The Beholder Art (take 2)
Posted: May 13, 2011 Filed under: art, monsters, OSR 6 Comments
(I posted this just before Blogger went down the other day and it vanished into the ether, so now I post it again).
A friend sent me this link to a hidden page at Wizards that was part of a contest of some kind (I don’t know) where they had a picture by Wayne Reynolds of a few adventures throwing down with the gorpy, loveable beholder (see Wayne Reynolds image at right).
The link: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dnd/behold
The page includes 10 different artist’s interpretations of the scene. From the page: The original image is a Wayne Reynolds piece. Jon Schindehette used it as a model, sending it out to wide array of artists and asking for their interpretation of the image using their own specific art styles. The results that came back were impressive, to say the least—and a fascinating look at how D&D art can be expressed in a variety of ways.
I’m sure I’ll come off as a malcontent (after all, Wizards didn’t ask ME to participate), but to my jaded eye, all of the artists chosen seem to share a pretty similar sensibility and there isn’t much of an old school vibe to any of the pictures… where the fuck is the Erol Otus version?
HEY WIZARDS, OTUS IS STILL ALIVE AND WORKING SO WHY DON’T YOU HIRE HIM SOMETIME?
I am considering doing my own version after this month is over and I am somewhat caught up on my own work (so maybe mid June at earliest). I’d like to toss out the suggestion that other members of the OSR with an artistic bent try their hand at the picture… anyone care to take me up on that?
For what it's worth, I did read this yesterday, so it wasn't completely lost by Blogger.
I'll certainly have a go at the OSR Beholder Art Challenge, although I'm also rather booked up for at least a week, so aiming for June would be a good idea.
Stefan, count me in. I'm finishing up a couple of commissions but after that I'll do my take. Should be fun to get the OSR artists fired up.
Sounds fun! I'm looking forward to this.
Spawn: It does seem strange how similar all of the pictures are.
The beholder is just one of those monsters that seems to be so emblematic of ye olde Dungeon crawl and combines the aesthetics of sci-fantasy and the BEMs of the old comic books.
The beholder is just one of those monsters that seems to be so emblematic of ye olde Dungeon crawl and combines the aesthetics of sci-fantasy and the BEMs of the old comic books.
There may be a potential issue in that the beholder is owned by Wizards, but I think they may only own the term, so the visual itself should be okay to reproduce. Even if not, we'd be okay under fair use, most likely.
I'm in.
Yay! I think this is a great idea and hope the old school artists all jump on board and kick some major ass!