF24 Toolbox extraction of the image, and good to go.

Anyway, in no particular order...

Tales of Freeport

Fantasy AGE 2e (in Freeport)

Freeport: City of Adventure

The Pirates Guide to Freeport

Black Sails Over Freeport

Denizens of Freeport

Freeport Trilogy Fifth Anniversary Edition

Creatures of Freeport

Undead

I was always a little bit disappointed that the following two images were only available to me in pretty low res. I'd I had hi res images I might even have made a nice printout and put it in a little frame. Anyway, I tried to upscale them using two different services, but both free, so it's not really super he res upscaling. Just better than the smaller versions that I did have. I suppose it's an improvement, if not exactly a home run. I can't really tell the difference between the two versions, and when shrunk on my phone, I can't tell the difference between them and the originals. But, if I need to use them, hey, I've got these upscaled versions!

The one guy's face looks a little weird, the one holding the red crystal knife or whatever it is, but I actually think that's an artifact of Wayne Reynolds art style sometimes rather than the AI upscaling. As much as I love the guy, he occasionally made really janky looking people.

Demogorgon art attack II

A number of years ago now I did an "art attack" post specifically focused on the D&D "character" Demogorgon. I've got a lot more art that I've found online here and there since then. Here's some more. Most of these are probably more recent vintage, but some may be older and I just didn't find them at the time.

I cropped this one; it had a bunch of other demon lords in it, but this was the part I liked best.

vs. Orcus

Concept for a model you can 3D print. It actually looks just like that too.

Kinda classic, kinda new

I really like this one, with the much more snaky heads

I think in 4e and beyond, the notion of "baboon heads" has been completely forgotten. But the new look... isn't bad.

Obviously more "comic book" style, but still cool

Why is he in a cave, anyway?

Actually, this one was (I believe) in my earlier post, but this is a better version of the image.

Much more iconic and traditional than most of these newer ones.