RPG-a-Day #28

28 – Style Sunday: Roll 1d8+1, tag that many friends with your favourite RPG cover art.

You know we’re not tagging anybody. And I don’t know if I have a favourite piece of RPG cover art as such. There are some artists whose work I really, really like, and some of that work ended up on covers.

First is Angus McBride, whose paintings of scenes in Middle Earth were on the cover of (almost?) all of the MERP books. He really defined the look of that line.

Jon Hodgson likewise illustrated a Middle Earth game, but he was much more involved: he was the art director for the first edition of The One Ring. His sombre palette really evoked the idea of heroes struggling to spread light in an era of gathering darkness. You can see some of his pieces on his site.

And then there is Jim Holloway, who illustrated many different editions of the Paranoia RPG. His whimsical and ironic style did so much to establish the insanity of the setting and to spur all kinds of madcap actions by the players. Everyone recognizes that little image of the smoking boot in a little pile of ash immediately.

Crossposted from my blog. Comment here or at the original post.