Of all the artists who did covers for Dragon Magazine and art for Dungeons & Dragons, Fred Fields is not my favourite, but I always loved this particular cover. Not so much because of the character, a bit too much like a Conan the Barbarian wannabe for my taste, all in muscles and facial hairs, but because of the ominous presence of the big lizard in the muddy water behind him. There is also some delicious irony here: the warrior is carelessly stepping on the nose of what is most likely a dragon, completely oblivious to the danger behind him. And look at these reptilian eyes staring at his prey with both hunger and contempt. I recently blogged about swamps. The surroundings in this image looks far more like the swamps I imagined, dark, menacing and full of dangers. I once mentioned on this blog that swamps became after woodlands the most important wilderness settings for our D&Dr games. Swamps have so much potential as a place of adventures and such great atmosphere, as this illustration... illustrates it.
Pizza
17 hours ago
1 comment:
that is a great graphic and I think swamps have always and will forever make us think of all things scary and unknown, there is a television program on American television about people who live in the swamps, such a hard life.We don't have the program here in our art of Canada but our swamps here in Northern Ontario are much different than those of southern U.S,,still scary though,,
Post a Comment