D&D General One Piece of Art X: The Weird Art

Welcome to part TEN in the art appreciation series- One Piece of Art! Prior columns are linked to at the bottom. It's been a while, but I thought I'd resurrect it.

What was the weirdest art in D&D that inspired your gonzo D&D sensibilities?

This is a little bizarre... basically, we are looking for a piece of art in an official D&D product that you loved, and it was so weird that it somehow managed to worm its way into your head like the critters in Star Trek II ... so it gave fuel to your creative fire for weirdness when it comes to D&D!

As always ... please note the following rules for the thread-

1. ONE piece of art. You shall count to one. If you do two, you've gone two ... um, too far. Three is just way out. And zero means you forgot to post something. Now, I know that everyone just ignores this ... but try your best! Seriously, though, pick one piece as your choice, and then follow up with more later if you feel the urge.

2. It has to be art you love, and please explain why you love it! Maybe you think it just looks cool. Whatever! It's your love, don't make me put a label on it.

3. Explain the where the art came from, and include the artist if you know who it is. This is "weird" art, so do your best to explain what it is .... if you can.

4. Finally, explain why you chose it. What did the art mean to you?

Now, as usual, I will start this thread off. Have to admit, there's a lot I could do. But I always go with the curveball .... NOT THIS TIME.

To me, weird art, when it comes to D&D, always starts and ends with the same name - EROL OTUS. Now, that isn't to say that other artists couldn't get their weird on. A lot of early D&D art was weird, but there was something especially psychedelic about Otus's art that stood out, especially compared to the art style that took over in the "E" era of TSR.

And there are many choices ... you can never unsee the gibbering mouther in C1. But I will instead off the work he did in Deities & Demigods. And, for once, I am going to break my own rule- but I have a good reason to do so! The first piece was not included in later versions of the book due to issues with Chaosium.



Artist: Erol Otus
Source: Deities & Demigods (1980), first two printings.
Depicting: Shub-Niggurath

Why this one? Well, capturing the feel of cosmic horror is not easy. Somehow, this conveys the essence.

But I will always, ALWAYS love his work on the cover of the book.





Artist: Erol Otus
Source: Deities & Demigods (1980) cover of book (first image) and actual illustration (second image).
Depicting: Um ......

I spent a lot of time staring at this cover. Because there's a lot going on. Are those clerics battling it out by summoning their deities or avatars? Who is looking on, and why? And what bug critter is being beseeched? Finally, what's going on in the background, and where are they?

Whatever is going on for certain, I both want to be a part of it, and never want to be a part of it.


Prior Columns-
Part I (Classes)
Part II (Monsters)
Part III (Magic Items)
Part IV (Races)
Part V (Places)
Part VI (Maps)
Part VII (Spells)
Part VIII (People)
Part IX (non-D&D art that inspired love of D&D)

I recall seeing the cover for Q1 in a PC Gamer ad for TSR back catalog products when I was a kid, and it has stuck with me pretty hard, wondering what aort of cool video game that would represent:

Artist: Emmanuel
Source: White Dwarf 40 (Games Workshop, 1983)
Depicting: Um...

Well, since my sense of "weirdness" has nothing to do with "gonzoness" (I have always detested Gonzo and the Star Trek critters with a passion, although age has softened my resolve a bit in the first case - poor guy - BUT ONLY INCREASED IT IN THE SECOND); can assure you that folks who think they can have a laugh while out and about in THE LAND OF QAF will rue the moment they even thought about it; and the question isn't what OFFENDED my gonzo D&D sensibilities (now that would have been easy), I'm afraid I can only see "weirdness" as being something that has a certain beauty and delicacy to it*, and which can also add yet another layer to the many-layered sense of je-ne-sais-quoi I let govern my every venture in D&D.

Now, because we're only allowed to count to one and my one is a "one" the folks trying to implement granny's law around here probably won't appreciate - however innocent it is thought of in my part of the world (yes, it's Boris Vallejo's Glasya kissing a girl with no pants on oh wait that's not D&D faerie dragon and girl with no pants on on the cover of Dragon #52) - I can only post the image below, mainly because it actually was the first thing that helped define my sense of what could be weird in D&D* - and because it's by Emmanuel.



*) What can I say? I'm a boring kind of guy.

Edit: inspired

While David A Trampier's monochrome cover art for the original 1979 Village of Hommlet doesn't look objectively weird, it's always weirded me out.

When I first saw this picture I didn't really see it. Instead of the cultist whom looms large to the right, I saw a monstrous one-eyed mister potatohead waving its weapons at me. The eye on the cultist's chest appeared to be the creature's actual eye with an impossibly huge maw of fierce and sharp gnashing teeth arranged below. The aberration's blob of body seemed to be topped by a mitre, which I saw instead of the cultist's helmeted head.

Obviously, though, that visual interpretation is problematic and wrong. I recognized this almost immediately and a mere and cursory examination corrected the image and let me see the cultist as intended. Yet, in order to see the truth of the art, I had to actively stop seeing the one-eyed mister potatohead charging forth—not unlike one of those visual puzzles with a hidden image that we can only see by relaxing our vision.

Even today, forty-three years later, whenever I take a fresh look at the cover art, I see first what I once initially saw, and I have to adjust my vision in order to look for the actual image. I know what image I should see, but I see that freakish and cyclopean mister potatohead until a squint and the shake of my head makes it go away.

The thing is that I dig the mister potatohead monster. I was more than a bit disappointed when I recognized that I was just looking at a cultist, and the lesson that In now take away from my failed perception roll is that my imagination, my vision, is just as if not more integral to the campaigns that I run as that of the game's designers—which is a longwinded way of saying that when I ask you if you really want to go into the moathouse, you ought to turn tail and run away.

Art X is the worst mutant. He runs a delicatessen that's actually a front for Mister Sinister to launder money.

I'll cheat a bit and post two. But they come from the same source...

Artist: Russ Nicholson
Source: Fiend Folio
Subject: Penanggalan



I find those images incredibly creepy and they really got inside my head. I must confess that I've never dared to actually use this monster...

You guys are all old.

The first D&D book I ever flipped through was 2010's Player's Handbook 3.

Adam Gillispie's illustration of two Shardminds has since been firmly lodged in my brain.

Nevermind the silliness of there being a "male" and "female" Shardmind when these creatures are supposed to be completely sexless. I love Shardminds and I love this picture. The Shardmind race is probably the single strangest PC option ever presented to players by either TSR or WotC, and here they are, just standing around being adventurers. When I look at this, I want to know what it looks like when they move and speak. Also, what is this surreal purple crystal landscape they're in? Is this the Underdark or some extraplanar place?

I might be dead inside. But I've seen so many of these so many times, they no longer register as weird to me. My perspective has been skewed.

From Deities & Demigods. The page after the image Snarf shared.

Moonmover said:

You guys are all old.

Click to expand...

We prefer to say that we are aged, like a fine scotch.

But that's the point of these threads! So that people can share the art that they loved. It doesn't matter if it's from 1975, or 2022.

That's the beauty of it- hopefully, you will see something new, or old, that you haven't seen before. Or at least you'll get to appreciate it again!

(Cool shardmind art, by the way!)