I completelyl agree with you, Liz, and this point of view. Offer what you have, and let those who browse the tweeting get what they can out of it. That said, I wish less people felt the need to tell me they’re having coffee or eating supper. Twitpics are especially good for insight into character–worth more than 1000 words, imho.
Your update was very interesting, Liz, and insightful! I, too, am working on a story that has considerably more written in my head than “on paper” (or in bytes, I guess). However, once I am home from Hawai’i, I intend to get considerably more serious about the avocations I’ve been dabbling in for the past year.
If you ever find yourself with a few spare moments and feel like chatting, a few of us hang out regularly in the “saucywenches” chatroom at conference.jabber.org.
Happy New Year!
Sounds like you are inspired to write, which is definitely worth a lot, IMHO. I tend to stray from “this is the one way to be a writer” sort of advice, if only because every professional and amateur I’ve ever met tend to develop their own habits. 🙂
@Steve, I’ll see what I can do about the chat!
@Monica, the inspiration was exactly what I needed — a focus. Thank you for that. Writerly advice is GREAT when it is “you might consider trying this out because it worked for me.” It sucks loud and long when it’s “My way or the highway.”
Lol, I played T&T in the early 80s and fell in love with your artwork. I now look at your website and see you play WoW, my second passion in life. Thank you for brightening my life and inspiring my imagination for the last ..’cough’.. 30 years. Keep playing WoW and remember you are very appreciated by your fans. Mat x (London, UK)
Hullo, glad to see you’re rebooting. I’ve been a fan of your work since I first got my hands on T&T back in 1980. I hope things go well and look forward to more posts.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! This is kinda like soliciting friends to help with an exercise or stop-smoking program, and it’s nice to know I’m not talking to a empty venue. Hope I’ll keep you coming back… that’s the plan, after all.
I used the term “an oddity” not in “receiving the information” but in simple observation over the last multiple decades. An artifically constructed language is odd in and of itself, and Esperanto (and its competitors for being an artificial “universal” language) seems to have gone completely off many people’s radar compared to the years when I was trying to learn it — witness your need to have and promote “a lobby” for it.
I love the idea, believe me, although I no longer believe a universal language is even possible. Looking around at usage-numbers on the Net, I see that it’s getting used and even used natively, and I’m overjoyed that it has thrived. Nevertheless, it simply doesn’t garner attention the way it did when it was so greatly ballyhoo’d in the middle of the last century. At least it has more speakers than Klingon or Quenya or other artifically constructed languages! And no, that’s not bad. 🙂
Yay for Sekrit Projects! Nice face in the sketch, up above there.
I find that folks who tell me illustration can’t be considered art(e) generally don’t do much art. Most of the artists I know just say “Hand me that sharpener, woodja?”
Hey Liz, I’m finding your perspective on creativity (and so much more) very helpful — the link to the video of Simon Sinek in particular. Thanks!
Sheesh… had a bad link for Ragnar, now corrected. This guy is the soul of patience with my stumbles!
Never a problem Liz. Since we don’t have a company to rely on for support, freelancers rely on each other. Share knowledge and all that. I don’t do everything by myself, I have help (Matt and Monica, Yourself, many others).
I’ve been wrestling with this very thing lately myself.
I like MacLeod’s chapter “Embrace Crofting” in Evil Plans. It’s not exactly what he meant, but it reminded me that all the self-promo, social media stuff is just another one of the jobs I have to divide my time among. Not Sexy, but necessary.
This wonderful treasure will adorn our cave and be a talisman to keep us safe. Thank You.
Your Friends from the Southern Most Realm.
The winner of Liz’s painting just happens to be one of the original members of Trollhalla. He has always been a true champion of the the Trollish realm.
Indeed, Ken! And I’ve had considerable pleasure conversing with him because of this. The events in his home country have also extended the “story”, and I plan to write a little on that here when next I get to these pages.
Thanks for sharing that bit of history of the cover art, a very interesting and enjoyable read.
Well from one City to another thank you Ms. Danforth for a facinating insight into the creation of what is probably the bext of all the solitaire books published by any company.
Amber is a great series – I could see why you where all so caught up in it.
it’s a great cover piece – i hope it does find a good home!
It is a fantastic piece – had I the $, I’d give it as good a home as I could…
Hi Liz,
Thank you for sharing these memories. I still have my original copy of City of Terrors. I have fond memories of playing the solo.
Thanks for sharing the memories on this piece of art. A nice trip down someone else’s memory lane. Love the feeling of nostalgia this gave me!
Oh if only I had the money.
I too hope that it goes to a great loving home.
Thank you for the story. It was a great ‘trip’. 🙂
Wish you the best in this.
Thanks for the nice comments, everyone.
The piece was purchased by a private collector on eBay for $800. My pretty lengthy correspondence with this individual assures me that it is, in fact, going to a very good home — and I’m happy.
I read the whole thing! I’ve yet to fire up the DA2 demo, and haven’t finished DA:O. I love the stories BioWare weaves, and the worlds they craft. I am haunted by the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3 and finishing the saga of Commander Shepard.
Hmm. Interesting. I’ve not played either Dragon Age game, but there did seem to be a lot of “I love one but not the other” reviews.
It seems to be a case of wanting to enjoy a story vs. wanting to explore a story. I think the “on rails” and “stuck in one city” complaints come from people who want to explore more than kick back and enjoy a set story.
I also, personally, don’t consider a part of the game where you have some input to be a “cut scene”. If you’re still contributing to the game through selections and dialogs, then it’s not really a cutscene. A cutscene is when all control is taken away. And, yeah, that’s just annoying when you lose control.
Hi Liz. Glad you found me! I’ll keep an eye out for your pledge ~ The Hours For Art telethon is all about giving writers and artists like you support in making the time for what they really want to do. Being really itchy to write is the best motivation 🙂
Apropos of nothing at all, I just wanted to mention that I’m glad you’re blogging more! (And if you aren’t blogging more, my apologies for only just finding your articles!)
Part of my plan last fall, upon “rebooting the freelancer,” was to write a post at least once a week. I don’t always succeed but I’m definitely writing more than I was last year. I’m glad you found the posts here!
Reading this with a big grin on my face, Liz! So glad to hear that you’re scratching that itch. And your description of your wake-up writing sessions is nearly identical to my experience. There’s something magical about that early morning state of mind. I wish you continued happiness in the next ten weeks.
Thank you for supplying the impetus for me to take this project on, Alison!
I really love the almost boar, boar-cow, whatever it is. I can totally see adventurers running away like mad.
Liz, have you ever given Blackmore’s Night a listen? Richie Blackmore, formerly the lead for the heavy metal group Deep Purple, and his wife have created a sound that I find perfect for playing WoW or writing fantasy.
Some of their songs have metal elements, but in a renaissance or almost baroque manner (if that makes sense). There are also Celtic and Nordic elements. And the lyrics are also capable of stirring one’s imagination in the direction it seems you want to go.
Pandora.com introduced me to Blackmore’s Night and yes, it’s in my Celtica/Nordica mix with McKennitt and Gjallarhorn! You’re absolutely right.
Thanks for directing me to music I’d never heard before. Funny, creepy, beautiful, moving.
Glad you found some new music from this post, Frankie. I could have linked more of it, but I mainly did so for the more unusual ones. For other performers, Google or Pandora or the library can certainly help.
Liz – Thanks for this post – I really like the concept art works – thanks for sharing them. I will be very interested to see what develops with Namaste
Thank you, Ellen! Believe me, I am not blind to the potential application of this for schools and libraries teaching game design…
This is awesome news, Liz, and it’s great to see you there in the thick of it. They couldn’t have picked a better artist than you for concept art, so save a couple of those prints for me. You think the Namaste people would let me hang out behind inside the booth with them for part of the show?
OMG Ken St. Andre!!!!! Now I am really bummed that I am not coming to GenCon T_T. You are most welcome anytime to our booth 😀
There’s your answer, Ken, straight from The Big Man himself! See you there. 🙂
Some suggestions for the Middle-Earth cards you say you’re not sure on the names of:
Saruman = Saruman the Wise (Against the Shadow expansion)
Alone & Afraid = Alone and Unadvised (Against the Shadow expansion)
Ent at Isenguard = Liquid Fire (The White Hand expansion)
Balrog and Gandalf = Darkness Wielded (The Balrog expansion, the shadow-deeps box)
I’m a bit unclear if the last one is the one you’re looking for or not. It has the Balrog on the bridge, but Gandalf isn’t very much in evidence.
I also found, whilst I was going through the Shadow deeps box, your name on the ‘Remains of Thangorodrim’ site card…
Sorry, but I don’t have the ‘host’ box from the Balrog expansion, so can’t check those.
Thank you, Charles! I forgot about “Remains of Thangorodrim” but I do remember it. I think you ALSO spotted another I’d forgotten about — “Darkness Wielded” has the Balrog on an arch of the bridge as I recall and, as you say, Gandalf nowhere to be seen. However, there is another card that does have the two of them, although Gandalf is hardly in iconic guise. You’re seeing him from behind, his robes in tatters, in battle with the Balrog — that is the one I remember (having the original art still at home).
The mention of ‘stormy looking’ on the updated blog entry rang a bell. I think you did the art for a card in the other [‘Balrog’s Host’] box in the Balrog expansion called ‘Crowned with Storm’.
Further to my previous research, I’ve traced some more with your name on as the artist:
By the Ringwraith’s Word, (collaboration with B. Churashev), from The Lidless Eye expansion
Treason the Greatest Foe, from the Against the Shadow Expansion
Powers too Dark and Terrible, from the Against the Shadow expansion
Our Own Wolves, from the Against the Shadow expansion
Tower Raided, from the Against the Shadow expansion
The Pûkel-Deeps, from the Against the Shadow expansion
Chambers in the Royal Court, from the White Hand expansion
Prophet of Doom, from the White Hand Expansion
I’m a little confused by a mention I came across on one online site attributing the ‘Shelob’ artwork to you, even though the actual name on the card is Randy Gallegos…
Now that I find particularly interesting, Charles: I never did a collaboration with B. Churashev, nor had any card named By the Ringwraith’s Word. Looking it up online, that image is not mine. I wonder where the mixup comes from.
As for Shelob, the sites that reference my name with that card do not have images, which makes me suspect they’re cribbing each other’s lists and someone got it wrong originally. Without the image to compare, the inaccuracy is being continued. And no, I didn’t do a Shelob.
Hi Liz, Thanks for sharing your impressions with those us who missed this year’s show. I hope to return next year and hope to see you there. Good luck with the ebay endavors… the boxes and boxes of product in the basement should probably follow a similar path. I know my wife would be delighted if that was the case. Likewise I wish you well with your battle with the scale. I know it’s a tough one but you’ve always seemed a strong and couragous woman and I know you can do whatever you set your mind to. So dig in, take a walk and be happy. And while you’re at it, move some ink too. I’d love to see new Danforth works in 2011 and hope you’ll be at it for a long long time to come. Good luck. I wish oyou all the best. ~ Jeff
Jeff, I am quite sure people would be overjoyed to see you there, and I am planning to do what I can to get there next year. 45th anniversary for the con!
You should check out the previous post here, or the “latest works” section Recently, some of the ink I’ve been moving is for Namaste Entertainment, and I’ve been really happy with it.
Hi Liz,
THe Sky Lord and Sky Noble are exquisite.
Classic linework and graceful forms… as per usual. Thanks for sharing the images Liz! ~ Jeff
I think there was a short story in Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Day it Rained Forever’ collection where television fails (due to sunspots or something) and after several days of shock people have to go out and start doing things again. The story’s told from the point of view of someone who’s been out of town for a while (gold-prospecting???) and comes back to discover everything’s changed whilst he’s been away…
That was an optimistic story about people being able to find things to do away from the screens in their homes (even if the situation was forced on them)… 🙂
Anyway, good luck with the exercise. I personally find walking helpful to thinking about stories (either other peoples or making up my own).
thank you for this review. i think it is outstanding. just playing first act of DA2 after freezing wow after 6 years and think you hit the nail.
Re: Photos…
You’re still a good looking woman, Liz. And one of the best known and best loved RPG artists of all time. And the fans still love your editing job on T&T 5E…
Not to mention annoyingly humble.
I must not be THAT humble, Aramis. I approved your comment. (Though I admit it made me cringe to do so.) XP
Hey Liz, thanks for the props. I’m more than happy to help, and I’m sure that Charles feels the same way. It also doesn’t hurt that you’re always pleasant and friendly, so I look forward to seeing your emails in my inbox.
WoW, oh how I miss thee. I haven’t played since May and I do miss it. I had to stop while writing my novel because it was a distraction. I plan to come back this Spring after I’m published. I can’t wait!
I will have some things to say about WoW and writing myself, here and in the next part of the WoW Winsider interview. And gratz on getting your novel published!
I haven’t played either Dragon Age. You nailed the problems with WoW perfectly as far as I’m concerned. Thank you for your insights. This middle-aged straight girl might have to check out Hawke soon.
It’s nice to be asked for help by someone with regard to a shared interest.
And if the time’s available, it’s fun to help out. It’s great to have the chance to be invited to speak or write about something I know and love.
🙂
(Currently helping with proofreading Headless Hydra Games’ forthcoming ‘Mor Aldenn, City of Mages’ here. Break over now! Back to the pdf… 😉 )
Shannon, check out the DA2 trailer. That fight is playable in-game at the end of Act II — and it’s hard as hell.
You don’t need to have played DA:O to enjoy DA2 — some confirmed Bioware fans believe you’ll hate DA2 if you liked DA:O.
Me, I liked both. I’ve finished DA2 once since I wrote this post originally. My first run was with a rogue male Hawke and I am nearly finished with a female warrior Hawke being played as differently as possible from the first playthrough, so I can see what changes. I remain impressed with the game.
Great Blog! I used to ‘write up’ stories from pen and paper roleplay sessions. Somehow, letting the game handle plot and setting allowed me more time and energy to fill in the details. Part of it was also documenting the event…and part of it was the fact that it was just strangely enjoyable – even if nobody read them but me! I also saw the Time article on fanfic and realised I wasn’t the only one! And recently I bought (yes Paid for) a novel by a first time writer that was inspired by roleplay game sessions. It’s fresh, does all sorts of strange and unpredicatble stuff and frankly I never know what is going to happen next. It pleasantly avoids so many of the ‘rules’ of novel writing that we have by now all internalised anyway. Anyway- just thought I’d share – and thanks again for writing your blog.
Thanks for sharing that, Liz. I always considered you to be a writer as well as an artist, and never knew how much influence He had on you. What is “Crusaders of Khazan” if not the greatest Tunnels and Trolls story ever told? I want to read your writing. Write on!
Lovely post, Liz. Now I need to find some time to read your writing as well. 🙂
I see a crucial difference between deliberately writing for an audience and writing just for yourself. If you’re addressing others, I feel you have to stop and explain things – what the history is, what the politics are, who the important players are and why they matter? With recurring characters at the start of every story you need a way to reintroduce them, whilst keeping them fresh for those who are your frequent readers.
I write very badly, but at least when I write for myself I can indulge with reminiscinces of that clockwork orange plot the biscuits attempted that one year to take out the royal family in Gracklenoble which was thwarted due to the incidence of a ‘swordstoad between charters’ (so to speak) in the area, or the quest to find the staff made for the tip of the greatest anvil chorus ever to pass out of the forges of the Dubzenheim, or that time a few casual references to something like a nurbulating fromisandial dropwort drove a warlord’s team of mathematicians to a frenzy…
I don’t have to stop and look back over my shoulder every ten minutes, wondering if the audience will be keeping up?
Anyway, as I said, I’m a very bad writer. Or something like that…
And fan fiction perhaps blurs the boundaries between the audience and the private a little. The act of writing for yourself in a shared world means even if you don’t stop and explain what’s going on every couple of sentences, other people who know at least the general gist of what’s going on with that world may be able to read what you’ve written and halfway understand it.
This is where I’m supposed to make some sort of cute, deeply insightful remark to wrap up with, to excuse the earlier blitherings….
Ummmm……
😉
Now you’ll get people jealous of you because you can do art and write. I’ll just have to console myself that I’m probably a better programmer than you. 😉
Okay, more seriously, it’s great that you’ve discovered and accepted this part of you. I think many of us geeks had that “you’re too smart” period in our lives. Now you just need more time to do everything you enjoy properly. 😉
I guarantee you’re a better programmer than me, Brian — last time I tried to program anything, I was learning BASIC, and the demands of this website’s back end are enough to make me tear out my hair.
And yeah, I quite certain this is a common geek theme, unremarkable in that respect. The writers and editors and storymakers I know all surely have faced it, along with “You can’t read all those books; what are you trying to prove carrying them around!”
Moreover, anyone who is “jealous” is missing the entire point here. I do this stuff because it’s FUN for me. That’s it. That’s what being a geek over something is about.
Ahhh, the torments of school days. How I still completely fail to miss them. Alas, I was not picked upon for any such elevated reason as erudition but because I wore glasses… Oh well. I suppose to the minds of countless playground tormentors throughout global history it probably all comes down to the same universal reason: Look For Someone – Anyone – Who For Any Obvious Reason Does Not Fit In.
However, that’s off on a tangent. Back on the topic of saying things at length, as an artist can’t you just do a quick doodle if someone asks you to be brief? A picture being worth a thousand words and all that… 😉
Heck, I just used a ‘;)’ as a sort of minidoodle visual shorthand to attempt to convey a sense of mischief I could otherwise have taken several sentence over…
Gah! ‘sentence’ should have been ‘sentences’ and there is no edit facility on this blog.
:shakefist:
Although in this day and age of internet links, many of us do use pictures or occasional youtube links (even if they’re not ones which we ourselves are responsible for creating) to convey thoughts where mere words fail…
I have often been accused of building clocks when people ask me the time, Charles. I want them to be quite sure they’re getting the complete picture, the right answer.
Come to think of it, that’s probably some of the roots of my librarianship too.
Ah, I think I see what you mean. I sometimes put ‘AD’ in dates when signing things because I want it to be absolutely clear which system for numbering years I’m using…
Did that earlier this evening in fact.
I started a new job 18 months ago. In this job, I am now required to email my boss with updates and questions (as well as emailing the customers). He asked me to upload a script, and I requested clarification – should I use a new account, or an extant one? He replied with two words: “Extant? What?”
The word is gradually sliding out of my vocabulary, because he’s caught me using it twice since, and each time I’ve gotten smacked down for it. I guess he just doesn’t like it.
Depending on your relationship with your job and boss, consider whether you can make it a “teaching moment”: “Extant — it’s a word like ‘existing’ or ‘already made’ but implies a stronger sense of something created and polished, and ready to be used.”
Or you can go the Churchill route with your boss. “I can make a new one or use an old one.”
Either way, don’t let the word get away. You used it here, didn’t you?
I get email “inspirations” from Simon Sinek (the “Start with Why” guy) and this reminder of an old one came up next to notification of your post here: “The difference between those who change the world and those who don’t is that those who do believe they can.”
Thanks for telling the stories, Liz. I hope you get a great sale out of it. I’d buy it, but I have about as much money as you do.
I have always loved the alligator in particular.
Didn’t you use the same spellcaster on the ‘Never Refuse’ art for the White Hand expansion of I.C.E.’s Middle Earth: The Wizards collectible card game?
I know when I saw ‘The Summoner’ posted on your blog in the entry several weeks ago, one of the first things I thought was to the effect of ‘hang on, I’ve seen someone like this in an action-spellcasting pose somewhere before…’
Charles, not “the same” because I don’t make a habit of revisiting old works… but the same feel, the same not-quite-nakedness, the same sense of deliberate evil: yes, “Never Refuse” has the same echo of this scene. The emotional content is intentionally there to make it clear who the bad guys in the scene are. 🙂
Liz, for another shout out to this image, check out the essay “Naked Went the Gamer” by Ron Edwards — it’s about (best I can sum it up) the “sanitizing” or “Disneyfication” process the RPG industry as a whole went through in the 1980s in an attempt to make everything harmless and squeaky clean for the mass market… and how the disappearance of actual nudity in RPG art (to be replaced by the ridiculous “fur bikinis” of Dragonlance) reflected that process.
Having read the post, I disagree on many counts and agree on a few. A tiny comment box isn’t the place for a full-blown discussion. However, I’m already making notes on a new blogpost because of an email I received this morning about the topic raised in this post, regarding the clothing of fantasy figures. I’d been considering talking about it after reading a blog some weeks ago anyway… perhaps now is the time.
Oh, and as the original Melee artist, I can tell you I know I did not have cock and balls hanging out from the gargoyle on the cover, no matter what he imagines.
Cool — it’ll be interesting to hear your reactions. I didn’t know you’d done a cover for Melee — it looks like there were at least three versions of the cover, and he’s not talking about the one you did (which I assume is the one on the left, in the group of three on this page):
I have such fond memories of this Piece,It sweeps me back to the City of Gull, the arena of Khazan and Mistywood. Its the type of artwork that sparks the imagination and stills holds up very well even today.
Isn’t it the philosophy of the Stargate? ‘Portal supplied; dial up the adventure required.’
😉
This was done long before Stargate but well after “City on the Edge of Forever.” I’d say that’s probably more its antecedent, aside from my love of that style of circle-behind-the-scene design element (which is very Mucha).
I think the first time I came across a picture like that with a circle in the background was a cover of Alan Garner’s ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’, which I think was from the eighties (although could have been earlier). I searched around the web for images, but the only ones I’ve been able to find aren’t terribly clear on detail. This is the best I’ve been able to find so far, and I’m afraid I don’t know who drew this version of the cover: http://www.plokta.com/deliciouslibrary/images/156CEC3D-7834-498E-B54C-FDF9D2FE8AE5-256.png
You should explore Mucha’s work, which was EVERYWHERE when I was younger (in the 70s), and his design style influenced many.
This is another poster that hung on my wall for years: http://bit.ly/qeJgFU and many of his works evidence the circular or “Q” framing.
Although whilst looking for information, I was surprised how many different covers of the Weirdstone there have been. Multiple generations across several countries have each had their own cover for the book it seems…
Later on I discovered Alfred Wainwright who produced a series of pictorial guides to the English Lake District, and who produced incredible line drawings…
My question: What would be your top 5 ways for an artist to make a drawing (let’s say female) sexy but not demeaning? In writing it’s mostly about attitude, but that can be hard to pull off in a picture. Curious to what your insights are.
Off the cuff: (1) A glance or just the right grin. (2) Posture. (3) Perspective: close up ass shot probably bad but over the shoulder probably good. (4) Clothes that spark the imagination but not autonomically, the way Darth Vader’s mask speaks volumes about his personality while hiding everything. (5) Unremittant confidence.
These all work for both men and women.
I’m just starting to connect with my cyber friends again. I’m happy to see this post. While I consider myself feminine, I’m probably not a feminist in the traditional sense. I am intrigued by the idea of someone (Finally) drawing sexy women, but not ones with boobs that would give them backaches and needing some special equipment to hold them up it they appeared in the real world. In Star Wars Galaxies my females never had breasts as large as it is possible to make them, yet they were still very feminine. So… I do enjoy reading about the things going on in your life however this topic currently rises to the top.
Sorry to hear about the dog. I wondered why it had been several weeks since you’d posted.
Comments and arguments about depictions of male and female forms have been around on messageboards (and in magazine or newspaper letters columns) for years. I don’t know enough about the art world or artists to even start to speculate on if a watershed has been reached, but it seems to me that in many things civilisations or cultures don’t usually finally switch direction without one or two people with a vision and charisma finally standing up and saying ‘okay, we have to change direction on these things *now*’.
Thinking about if I have a definitive response to ‘The Broader Question’ which you posed… 😀
Charles, the sexualized depiction of (especially but not exclusively) women is much discussed, yes of COURSE. The discussion I’m stumbling on every time I turn around right now is IN GAMES, which is where I work. Much fault is laid at the door of companies that do not (and largely cannot, for lack of applicants) hire women. That’s not the same question as the full-range societal question… the gaming one is the one I can best address and do anything about.
I have always felt like I was the adventurer coming thru the door and discoving the conjurer within the room….
What a great picture !
I was hoping you would revisit some of your art and give us a sequel….. like picture number 2 and 3 of the story…
especially for the art from City of Terrors…
I recall a picture I think you did with a lone adventurer going up some steps in an abandoned city.. Long straight sword was his hand and he was looking back over his shoulder like he had heard a sound … but he was looking out of the page like it was me who made the sound and got his attention…
Additionally I LOVE the fashionable clothes your adventurers wear…
I have bought over twenty of those Tunnels and Trolls Solo adventures and Your art was sooo spectacular….
I hope to someday see ALL of the art you made for Tunnels and Trolls So I am hoping you continue posting Them and commenting on them…
Thank you, John! I wonder what the picture is you describe — nothing I can think of comes immediately to mind. 🙁
I think the “Pictures Have Stories” series are well-received. As I have stories to tell, I think I’ll continue to post about them!
One of the (many)things I always liked about your art was the fact the women were wearing complete suits of armour instead of chain mail bikinis.
As to the question, I’d love to hear more about the history of T&T, and your part in it. Especially more about the playing side of things. It would be great to know more about the different campaigns people ran back in that Phoenix group in the early days, the way the game was played and evolved. Other than that I like the mix of posts you put up in general.
Hello
I thought I would post here in the section “Pictures have stories” and ask about My favorite cover art for a role playing game….
You drew the cover art for the Role Playing Game Monsters Monsters….
I have always loved that particular cover and i think it is for many reasons…
The Monster riding a monster that is grasping the warriors shield… The warrior is wielding a Morning Star !!! And the Dark haired woman is moving into attack….
I can nearly hear the screech of the Beaked monster..!
I was hoping you might say a few words about the cover…?
I did see another Monsters Monsters cover with a continuation of the same scene where The warriors shield has been ripped off his arm. The Monster riding a Monster Is rearing up and the woman has turned toward the Monster Monsters Swinging her sword….
And Then…
And Then…
I have been waiting a long time to learn their fate….
I was hoping you might have more of them …
Sounds like fun. I wish I’d been able to go – that would be nice, to go to a con that’s about as far away from me as I can get and still be in the contiguous 48 states.
I would’ve dressed up as a Sand Person, and if anybody asked, I would’ve said “I’m a TusCon Raider!” Then I’d’ve hit them over the head with my gaffi stick and run away while they were stunned by my bad pun.
Knick, that crowd would probably hit you with twelve puns as bad or worse, before you even made it out the door…. just fair warning, if you ever make it to the convention!
Wow Liz, you HAVE been busy! For me its been really gratifying to be able to work on the French T&T Rules and to be able to layout Ken St Andre’s T&T Rules around Liz’s gorgeous art! Working with it again made me thinkg that piece she had done would be perfect for the City of the Gods book, I’m also laying out. Ken st Andre is also in that book as well! Its a small world world adfter all, I guess,,,
I really like that you show it is possible to re-prioritise, but that tough decisions have to be made.
Just like a financial budget, a time budget forces one to make choices, Ellen. For better or worse, though, there’s no one extending credit or advances in a time budget.
I’ve seen you re-organizing your life, Liz, and I say stick with it! You are the Wonder Woman in the T & T Justice League of Talent. I’m not finished yet, and neither are you–so much creativity that you posess, and I’m pleased to be connected to it.
Just a quick message to you wish you all the best for 2012! 😀
Thank you, Charles! I’ve been trying to get to another post before the year is out but I’ve been hellaciously busy. I am definitely running out of time… 😉
I would post something witty and poignant, but I can’t think of anything at the moment. Have a happy new year, and you can count on further entertainment from me in the year to come!
I was our joy and privilege to offer some small support last year. We wish you all the best for ’12 from The Southern Most Realm.
Aw, thank, Liz. 🙂 Looking forward to a great 2012 with you! 🙂
Thank you for a fascinating interview and for staying in touch to create a friendship I hope will continue to blossom in 2012 … As for the desk — you’re just a … stand-up kinda gal, Liz! 😉
I’m very pleased to have met you (only electronically, regrettably) and had the opportunity to purchase such a fine piece of art work from you. I still feel a bit guilty at getting it from you at such a bargain price. 😉
Best wishes, and I hope to have more chances to interact with you in the coming year.
Mahrundl
“…drilling down to focus on our respective creative lives…”
Word. I hope that 2012 begins to yield the fruit of your creative efforts! Happy New Year, my friend!
Our chance meeting at Gencon was the best thing that happened for me socially at that con and I’m really happy to be “hanging out” online with you Liz. I’m also honored to be working with you again! Here’s to a GREAT 2012!
Always fun to hear stories about the old days and the stories behind art that I remember well. (Although the copy of M!M! I had was the Flying Buffalo version with a pen and ink cover, inspired by but different from this one).
BTW, if I remember correctly, the edition of M!M! I had identified that beast as a Snollygoster, whether it swas supposed to be one when you painted it or not. 🙂
Right! There was a “one minute later” version of this; I’d forgotten!
This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of “neighbors” will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune “Social” is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.
Yep there sure is another version of this cover! In many ways’ it is a “lost” piece of Liz art as it only appeared on the old Monsters Monstersrules and was printed in brown ink on brown paper with Red overlays – making it difficult to really see the beautiful Liz Danforth details. Maybe you’ll get to see it soon… we’ll see…
Can’t aford a bid myself (struggling writer) but glad the guy fighting the octopuss is staying. It’s pretty iconic. Love your work.
Oh, I totally have to do this. T&T — well, M!M! actually — was my introduction to role-playing. In fact, I have two editions of Buffalo Castle, the 1978 spiral-bound 5th edition, and the stapled 15th edition from 1981.
My bids won’t be anywhere near what you deserve, though. Two+ years of unemployment cuts into the discretionary spending. Still, I have to try!
Liz, this is a brilliant idea. I will definitely send you a bid for the bandit in armor picture.
I like that octupus – keep that one by all means!
For those of you who are fans of Liz’s art, you’re going to be in for a feast of her work in the French T&T. Some of it is brand new and some of it is from the the old T&T Rules & Monsters Monsters. But we are also including additonal rare Liz art that has not been seen in decades – so it will be quite a collection! (There’s a even a few pieces by me – believe it or not)
Always loved the octopus, the way it rises out of those stylized waves. Looking back I think one of the factors that always made me love your work, Liz, was the way you’d work patterns and textures of different sorts into it.
In the octopus image, we have the stylized waves, the rows of suckers, the tartan vest, the furry loincloth, the slightly stylized hair texture, a couple circles suggesting a pattern on the sword, even a couple zigzags on the arm brace, and finally the brickwork/stonework beneath the warrior.
THAT is something I have always loved, but wouldn’t have been able to point out for a long time.
Homework assignment for anyone reading along: identify all the patterns/textures in the “glowering orc” image on the Monsters Monsters page. And that’s just a dude looking over a wall.
Great idea! My favorite part of this story was your equating of mercenaries with artists. Heh heh. I hope you get a lot of HIGH bids! -Ben A.
I appreciate all the comments here! Also the bids that have come in, and those who have said “I’ll take whatever picture is open!”
Ben, there’s a joke writers tell about themselves, as being prostitutes: “First you do it for yourself, then you do it for friends, and then you do it for the money.” Arguably, every working creative does this, but I’d rather keep the “free-lance hired mercenary” image, personally. 🙂
Ok I’m in! I bid $20 to draw ME into Buffalo Castle! I can’t afford the orginal art – but I can swing $20. I’ve draw myself into Nuclaer War and Traps, so its time for me to appear in T&T. I’d like to be sort of Roguish if possible.
You can use my Facebook phto for ref (Sure give me the hat with a feather in it)or I can pose nude for for you at a later date…
Steve… we’ll talk. 8D
Liz, it’s time to update this site. You told me the winners had been selected.
All i can say is, Trollhallans, you missed a great opportunity here. I, however, did not miss it. Bwa ha ha ha!
I’m well aware of that, Ken, but I’m working my butt off making some of those pictures! And the winners do all know…
It was my honor to be able to color some of Liz’s work. The first time it happened was almost by accident. I was working on a deck of cards and one of the cards included an illustration by Liz. Since all the other cards were in color, I thought it would match better if the piece were colored, so I offered to do it. Needless to say, Liz was hesitant, but agreed to let me try. She was very happy with the results and we’ve looked tfor opptunites to team up again! : )
The Traveller piece is wonderful! (Also good to hear that Miller’s work is continuing on the new edition.)
I’m so glad I discovered this blog; I have always been a big fan of your art. Seeing new work from you is a total joy!
The lady with the bot sure looks like she could be George Takei’s sister. (Or a younger George in Drag.) It’s a really startling resemblance, intentional or not. Not to current George look, but to George as he looked while on the set of Black Sheep Squadron… see photo at: http://sharetv.org/images/black_sheep_squadron/maj_kato-char.jpg
I’d still say the resemblance is more in the eye of the beholder than in the ink on the paper. If anything the Black Sheep photo (dang that’s small!) looks even less like the woman here.
Oh, clearly that’s Sulu shaking hands with C-3P0. I don’t know how anyone could see anything else in that picture.
Actually Liz, what strikes me is that the handshake you’ve drawn looks a lot more natural than the photo. They’ve got their arms held out so far it just looks wrong – like they’re pulling on each other or something.
Just remember this:
1) George Takei is beautiful (I can’t deny it. The man is awesome).
2) Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder.
3) Ergo, people seeing George in this drawing are drunk!
Good to be back on speaking terms with my Norton and have a chance to read your posts for more than a 1/4 second before the warnings begin.
Honestly, PLEASE let me know if this ever happens again!
I use a Mac. No virus catchers here. Should I?
Welcome back to the land of the living! Or at least the undead.
Anem, Macs are less at risk than PCs, using a Linux-like OS.
The first thing that caught my eye, annoyingly, was that the “notch-in-the-bone” in the “real” painting isn’t deep or angled enough to match the drawing. Otherwise, that painting is truly awesome (in the true, original sense of that word)! Wow! Quogmyre is to be commended as a genuine artist, all others being sham! 🙂
–Glarrrn of Trollhalla.
Liz, this always was one of my faves of yours. It’s nice to see it had success far beyond the usual. I like peripheral stories told by visuals that can be interpreted by the reader, and this is one of the best – Twice! I don’t know if you saw “Hugo”, but there’s just this kind of cleverness in the flash-by scene of the Inspector looking at his wristwatch; it was an armored trench watch, (trust me to catch that instantly, i know) and it said scads of how he prolly got his bum leg going over the top in that kind of hell. Your drawing and the watch do the same thing, they deepen the experience subtly without all that tattooed on one’s forehead with the usual blunt instrument. Well done, I say, twice-over.
Its a great 3d piece – no doubt about it, and it actually SAVED Liz’s orginal (in a manner of speaking)and helped it get in the new T&T Rulebook! Here’s how that happened…
Shortly after Liz got the 3d image by Quoghmyre, she e-mailed it to me saying how amazing itan how did I think it matched the orginal. At this point in the process, the Rulebook was almost finished and I had never seen a Liz illustration that looked anything like the full-color image she has just send me. It was then that we realized that I hadn’t gotten that image! Liz immediatley sent me her black & white version and I found a good home for it on page 25. So if it hadn’t been for Quoghmyre’s version, Liz’s orginal version wouldn’t have been in the new rulebook! So thanks Quoghmyre!
Quoghmyre’s piece reminds me of what a good inker can do to a great drawing. He could have ruined the feel of the piece, but instead he brought out the details that made the piece shine even more. I love both.
blush… I feel like a cheeky imp coming to the notice of giants.
Thank you all for such kind words. You guys have inspired me for longer than, any of us, care to remember. That I have been able to give back in some small measure makes me proud. My copy of “T&T le france” is in transit and I look forward to perusing the pictures.
Thanks again, Q
Absolutely stupendous iteration. Blows me away.
Am glad it went to a good home. And I do regret that it’s not the cover which is part of the current PDF. (sigh)
*jeep! & God Bless!
–Grandpa Tzhett
Oops! My error! I see it’s on the FBI site, but not as a PDF. I remember (now) that I didn’t order it because it has a different cover. (Somehow, I misremembered ordering it as a download — about three or four years ago.)
I believe that much of Flying Buffalo’s material is available on RPGDriveThru. I will encourage you to purchase there, or directly from FBInc, because there is at least one site online offering T&T material (sometimes for free) but which has no license and no permission to distribute, and which does not support the creative minds who brought you the words and art you enjoy! That is simply caveat emptor and information provided for purposes of education. 😉
Thanks, Liz! You’ve helped make it a very special day indeed.
Wow! Your work continues to get better every year – and you were, even in 1979, my favorite RPG artist. Continue this way, and put out a portfolio or prints sometime soon. Please?
*jeep! & God Bless!
–Grandpa Tzhett
I’ve been a fan of yours since I was less than 6’2″ Always loved your art (and no, I’m neither asking for free stuff or a date). What an honor to finally get to e-mail you!
I love to see you doing game work again!
Those are great, Liz! And hey, happy birthday, Tina!
Highpool is by far my favourite map. The description of the valley after you kill Red Ryder is the best bit of text in the game.
I’d repressed the memory of that poor boy and his dog.
Such beautifully-wrought tragedy! I cannot wait to see what you create for us next!
I just read this today and boy am I glad I did. I’ve not been familiar with you, but I shall be. Thank you for making my day in the sandbox bright.
Did you get the sign on the Internet? It’s in Chicago, on Fullerton.
Chris, yes — if you hover over the pic for the pop-up text, you’ll see I make note that the sign is in Chicago.
Thanks for all the comments, people! Mark, your pic is inked and looks pretty damn sweet if I say so myself. Uncles and Grandpas? Coolnesss… and yeah, Duncan, I’ve been around long enough that I’ve had people introduce me to their teenaged kids and say “I was his age when I was playing games you worked on.” I’m flattered and simultaneously wondering where I left my walker and my get-off-my-lawn cane. 8D
When I do an art book (not if, WHEN), you’ll probably hear about it here first. I had hoped to do is for last year’s holiday season … maybe sooner than that, this year?
Wasteland was one of my favorite games ever. Even in that great game, the Highpool map was special. It wasn’t until my second time playing through that I learned the lesson you mention of walking away. I am very happy that you will be involved with the sequel and I’m looking forward to playing the maps you work on.
I can’t tell you how happy and scared and awed and humbled your comments are making to me. And how I’m sure as hell going to do my best to make sure the parts I get to work on will live up to your expectations. It’s rather an honor to have your trust in this. 🙂
I believe you also had a wicked hand in the creation of the Grimtooth’s Traps books. I regret ever lending those out and never seeing them again.
I cannot wait to experience your fiendish genius in Wasteland 2.
Artbook! Oh yeah! Can I get a WOOT?
VV00+!!!!
Aye, I’m … er, “acquainted” with Mr Grimtooth, as it were. But he had many editors, never being entirely satisfied with our work. He was a hard taskmaster, to say the least! (And if you didn’t know, Flying Buffalo is slowly bringing them back into print. Sad that you lost the first set, but it’s a fixable problem. 🙂
I turned the Highpool storyline into a bit of machinima:
Nice to see you’ll be contributing to Wasteland 2!
Cellulaer, I am awed! It’s insanely cool to see Highpool brought alive in machinima like that! Wow!!! Thanks for the link!
I never played Wasteland but am supporting Wasteland 2 now and I gotta say that reading about your design of the kid and his rabid dog scenario sounded very good. I’m now really looking forward to playing Wasteland 2 with content in it from your “sick mind” ;)!
Liz,
Great post! While I’ve been thrilled to see Wasteland 2 becoming a reality, I’m not involved other than as an interested bystander… and now journalist reporting on it. I’m looking forward to seeing what havoc you can wreak with expectations this time…
— Steve
I did misunderstand then, Steve, alas. But it’s good to see you here, and thank you for the kind words!
I put in my email address and it asked “Are you sure you want to do that? Try again.”
Who knows what’ll happen.
Here in the Comments section? Hmmm. While this WordPress theme basically LOOKS the same as before, it is actually completely different. It may be a feature of the theme Gaz is working with, to be more cautious.
Nah, in the “Subscribe via email” box.
See Liz… This is why your art is so popular. You think you’re producing a simple black and white line-and-ink drawing. But it is always with a hidden history – and we imagine those colours and that story. That’s why it works. And some people (e.g., Quoghmyre) have the talent to show the rest of us those colours.
(The faerie sacrifice for the demon on the first pages of T&T 5.5 freaks me out… and I can’t help but feel sorry for the giant rat on p27 of Sewers of Oblivion)
Weird, Knick. I tested it just now, using a different email address, and it didn’t do that. Not sure what the deal is, then.
I”m special 🙂
Nah, it’s probably because I’ve got NoScript, and I ran into a javascript element that I hadn’t yet allowed. We’ll see if it picked up on the subscription or not when you post something.
As a note, I can’t see that a protected post has been made – but I can see that Steve commented on a protected post 🙂
Hi Liz,
great to hear you’re on board for the new Wasteland game! Very excited to see what you come up with. If you’re curious, I recently finished a soundtrack for Wasteland – you can listen to my memories of Highpool… http://soundcloud.com/edwinmontgomery/sets/wasteland-2
So that’s what it was all about! lol Hey good luck and have a great time! Its very cool that you are reaching out like that Liz.
Steve
If you’re referring to me asking you for larger versions of several pieces, Steve … look at the date on this post, which was weeks ago. I suppose I should say something briefly about the Games+Learning+Society conference coming up, where they are also holding an artshow of visual work which has appeared in or is associated with games!
You know my call on this one — yes, very sexy. No, not at all exploitative. That’s not something very many people can pull off, and you do it, and you’ve always done it. You draw sexy people who are people first, and sexy incidentally. (And as far as I can judge, you’ve always given sexy men at *least* equal time with sexy women.)
If you’re troubled about this issue, untrouble yourself! You somehow have the magic power to get the best of both worlds, sexy yet not exploitative. And apparently without even trying hard. Be grateful! 🙂
Not so much troubled, Ed, as prone to overthink things, and mull on any subject that doesn’t lend itself to easy answers. But thank you — I hope others would agree with your opinion!
Interesting post, Liz. One other angle to consider is that clothing rarely seems to be a personal choice for a magic user. Often they’ll wear ritual garb that helps their magic, for example. I think there’s also the dichotomy between the magical and physical realms in many settings, so a magician who spends most of his/her time in the magical realms might not pay too much attention to his/her clothes. This is probably especially true of the necromancers, where they dabble in the forbidden and might be consumed with studying the dead, so they don’t always wear the latest fashions or even mended clothes.
As for the sexism angle, I think you covered it well enough. I don’t see any of the pictures as exploitative. I think the one that comes closest would be the book on the female form, especially the undraped version on the cover. 🙂 I suspect that was intended to titillate more than your art. 🙂
I really do appreciate the glimpses of the motivation behind the art. Definitely looking forward to the story on Freyalise Supplicant.
I think you’re right about the book, Brian!! There is a definitely thread of “too polite to view porn but will look at art books” through the books I inherited from my dad. He was an artist in his own right, so I don’t mean to take anything away from him in that regard. But his selection of books has a certain tenor running through them, and the cover of this book fits that paradigm.
Your art is, as always, amazing, and a significant contribution to any venue in which it is included. I can’t even draw good stick people, so I am not about to criticize your work. I always enjoy seeing it wherever I am fortunate enough to find it. You go, girl! My lycanthrope guy, Wulf the wayfarer, will be glad to come and take your side if anyone dares to insult your contributions to the genre.
Thank you, Roy. Tastes differ, and while I have certainly heard people prefer others’ work to mine, I really have no complaints about how I seem to be viewed in the genre. Quite the contrary; I am often amazed by how my contributions are received.
Wonderful post. The intersection of Power and Mind is Wizardry, but that’s not the intersection where Clothes or Fashion live. If you live in your mind, like a Silicon Valley Engineer, clothes don’t matter so much–and care for them sometimes gets in the way. If you are a hardware engineer, or even better mechanical, your clothes take a horrible beating. Because I work with acids for some of my projects, I occasionally have clothes almost disappear–and I’m knowledgeable and careful (well, relatively). (I find the results of acid etching clothing fascinating, and may intentionally make a steampunk alchemy outfit…)
Necromancers would be much more on both “Show the Power with Clothes” and “Fail to Take Care of things” scale, and would dress in robes, that would be tattered. If you have values of power over death and control of mindless beings, I doubt the conditions of your clothing matter much.
And the sort of people who control you with a gesture and a word? Yeah, clothes would be another mean to that end.
But your retrospective of this theme within your art provides the backbone (and ribs) of a full discussion. Thank yoU!
I love the acid-spotted clothes idea … and yes, I’ve had artist friends who work with chemicals and fire (welders, for example) whose clothes definitely show the evidence of their preferred mediums.
Your artwork has continued to be in my top five illustrators of all time category. You’re in good company: Barry Windsor Smith, Aubrey Beardsley, Frank Frazetta, and Alphonse Mucha! I studied art, but am an indifferent sculptor and pen and ink person. That being said, I’m also a huge fan of swords and sorcery, and your artwork has that “essence” of fantasy in the sword and sorcery genre. It stands up well as heroic or modern fantasy too!
Regarding the issue of nudity in fantasy art, I think there is almost a need for it in some ways. What I mean is that fantasy and particularly Swords and Sorcery has elements of primal and the primeval in it: Man vs. The Natural and the Supernatural. The lack of clothing is not only literal but symbolic of mankinds intrinsic strength (whether physical or supernatural) versus the overwhelming might of the known and unknown. After all clothes don’t fare too well against tigers, or trolls…. Not only that but tattered clothes give the impression of gritty strength and endurance as far as I’m concerned.
As far as how magic is depicted…. Well, I was once a practicing Wiccan and magic is not so much a visual thing as a visualized thing. The long term effects of magic are only percieved through patience and hindsight. Fantasy magic on the other hand can do whatever it bloody well pleases! It IS magic after all!
I can’t believe you put me in the company of those lights, Dwight, but thank you sincerely.
I like your take on the Man vs Nature aspect of fantasy although I’ll have to think about whether I agree it’s the key fundament to fantasy. My initial reaction is “no” but I can see where you’re coming from, despite that.
I would simply add that it is one of many things that build as a foundation for the genre. Humankind versus the supernatural/unknown is probably the oldest story people have been telling or interacting with in some form or another since we could communicate.
As an aside, I worked for college libraries during my higher education days, and I married a wonderful woman who is a library technician at the Washington State Law Library of the Supreme Court. She knew I was all right when I asked her, “So what sytem do you use? Library of Congress, or something else?” We just celebrated 12 years together last Friday.
None of this has anything to do with the comment I made in my first posting, but I thought you’d like to know a little bit more about me. I am fortunate to live in Olympia, Washington, and that we have an excellent library and inter-library loan service. I thought you might like to hear that too!
It is good to learn more about the people here — thank you for sharing! And yes… always good to hear positive libraries tales as well, indeed. 8D
Liz,
One of the things I have always admired about your art is that you draw clothed peopled very well. Whereas I don’t. There was a standard set decades ago that seemed to have all women scantily clad and buxom, and all men shirtless and with well developed abdominals (“six-pack” in today’s terms). Maybe it was Frank Frazetta, maybe John Buscema’s Conan, or Boris Vallejo. Don’t know, but it stuck. My wife often asks why I draw most of my fantasy women in the same way. And I say because I also have to draw the men in that stereotype too. “Equal time rule” I suppose. Moralists tend to only see, and be opposed to, the scantily clad buxom female and not the scatily clad ripped male. What to do?
Love you art as always.
That standard goes back to fantasy and S/F’s lurid pulp cover history, David.
And given what I come across in the blogosphere discussing this whole topic, there is some definitely complaining going on about the unrealistic ripped males too. The key difference seems to be that the women are horrifically distorted in pose and anatomy, positions no human being could attain outside Cirque de Soleil. The men may be idealized, but their poses are considerably more natural.
Cirque de Soleil? I remember 300 being described as an extended infomercial for HGH…
Looks like your wizards/sorceress’ need more than one bundle of warm dry clothing & pack
I LOVE how you draw (or paint) draped fabrics. Lots of great stuff here. I think a lot of artists draw things intuitively and then discover the reason why they drew it that way later. (i know I often do anyway. As for ankedness… well I have to confess my best work has probably been of nekked people, (specifically women) because when I draw them, I spend oh so much more time on getting them “just right”.
Right on both counts, Steve. Which also accounts for why my men are often less well-garbed than my women, I think. If you get it “just right” then why would the artist want to cover it up??
I just got back into playing after about a 15 year hiatus. I always keep an eye out for cards that are done by folks I know! 🙂 It’s always a joy to go through stuff friends have given me and find one of your cards!
That’s cool, Jess! Bring them to Heroes & Villains July 8th (M13 Pre-release event) and I’d be delighted to sign anything of mine you have! Would be great to see you again too. 🙂
Ghods this is SO weird! I just did a card design (Front & Back) for Chuck Kraver who is about to release MAGIC ART SKETCH CARDS, so that artist can do art on a blank card with a border. The back looks like the back of the Magic Card (almost). Anyway You’ll be hearing from him soon as at the very least he’ll want to have you do a custom card for his own personal Magic deck (He’s a HUGE player) And who knows what else…
Attitudes to sex vary depending on your nature, culture, and upbringing. Personally, I feel the clue is in the word ‘fantasy’, and there’s nothing wrong with fantasy. In fact, I think fantasy, sexual or otherwise, is an important learning tool and safety valve. Drawings are not exploited people. They are drawings. If you’re coming out and saying ‘I think men (/women) are inferior and that’s why I draw them half naked’, then expect to be shot down in flames. If you’re saying, as I think you are, ‘I respect both men and women of all cultures, but I’ll draw people according to my aesthetic, fantastic, and sexual preferences, simply because I can’, then more power to your elbow! Those who oppress and exploit should be condemned, but they shouldn’t be allowed to stop the rest of us enjoying ourselves in the privacy of our own homes or in our fantasy lives. I’ll take this opportunity to say that I was first introduced to your art, Liz, in the early 80s, T&T 5th ed., in a friend’s father’s basement drinking club in Bath, England. Being 15 or so I didn’t have much money for drinking, but four friends played T&T from dusk till dawn, and Liz Danforth’s art played the major part in evoking the appropriate atmosphere. Never to be forgotten.
Thank you for the compliment, Don. I’m glad my artwork was well-received by your 15-year-old self, and I hope it continues to please.
Regarding drawings being exploitative: there I have to disagree with you. I believe they can be, the same as in any other entertainment or entertainment-associated medium whether movies, games or music. (Perhaps that isn’t your point, but rather that no real people were degraded in the making of any of my pieces up above.)
It’s a tricky word, “exploitation” that often falls under the definition of “I know it when I see it.” Sometimes an exploitative image is so blatantly so, most people of a variety of natures, cultures, and upbringing will agree. Other times, not so much.
Perhaps this is fodder for a lengthier discussion.
That is indeed my point, and so for now we’ll have to agree to disagree, but I’d welcome that lengthier discussion sometime. Much respect.
Gaw-jee-us!
Now my brain is spinning again …
I think that you are particularly gifted for colours.
Hymn to Tourach illustration is a particularly good example!
Dang, Liz, it’s hard to believe that security cops can walk up to you on public property and tell you to stop taking pictues and to delete what you have taken. not wishing the job on you or me but this kind of totalitarianism needs to be challenged and revoked.
Several people have commented on this to me via private channels since I wrote this. I should make it clear that I was taking pictures of a federal facility — and there are restrictions on that since 9/11.
“and there are restrictions on that since 9/11.”
No, actually there aren’t. This is the big problem with the War On Photography.. much like the rest of post 9/11 Security Theatre, it is based on no actual law. Someone in a uniform just asserts that “things are different” (aka “you have fewer rights”) “since 9/11” and law abiding, well meaning people such as yourself believe it.
The chance that you were taking a picture of a building you are actually not allowed to take a picture of is vanishingly small, federal building or not. Even if you were somehow taking a picture of a top secret facility, the idea of photos being associated with terrorism is a non-sequitur. Yep, people staking out targets in movies at shady in cars and take pictures of their targets. Real terrorists don’t need to take pictures of their targets, because their targets are most often public places for which, for example, floor plans are available. With cell phone cameras ubiquitous, this association of conspicuous-photography-with-a-camera with incipient terrorism is even more non-sequitur.
Google “War On Photography” and you will find countless cases of people being told to stop taking legal pictures. Petty tyrants proliferate, and your (polite, reasonable on its face) compliance encourages them.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/you-can-photograph-that-federal-building/
”
Under the settlement, announced Monday by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Federal Protective Service said that it would inform its officers and employees in writing of the “public’s general right to photograph the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces” and remind them that “there are currently no general security regulations prohibiting exterior photography by individuals from publicly accessible spaces, absent a written local rule, regulation or order.”
”
!!! AWESOMER !!!
Do you know if they are done hiring writers for Wasteland 2? I’d exchanged a couple e-mails with Brian Fargo, but that was some while ago. Glad you’re working on it.
I don’t know anything about how things like that are being handled, Chris. Sorry, but I can’t help much on that.
There are threads on the WL2 forums where inXile has solicited ideas from the public on what is to go in the game, and even asked for folks to post their interest in helping out and their credentials. I can only imagine they are scrutinizing the juiciest of these posts and perhaps will even offer some folks a job, or maybe offer to use their stuff if they like it. It can’t hurt to stop by and put in your two cents.
The same thing happened to my cousin. He was taking pictures of downtown where I live for a history assignment. Except they took the camera and deleted the photos themselves and gave his camera back. He got the same response from the officer about 9/11 and federal buildings.
Interesting. I suppose I see the sense in such precautions but I can also see how it might lead to a sense of surrealism when one encounters this attitude. Be glad you didn’t tell the security fellow you were taking reference photos in order to conceptualise what the area might look like as a post-apocalyptic wasteland though, consequences for that might have been far more serious than a polite warning.
Heh… yeah I thought of that after driving away. And as you say, I was glad I didn’t elaborate.
Obviously you need that app created for OWS that streams your photos and video to a secure server as you take them. 😉
I’m laughing, but suspect they’re already following your online activities. Shiver.
I am, and always have been, pretty much an open book since the advent of the online world. It’s the only way I can expect to do business to my satisfaction.
You did what was probably safest for you, Liz, but just for future reference, if you are on public land, you can take pictures of anything you want, even Federal buildings, even post 9/11. Of additional note: a warrant is required for an officer to see the photos on your camera.
Beyond the ACLU, there are other sites and organizations trying to correct the myths about permitted photography. Sometimes they can be a bit shrill, but it is easy to become agitated when your rights are being abused. This is probably the best known of the watchdog sites.
(And yes, I get my knickers in a twist about things like this.)
I appreciate the links and comments from everyone, more than I can tell you. This is a topic that has only lightly ever been on my radar — I have had more issues with people being told they could not photograph police officers handling arrests, for example.
Federal buildings? Fell under the “meh, w/e” radar, so when I was told by An Authority Figure to knock it off, I did.
I’ll note that, while I was in a public space, I was also alone. That opens up a whole sidebar discussion of how the female population must always deal with questions of personal security throughout their lives in a way that few men can even imagine, but this isn’t the thread for that.
MKHall, Awesome and others who have commented privately or in other venues: thank you for making me better informed, and also those others who might read this.
Restrictions on photographing a Federal facility? Weird stuff.
I get what’s being said about legal rights, and I applaud resistance on point of law, but I’m not willing to try to face down a belligerent security guard and get my camera confiscated, or myself detained or arrested. Because the guards who don’t know about the law don’t give a damn about taking someone’s camera or arresting them *even if they’re in the wrong.* Sure, I could buy another camera (or phone) and get myself released, but in the mneantime is it worth the hassle? I *could* end up on a watch list. Certainly this is what law enforcement counts on, but it nonetheless could lead to repercussions. What’s to say a security guard believes that piece of paper?
Now, don’t get me wrong: if it’s legal, we should be able to do it. But sometimes it’s not worth the hassle. And, as Liz mentioned, women alone are at a disadvantage.
In fairness, he was not belligerent. And in light of people’s comments here, I could have easily refused his polite requests if I had been knowledgeable. I found the whole thing ridiculous, even at the time (and even as I was feeling pretty spooked), because heck, if I’d snapped a shot as I drove past, I doubt I’d’ve had MiBs at my door when I got home. But I had stopped the car, and was there a little while — enough time for someone to notice and send the guy out in his truck, or for him to come upon me on his regular patrols.
Would the incident have been worth getting tossed, or my phone confiscated? Would’ve been great press for Wasteland. (Too bad I’m not getting royalties; it’d be worth going back!)
I’m loving the conviction with which you defend the security guard. I think that it says something about you that this officer confronted you with what you later found out was an unjustified demand, and you still maintain repeatedly that he wasn’t uncivil about it.
I don’t know if it comes from wanting to maintain the integrity of the story, or wanting to make sure that he’s not unfairly vilified, or simply remembering that his view of the situation may have been entirely different. Whatever the case, you’re sticking to your guns with integrity, and that’s commendable.
It is mostly the second: wanting to make sure he was not unfairly vilified. I was intimidated by the situation, not so much by the man.
One of my hobbyhorses is the lack of nuanced discourse about the troubling conditions in today’s society, with so much being cast in simple black and white terms. Yes, I see heroes and I see villains on the societal stage, but the vast majority of things are much grayer. It will not help the course of conversation to speak untruthfully of my experience.
I can play with facts for greater drama in game design. And believe you me, Wasteland will be chucky-jam full of gray situations, from me and from others.
Liz, I meant to mention this back when you wrote this but I’ve been busy — I got harassed by a couple of city public works employees because I was taking a picture of — of all things — a watertower in a small town. These fellows had, in their own mind, promoted themselves to defenders of the public infrastructure from terror, and they *actually reported me to Homeland Security* after I reported the whole thing to the local paper and they ran a story on it, subjecting them to much outrage & derision. The sum total result of this, that I know of, was a Homeland Security person stopping by my house when I wasn’t home and leaving his card with my wife. Still, it’s a little scary to think I might be on some list somewhere. Here’s the story as reported with reasonable accuracy (they misreported what I said slightly, but that happens): http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/09/mans_nerdy_hobby_lands_him_in.html
This is very interesting. I’m getting into writing, myself (gamebooks, for me) and I’ve often wondered if this sort of encounter would be in my future somewhere, if I make it fly. It’s neat to hear your experience of being on that side of it.
Also, those pictures are amazing. I’ve always loved the aesthetic of desolation (don’t ask me why). Seeing your photos makes me really look forward to Wasteland.
I spent yesterday in badly-needed R&R mode, out in the less-populated areas of Arizona. If InXile uses some of the pics I snapped, people will be surprised how lush this desert can be at the end of summer after a month of monsoon-season rains.
Now they just need to come to New England For KrabJab East, just like PAX East.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Although with four dozen of you, I worry that you won’t have very many pages …
We will each get our moment in the spotlight… 🙂
Ah, it will be EPIC!!
Woohoo Wasteland 2 references! 🙂 Can’t wait for the kickstarter to come to fruition!
Interesting conincidence . . . I unearthed a box of T&T stuff recently, and found a baggy of Middle Earth and Magic cards signed by you at I-Con and passed along to me by the late great Jeff Glass. I hadn’t known you’d been to I-Con!
I was sorry to hear Jeff had passed away. I remember I-Con vividly for quite a few reasons, but not least of which because — taking place in April — Arizona is already very hot but New York is still frigidly cold. I had not even packed anything more than a light jacket, which I accidentally left behind in my car at the airport. I spent the entire convention frozen to the bone… and enjoyed it anyway!
I love your artwork. Your Middle Earth piece has a T&T feel to it. Also, thanks for the advice. I would have thought that you would turn down jobs if the price didn’t meet your standards. I have a client that’s being “cheap”, but I have nothing else going on right now. Looks like I’ll be taking it.
Negotiations are exactly that, Anem, and for a reason. Respect yourself, respect your work, talent, and practiced skill — and realize that sometimes you are paid in something else you want. Just make sure it IS something else that you want and/or need.
Sitting in my stuffy UK office on a slow Friday afternoon, I had a sudden, random urge to see again the cover of that solo T&T adventure I used to love poring over in my youth. It always seemed so exotic – much more so than the mundane AD&D artwork that was around then. I Googled ‘City of Terrors’ and found myself here. Thanks for the story, Liz, and thanks so much for the wonderful art that made my world a more interesting place when I was growing up.
Tony, thank you! I’m really glad to hear when people tell me such work as I did, loving doing it, made some difference to them. Thank you!
I was also really pleasantly surprised by Pandaria. ^_^ We’ve got some other returners in the Libraries & Librarians guild on Aerie Peak, too.
I’m not as much into the whole Panda Panda thing. Although to be fair, I think that I’m more not into sitting indoors staring at the same computer I use for my day job. Once the eternal ice arrives again, I’ll probably play more Warcraft because there’s nothing else to do while frozen in place. Seriously, what does Bolvar do with himself these days?
Glad I was able to provoke you into another post – and very glad to hear that you’re not dead or insane. I mean, insane-er.
Liz: The OCD technical writer in me wants to note that the website watermark in the second illo (of the hand) is missing a D.
Fixed! Thank you for letting me know.
Not so much a watermark as hoping that, if someone swipes something, at least they know where it came from. I’d rather they simply respect me and not swipe, but nothing I can do will seriously change that without doing more damage than good.
Well I am lucky enough to have seen this piece in even more detail than the rest of you and I can say that I believe it really IS going to a new breakthru for Liz. And having read a big chunk of her stories, I think many of you Liz fans and friends out there are going to be in for a treat! So stay tuned and get ready for a really special Liz Danforth production! Congratz Liz
Stunning! Even the sketch has such a depth of charater. Love it!
You show see the color study she did – bold and exciting!
Now I’m jealous 🙂
Also, thanks Liz for clarifying things for me the other day – I was trying to reconcile Winter, who in my head is a Blue/Red mage, and Hymn to Tourach, which is a spell that I can’t see him ever casting. Now I’ve got it all sorted.
For anyone else who might find it an odd jump between Winter and the Magic card: the key commonalities of the two pictures are the extended hand(s) and the expectation of magically-assisted translocation. 🙂
wow…. here I was surfing for ‘gnomish’ info after Second Life kicked me offline (I was visiting a fantasy RP zone) and suddenly remembered Tunnels & Trolls — which led me here. I LOVED the drawings you did for T&T… it was what got me ‘hooked’ on fantasy gaming… even if I did kind of ‘defect’ over to D&D and later AD&D. I tried to emulate your work over the years (unsuccessfully) but.. STILL think it is some fun ‘candy’ for the eye.
Koldrake, thank you for your kind words… and for bringing this post back to my attention. As I’ll note in today’s blog entry, you have sparked my own imagination (as I hope I’ve sparked those who saw this picture originally) and although I’m in the middle of other artwork, I’m going to the sketchbook today…
This is very, very good news! I’m looking forward to having a copy in hand.
…and I, for one, cannot wait!
“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
Please, mum, I want some more.
And you are responsible for me sending that YouTube clip to my wife, creatle Very Loud Haw-Haws that can be heard all over the complex.
What? Little ol’ me with a secret plan to reforge the Trollish Fellowship an start anew the age of greatness and wonder that once reigned supreme in gaming fandom?
A new age of greatness where I get to work on Tunnels & Trolls in a more than ancillary way?…
Ridiculous – I never gave it a moments thought. Really.
heh heh…. Steve
Seriously – this is gonna be REALLY cool! You’ll see…
Where’s the ‘like’ button? 🙂 I’m very excited to see the result of this reunion!
1986 fan who sho still thinks its great likes’
My only question is “how can I help?”
Besides pledging to the Kickstarter, of course.
Kickstarter is just over the horizon. We’ve done a lot on our own, because we didn’t want to sell pie in the sky. (Castles in the air, maybe! But not pie. Ozone flavored pie is just icky.) But we can’t do it all, and we’ve been concocting some interesting incentives I think. Like I said — stay tuned!
Pie? We get pie?
I am really looking forward to this….what great nostalgia combined with bringing a new start to a classic game!
Ah, long nights spent in a friend’s father’s intimate, evocative, and appropriately subterranean nightclub… flagons of ale (we didn’t have to role-play that) and fists full of dice… the adventures of Byll the battle-dwarf… Balrogs and Ribzotty Gibberbats… Sorry, drifted away there, yes I’ll be pledging!
Ribzotty Gibberbats??? Now that I’d like to see. NO, WAIT… forget that. I do NOT want to see Ribzotty Gibberbats, at least not unless my wizard was well and truly surrounded by shieldmates and boon companions…!
All I need now is for someone to reissue all the Sorcerer’s Apprentice magazines and life will be complete!
Patrice also brought that up, a year or so ago. But magazines generally purchase only “first rights” (or one-time reprint rights if something has seen publication elsewhere, as was the case with some of the fiction we bought). Somewhere I have a disc with all of SA collected together, to go through and see what we *could* reprint … but I think it would be pretty thin fare. We’ll have to see.
Now, that’s a disk I could happily steal from you!!! 🙂 I did have a conversation with someone a while back about this and it was mooted but the problem would appear to be tracking down all the contributors. I did suggest that a simple copy to disk would be more than adequate – that is, it wouldn’t have to be printed – and for those old enough to remember it would be a wave of nostalgia and for those young enough to be new to the game it would find a ready market. Sadly my collection got misappropriated when I got divorced some years ago.
Whether the content is on a disk or printed, there would be issues of rights I could not personally countenance transgressing, Philip. 🙂 And in truth, many of the contributors have disappeared or passed away over the years: Manly Wade Wellman, Roger Zelazny, Fred Saberhagen, Karl Edward Wagner, Stephan Peregrine, and many others are no longer with us. While some of them surely have estates to approach regarding these rights, I am equally sure that some heirs and assigns would say nothing more coherent than “whhhhuuuuutttt???” even if we could still find them.
Yes, I fully understand. One day I’m sure I’ll find a collection in a second hand shop (although it hasn’t happened yet!) 🙂
Any general idea when the kickstarter will “kick off”?
Soon…. 😉
ETA: Okay, that’s not a very fair answer although accurate in its vagueness. Expect Santa to bring something to make your holidays more interesting, if not sooner. We’ve got some hoops to jump through still.
Boy, am I glad I survived the drought of the 90’s with no new T&T stuff. I can’t wait for the new edition & am glad the team is back together again.
Patience is a virtue! All things come to trolls that wait 🙂
Liz, your art introduced me to a lifelong hobby that has kept my imagination alive and sparking since the early 80s. Thank you so much. I cried when I just found out you sold these iconic RPG pieces on eBay – and I missed them…sob. So looking forward to the new deluxe game. I am a special education teacher and am in the process of introducing T&T to my pupils. They will love it, and your visuals will help blow them away as they did me a few decades ago. Please keep it coming. x
Oh Matt, you are wonderful to say this! We are hard at work today (and even yesterday, on Christmas!) working to make the Deluxe edition come to be. Thank you for the encouragement!
As for this piece of artwork: I’ll let you in on a secret… one of the pictures I want to do in the new edition will refer back to this one. In an interesting, cool way, I think! But we have a lot of hoops to jump through first.
Looks like a ton of fun! Now with MOAR TROLLS?! Yes please. I am not sure how many were originally in it, but I imagine more is always good (unless they are hungry for human).
You can never go wrong with more Trolls … well, unless you’re sat in the middle of a clearing surrounded by Trolls who are all looking at you as if you’re some particularly esoteric piece of potential food they haven’t quite figured out the recipie to use for yet and are mentally trying to draw lines bisecting limbs to indicate their prefernce for cuts …
*ahem* Sorry, been editing today. Need to come back to the real world … Ignore everything before and just go with “More trolls are good” 🙂
Hmm. Definitely like to see the draft of Bilbo & Me, even (or especially) if it’s just a draft.
And I’d really like to see the Elves of Lindon piece; it’s long been a favourite of mine.
It has been a hard – full on marathon, the likes of which none of you could quess. All of us have gone beyond the vale (or is it pale?) to get this to read great and to look great. We have some wonderful pledge items we can’t wait for you to see!
Hold on – Its going to be fun ride! All Hail the Trollish Fellowship!
Deluxe T&T Kickstarter May go Live tomorrow!
We are holding our breath waiting for the final OK from Kickstarter.
Be sure to check during the 4th of Jan. to see if we are live!
Should it be God bless us, every one — or God help us, every one? I thought I had outgrown being a fanboy.
Never thought I’d see this day. What’s amazing is that I’m so excited for this volume – even though I’ll only use, perhaps, five pages of the rules. TnT was all about how to avoid using any rules – but the books were so much fun to read, that I can’t wait to see the new words, the new options, the new rules-I’ll-probably-ignore-but-find-fascinating, and especially the new art. Something that has been missing since Sorcerer’s Apprentice went away – is coming back.
I’m glad that you feel that way. To me, I always thought your best work was the illustrations found in T&T v5.
It stabs me in the heart to hear there was a time when you “didn’t even think anyone gave a damn about Liz Danforth’s art or whether she’d ever do so much as a single sketch ever again.”
I’ve written this elsewhere, but your work, in T&T specifically, *defined* fantasy art for me as a child. T&T was my first game (back in about 1980!) and your work was a huge part of what made it wonderful to me. I’m glad we’re all on the internet now and can tell you what your work means to us.
Not only the illustrations in v5, anem kram, but the editing of v5 as well…
Hi Liz,
Well, you know how I feel about both T&T (the game that started me on a 30+ year roleplaying hobby) and your art (Love it! And so proud to own a few pieces). Long may this adventure continue and dT&T seems a great way to further that.
Mike
I’m happy to see it’s going so well and glad I could be a part of it. Playing T&T with a group of my friends was a great part of my youth and your art played a great part of what made the game so appealing.
Thank You,
Marc
Liz–
This has not changed my view of Kickstarter itself (it’s just a thing, not inherently good or bad) or far too many projects I see here (skepticism bordering on sadness and revulsion at the choice of funding), but you guys did everything right. The numbers make sense. The plan makes sense. The ambitions make sense.
And never underestimate the credibility you bring to the project. Love your art (still kicking myself that I rejoined the community just after you sold the interior back cover of 5.0), but knowing you’re handling editing chores makes me want to go up my pledge…I think I’ll do that now.
David/M’oskqorrg
Dunno how I missed the kickstarter going up 36 hours ago, but that’s been remedied.
And I wish I’d been able to reach out to you in the Bad Years. Oh well, that’s the past. I’ll just have to settle for continuing to show support now!
Liz,
I know how you feel. I have put so much of my life on hold for various things. I am not a great artist, but that was one of the few “talents” I felt I had, but I took a good 20+ years off to pursue other more “rational” pursuits. But, Tunnels & Trolls allowed me to get back into it and get published as an artist after the long sabbatical. I have also gotten back into guitar playing after selling my guitar and equipment to pay for other parts of life some 10 years ago. I do not think the world is ready for me to do anything more than pluck around with my guitar in private. Other areas people think I have been doing it for years, but I have not. Also, most people do not know I am an artist, video maker, writer, and poor guitar player. I am just glad you are back. As I’ve mentioned some where else, I love your work and it is up there with the Frazetta’s, Neal Adams’, John Buscema’s, and John Byrne’s who I respect and love also.
The prodigal daughter returns. 🙂
Quite often when you’re a fan, you assume that the person you admire is constantly told that they’re loved. And you stay quiet, and you feel foolish at the idea of telling someone so important to you, how great they are. I’d never though the result of that could be someone with so much talent being so surprised that your work is adored.
I haven’t had the pleasure of growing up with T&T, but I’ve met those that have, and I’ve seen that it’s had a profound impact on their love of gaming.
I think sometimes it’s easy to forget (especially as an artist with a mind swirling full of imagery) that not everyone looks on the world through the same eyes. Some folks only need words to picture beautiful worlds, whereas others need a spark like artwork to start their mind on that journey. The keystone of their understanding and exploration could easily be a page of beautiful art rather then the words around it.
Your artwork started visions, left openings to those that may not otherwise have found them, and gave form to the world – a world partly made of book, and partly made of the reader. You allowed people find something so special and personal through quality illustration.
Liz, I’m glad you’re discovering how much your art meant to a whole generation of gamers. I know myself and everyone in my group loved the distinctive style of classic T&T, and the “Danforth look” had a lot to so with that.
Off now to pledge entirely too much money to the project …
You people are putting me in tears. I can hardly type. You have no idea how much your words mean to me, Thank you.
Trust is the keyword for me – I have pledged even though I gave never met or corresponded with any of you guys but I have read enough to know that you will put your heart and soul into the project because you guys have a respect and a love for the fans.
T+T was my first and best RPG and opened up a whole new world for me many years ago and although I havent played in years this excites me and I cant wait to get the pen/paper and dice out again
Like everyone else I am pleased at the outpouring of support for the game , T+T never died but maybe just dosed off for a while 🙂
I am profoundly aware of the factor of trust, Mo. It is an honor, a weight, and an inspiration for me (and I believe for the others) to give it our all. Thank you.
“TnT was all about how to avoid using any rules”
I d agree, and hope ypu can bear that in mind. I d suggest lots of world back ground, and play examples.
There are a lot of rules in T&T if the intention was to use none at all — why publish any RPG when playing childhood Make Believe will do the job satisfactorily, by your assessment? (That isn’t a rhetorical question — that’s actually an option for some folk.) But basically, I cannot agree with your statement that T&T is about no rules, so perhaps you oversimplified the concept of using what works best for you and your friends, and tossing what does not.
Ultimately, the rules will be written by Ken. I am the editor and developer. I believe that he and I both envision a strong, simple structure to the core game, with rich elaborations possible. I know he is bringing in a great deal of world background.
Oh yes, it was definitely an oversimplification on my part (I yam the original poster of that statement) to represent the freewheeling games when our character literally (Don’t ask me how!) took over and Mr GM (me) couldn’t/wouldn’t stop the game to look up a specific rule. There were maybe five rules I could keep in my head (the number has since gone down) and frequently extrapolated. Or, if the character tried something especially entertaining, I ruled it worked.
Nah – I wouldn’t ever put the TnT system down. It ain’t broje, and it allows the correct level of crunch or improvisation as each situation requires.
Can I help it if my players were almost always so entertaining?
Sometimes the audience remembers there are people of flesh and blood behind the work they appreciate. 🙂
As I’ve admitted before, I missed Tunnels & Trolls the first time around. The inclusion of the original editions in this KS campaign has me especially excited!
Here’s to something I’m definitely looking forward to. 🙂 Keep up the great work, Liz!
Liz your contributions to T&T are what makes it T&T to me. I always thumb through every product that you have work in, just to admire your illustrations. Your style stands out enough that I can pick it out instantly.
With that in mind, I was thinking about miniatures and T&T. I know they have never been a part of the game per se, but they are one of the loves of my gaming life. I discovered paper miniatures recently and have wondered if you have ever considered doing paper miniatures. I think your art style is very robust , and would work well for such an item..
Dwight, I actually did the paper miniatures in the original Darksmoke, and there are others in the MSPE adventure of Stormhaven. This topic has arisen among the Fellowship, both before and after folks devoted to using miniatures asked about whether they are going to be better integrated into T&T, which has never relied on them.
I know Ken is adding some words about using minis into dT&T and, as someone who doesn’t use them much himself, I believe he is touching base with those who do, to be sure the rules do justice to the topic. That will, of course, open the doors to the possibility that some time in the future (if I can dig out from under the other work piled on my plate!), you might see what you’re asked for here. Don’t hold your breath — no promises and emphatically not any time soon! But who knows, exactly…. 🙂
No worries. It’s more of a wishlist sorta thing for me. By the way Idreen of Gy is my favorite paper mini you did. Boy I hope I spelled that right. Guess I’ll have to dig out the Isle of Darksmoke!
This is such a wonderful post! I’ve been meaning to comment on it for some time, but haven’t had the chance. Every day has been filled with new things that had to be done for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls that I haven’t had the chance to return here.
I read this a week ago and almost cried (ok fine – I DID cry when I read it) Its what I DREAMED dT&T might be for me, Ken, Bear and especially Liz. Luring her back into the fold was not something she was in a rush to do. No one knows how draining it can be to try to live up to one’s own expectations of perfection and Liz has VERY high standards that she sets for herself. Too high for regular humans – which obviously makes Liz something special indeed.
I hope all of us can hold onto that special feeling – that Fellowship we have gained from this very amazing journey. I now the results are going to be OUTSTANDING. I hope that we can all survive our turns at carrying the burden of “the Ring” We really have become a fellowship – that is not just a term we throw around for fun. I love you all and Liz, you will never know what working with you on this project means to me… There are no words to describe it. This is truly a magical time. Steve
I should note that the “November 12th deadline” came and went — not only for me, but for several other artists. Coordinating dozens of freelancers (some of whom left the business or moved on to other sorts of illustration completely) in the two decades since we were all in the Magic decks together is a challenge. Bless the socks of those herding those wet cats — better them than me!
This painting is progressing, but much of my attention has shifted to the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls project. All I’ll say is — I’m working as hard as I can, and I think everyone will be pleased with the results in time, whether they know me for being a Magic artist or for Tunnels & Trolls or both.
Frankly, I’m overjoyed to see a fantasy or science fiction female who ISN’T huge breasted. It’s as rare as a flat-chested Wally Wood woman.
I agree with grandpache. It’s nice to see a ‘real’ woman!
I like your Archer’s expression & the focus of her eyes. I like that punk-rock look too. I didn’t know about the positioning of her arrows & bow. I thought she was getting ready to drop it and go for her sword. I can’t wait to see the cover.
Check out that video. It will change everything you think you know about combat archery.
Yeah love that archer too. At first glance a thought she might be an elf, but then I realized she has human ears. It’s really nice! More to come I’m sure!
The other thing I love about Liz’s art (besides the normally/reality proportioned body parts) is the clothing. She covers her characters realistically, complimentary, and convincingly. Love it, Liz.
What a great behind the scenes look at the evolution of a cover! I look forward to more entries as work goes forward.
Awesome! And the story you give us in introducing us adds to the intriguing nature of the image. Thank you!
Trrrommm likes the Archer
Gritty and dynamic.
Just brilliant! 🙂
Liz, thank you so much for giving us a real woman, sensibly dressed for adventure. As the father of two adventurous girls it is nice to have role models like this.
I’m eager to see the rest of the cover.
This comment warms my heart more than almost anything else said here (and I really DO appreciate the compliments from everyone). A friend and I recently discussed the role models we had growing up, in fiction and film, and how difficult it was to calibrate between who we were on the inside vs who we were expected to be on the outside. Give your girls a hug for me, would you?
Brill! Can’t wait for the next instalment.
I like the nose. Not sure why, but she just has such an expressive nose.
Looks great!
I love it when fantasy and FRP characters are depicted as real and realistic. The world just does not need any more half-naked barbarians or scantily-clad slave girls. THIS is how a ‘real’ adventurer should dress; practical, but with style and and a hint of ‘not of this world’. Great stuff and I can’t wait to see the rest.
You always bring a touch of reality with your art. Maybe less than “ideal” but authentic. With your art it is always easier to I agile myself sharing the scene
*i agile should be imagine.
All right! Enough with this soft, lovey-dovey type posts. I know – it’s my fault – I started it. Unbecoming of a Trollish Delver, wasn’t I?
To get us back into an aggressive, belching, scratching sort of T&T mood, I present from Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6, paragraph 17, which will give us the proper caption for the (admittedly great) illustration above:
“A is for Archer, who shoots with a bow.”
Now lets go out there and BE GRUFF!!
growl, roar!!
She looks grim as hell and I love it. Almost said I would want to share a brew with her but she probably doesn’t have time for such trifles. She looks alert — farsighted both with visual acumen, and in her values and decision making.
At least that is a piece of my story for her thus far. Can’t wait to see more of your character!
Jason, I’d guess this is NOT the moment to say “Hey kiddo, wanna come share a brewski with me” but in my mind, she can relax and have a good time “back at the tavern” with the best of ’em… but only once the week’s adventures are done, and she’s been able to cash in whatever she hauled out of the hole she and her buddies have gotten themselves into…
Yeah I think I’ll wait until she’s done with her slaying. 😉
And after SHE got finished slaying us, our wives would slay us!
hahahaha!
Not being an artist at all, I still found this fascinating. Thanks, Liz.
I so love your line work. And the draping! To die for!
Fascinating post. Been busy, so only just now got around to reading it.
Spiritually, I tend to call myself “agnostic” instead of “atheist” as is the style. I think there’s the possibility of experiences beyond our five senses and beyond the ability for science to explain. But, I think it’s equally obvious that most of us have no direct contact with an external divinity. If there is a higher power, it’s beyond our understanding.
But, perhaps we get glimpses of it. Or, maybe it’s all neuroscience. To the layperson, there’s not a whole lot of difference between those two. And for the creative mind, the line between them is as fuzzy as anything you can imagine.
I hope you’ll read Hallucinations, Brian. I am certain you’ll find it as utterly fascinating as I did. And after writing/deleting several other comments to your comment, I’m going to say “Let’s get together over a drink some time and have a long discussion…” 🙂
I need to get caught up on my Oliver Sacks reading. I haven’t yet cracked the covers of his book on music.
I had two hypnogogic dreams in recent memory. One I knew what it was as it was happening, so that the vague-faced “bogeyman” I could sense in the room was annoying rather than scary. I felt kind of resentful toward my brain for making it.
The other involved a group of goofy, costumed people gadding about outside the vacation cabin where I was staying. The walls had developed wide gaps between the boards through which I could see these ren-faire rejects spraying water and whooping it up. I knew they’d go away if I could pound on the wall, but I was paralysed and unable to move my arm.
Thanks for sharing, Stefan! Yeah, he refers to the music book in this one, and that’s going on my TBR pile also.
this is a while in coming, too, and on a post so many months old, but you forgot one thing – I moved a whole family (well, just the two of us) to Phoenix just to be near you guys and T&T. 😀
And what friends you became. Remember, you and Mike were the witnesses at my wife’s ceremony for becoming an American citizen.
Finding the kickstarter and connecting back with everyone has been wonderful!
Take care Liz.
stay frosty…
-roo
aka Ashley Morton 😀
Just ran across this. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces. Love this one and I love hearing the story behind it!
Thank you, Rob! We’ll see if I have time to revisit this concept for the new edition, eh? Don’t hold your breath… I have a lot of work (art and editing and writing) that I need to do before even thinking about this … but it IS something I’ve been thinking about doing. Deadlines will probably dictate whether it happens or not. 🙂
Improve! Recover! Feel better!
Let us know what we can do to help. Feel the love from your fans/friends.
Oh gosh I had hoped you had mostly recovered. I figured we hadn’t heard from you because you were making up for lost time with T&T. You don’t know me as anything more than a fan but if I can give you a hand with ANYTHING just let me know. I am sure getting behind is driving you mad. Also if you do make it to GenCon (which I selfishly hope you do) my husband and I will both be there so if you need something (even if it’s just gophering) let me know and we’ll make sure you have access to us.
Thank you for the offer, Glenda. Right now, going to GenCon is still up in the air. This illness has really thrown all my plans in the dumper.
Be well! T&T can wait!
Just take your time; recovering is the priority here.
Been there. Pneumonia while stationed in Korea, in the middle of a mission-critical exercise. Which meant no going to sick bay, with troops depending on my branch. When maneuvers ended, I collapsed and have no memory of the following week. Took forever to get back on my feet.
You don’t want that. So obey your body now, so it doesn’t go AWOL on you. No lives are in danger if you’re late.
Except Fang the Dissectable, and he doesn’t count.
Liz! Just concentrate on getting better. I of course want my T&TD but not if it’s at the cost of you being sick for God knows how long. Your health comes first.
That sounds miserable – glad to hear you’re on the mend. Illness is a terrible thing, it not only attacks our bodies but our energy and creativity. Funny how the ephemeral stuff is so frailly rooted to our physical bodies. Wishing you the best!
I’m sending you warm thoughts of a speedy recovery, Liz. I hope you recover fully soon. I know you were being super-productive for a while before this, so it’s probably chaffing you to have to slow down. But, yeah, definitely get your rest and recover, then get ready to get back in the game fighting when you’re 100%!
As always, let me know if you need anything.
Oh, I know exactly how you have been feeling. I didn’t realize I had pneumonia until I had problems breathing- as in I couldn’t. I could stagger about 50′, stop catch a little air, and stumbled into Urgent care. Long story short: Oxygen level was at 82 and dropping, a week of IV antibiotics and oxygen treatments at home for three weeks. Hang in there Liz, my prayers are for a swift recovery.
I’m so sorry to hear. How tough! We think we’re strong, but then our bodies remind us that we’re actually pretty frail!
Take it easy Liz.
I love your use of card art to illustrate your condition!
I’m familiar with that crackly feeling in the chest, from a mild but still deeply dreary-making case of bronchitis. I managed to walk my dog and put together meals, but that was about it.
I’d rather dT&T be late than have any member of the team endanger health (or sanity) to beat a deadline.
Liz,
Have a Healing Feeling or… four. Rest and be well. As for DT&T; You are one of the primary reasons I gave to the campaign and I would be saddened, if you were to be unable to continue in your current capacity. T&T’s return to glory would be diminished, in no small way, without your insightful contributions and skillful editing.
John, that is very kind and flattering of you! I have zero intention of stepping out of the project… it means a lot to me, and to all the Fellowship, for this project to have gotten the kind of passionate support which we see. Both Ken and I believe strongly this ought to be the definitive edition of the game (although sometimes we disagree about exactly what that means!), a worthy response to the trust you all have placed in our hands. I am sorry my being sick has delayed it, but if I don’t have the focus and drive to work with the skill and creativity I expect of myself, I have to put the work to one side until I can do a proper job. All of you deserve nothing less.
I would rather have a late Deluxe T&T than one which lacked for your contributions. I bet most or all of the backers feel the same. Take your time. And take pneumonia dead seriously, it can and does kill. Though it sounds like you’re past the point where we would have lost you if we were going to.
I hope you recover soon, Liz. I wish I could offer any helpful advice except crash wherever you’re comfortable, sleep when you need to for as long as you can, and keep up on your meds while eating whenever you can. Having suffered through 5 pneumonias in 7 months in 2008/2009, I can well sympathize. I lost 15 lbs in one week on #4, not a weight loss method which I approve or endorse. When I heard you had walking pneumonia, I thought you might be able to shake it pretty soon. Very sorry to hear it went full-blown.
Keep in mind that recurrent pneumonia is having it more than once in a two year period. If that happens, talk to me and I’ll give you some more info on what to demand of your doctors.
Thank you Wayne. Rick said “walking pneumonia” in the Kickstarter update, not realizing there was a difference, I believe. I sure hope I don’t come down with anything like this EVER again, because I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.
What everyone else has been saying, Liz: your health is more important to us than getting a game book sooner rather than later. Focus on healing now. dT&T can wait, and so can we.
I know it is so frustrating to feel poorly and have so much time be unproductive, not to mention its not a lot of fun just existing. Do take the time you need and focus on getting yourself healed, please. Take care.
Liz, dT&T is only a game. You are a wonderful person and much more important. Concentrate on getting well. The rest will be there for you when you recover.
Take your time on getting better – games can be late, we’d rather you weren’t! (Late, that is.)
hiya Liz – we already chatted. Be good, get well, sending strong wellness thoughts your way.
-ashley aka roo
Sorry to hear the news, Liz. Take your time. Cheers — Pat
I hope you are continuing to feel better, you are an incredible person, and please take care of yourself. Get better soon!
Thank you! I’ve started working a bit more but still sleeping more than usual as well. I hope to update the blog this weekend too! I appreciate the kind wishes, more than you can know. 😉
My immediate answer was Friday, but after thinking a bit I settled on Monday. Although I’m pretty sure that the correct answer is “At a significantly more disruptive time.”
Glad to hear that you’re feeling better. Hopefully things will be back to “normal” soon?
Without a doubt, the one correct answer must be “At a significantly more disruptive time.” Good catch!!
Interestingly enough if Liz had said the meeting needs to be moved up two days I would have given a different answer than I did
Groobleday.
And my answer was Monday. But then I thought “Wait, forward means going forward into the future, therefore Friday. But as you say Liz, either answer is correct. Very interesting stuff. I have a huge interest in time as a concept and as a quantum force (like gravity). The current thinking on time among many physicists is that time moves in the direction it does (the arrow of time as they call it) because that’s the way the universe moved when it exploded forth. If the universe had come into being is some other manner, we might not have time at all, or cause and effect might not be linked as things mostly are in this universe.
Some theorists say that while we can travel into the future (and back to our own present) We will never be able to travel back into a past before the time we create a means to travel into the future.
A couple of years ago Stephan Hawkins had a party to welcome any and all time travelers to appear and celebrate (or at least reveal themselves) He announced all over news media and the internet to make sure the message got out. However, no one showed up for his party. So if no one in the whole past and future history of life on Earth took him up on his offer – it seems unlikely that anyone developed a means to easily travel into the past. So perhaps it can’t be done.
Just for the record, travelling ahead into the future is very possible and in fact anytime you fly on a jet you are “skipping ahead into the future by a billionth of a second or so. I guess we are all travelling through time really. We are molecules in a river that is constantly flowing downstream and there is little we can do to change that, so make the best of the time you have…
My immediate answer was Friday, for the reasons Steven gave. I too have a great interest in time as a concept, coming mostly from a philosophical perspective. Zeno’s Paradoxes have an interesting resolution when one considers time as a quantity on the same level as space.
For those unfamiliar with it, Zeno’s Dichotomy Paradox says that catching up to a stationary object is impossible, because first, one must get halfway there, then halfway across the remaining distance, and so on ad infinitum. However, this does not take time, and therefore velocity, into account on their own terms. If we assume a constant velocity, then the infinite sum of halves (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 …, which has an upper limit of 1) representing the distance also represents the time taken to move that distance, so each unit of distance has its own associated unit of time. This is made concrete in the equations of Einstein’s theory of special relativity, in which time and distance are distorted by extremely high velocities; time slows down, and length and distance contract, both in the same proportions.
More interesting to me is the observation (for which I cannot find a specific source to credit) that a recent solution of the equations for general relativity and quantum theory results in time disappearing from both sets of equations. In effect, we can unify the theory of the macroscopic with the theory of the microscopic by making time a non-entity. The following link introduces an article from Scientific American that examines the idea:
Cause and effect are also a source of consternation for me, thanks largely to the writings of David Hume. Would causality break down if time were simply a fourth dimension of space that one could move through at will? Does it even exist in the first place? If time is indeed an illusion, how do we define causality at all? By necessity, a cause must precede an effect, but only because of the “arrow of time” as mentioned by Steven. The writings of Paul Davies, particularly his book “About Time,” are a great starting point for anyone interested in this aspect of reality, whether as a science or as a matter for philosophy.
Many thanks to Liz for the interesting post, and to Steven for the fascinating thoughts on the matter.
I have always been fascinated by the physics of time, which you both are addressing in your comments. The SciAm article definitely will merit longer perusal when I can wrap my cottonball brains around it.
What’s interesting to me is that I evidently FAILED to convey the Time Warped author’s focus on the extent to which time is an internal, mental function (although no single place in the brain can be pinned down as our clock-tender), and the perception of which is highly mutable.
Time, as something to be addressed in physics, is one thing. Like quarks or neutrinos, it’s addressable (given time, I expect!).
The workings of the human mind, and the brain, fascinate me much more. What is your spatial relationship to time? Is the past on your left or the right? (Likely, if you are reading this in your native language, it’s the former iirc.) Is “soon” higher up on your computer keyboard or lower? Are weekends of a different shape than the regular workweek, and why are your most impactful memories of public events clearest from your mid-teens and your most impactful memories of personal events (barring a major lifechange) from your early 20s? Why is 1492 easy to remember, or even 1914, but the year Lennon was shot, or the year Katrina hit more difficult if you weren’t there on hand for one or the other? What month did the Boston Marathon bombing take place?
The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves do much to constitute our identity. Memory and emotion play a huge part in this, of course, and both of those alter our perception of time. Along with, I have to say, just about every other experience we can have as human beings.
And that, at the core of it, is perhaps where I went wrong at the start of this blog. The blog isn’t about TIME so much as the =perception= of time, and those highly varied perceptions have profound consequences.
To all hopeful astrophysicists and Puzzlers-of-Mental-Perceptions: It might interest you to know that Zeno’s Paradox of Motion (aka “Achilles & the Tortoise”) was solved either in the past or in the future by Ozma of Oz (“Paradox in Oz” 1999) and by Alan Scott (Green Lantern #39 1949, “the Impossible Mr Paradox”). Zeno himself was killed in battle with Captain America in Avengers #15 (1965).
Reality is for people who cannot handle fantasy.
My immediate answer was Friday, and because of the way my brain is wired, I have a difficult time accepting Monday as an appropriate answer. In fact, your answer might have been different if it had been made known to you that the statement about Wednesday’s meeting being moved forward two days was made on a Tuesday.
As for the party Steven S Crompton mentioned above that Stephen Hawking held for time travelers, why would any time travelers from the future bother to even try to go to the party when they already know from their history books that they didn’t make it? The fact that no one showed up doesn’t prove anything about time travel. Maybe Stephen Hawking’s idea wasn’t as brilliant as he thought. Or maybe he just wasn’t taking it seriously.
I haven’t posted there in a while, as I’ve been sick too and then when I felt better, I had other things I wanted to catch up on first. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I wrote my last post, but it’s actually been months. Regardless, maybe you’ll find some of my previous posts of interest. Hope you are feeling better soon.
I’m so happy that you are doing better; please continue to do so. You’ve given so much of yourself, it is time for the fans (especially this one) to give back in some small way (I tells ya!) Take care!
For me the ‘move forward two days’ depends on immediate frame of mind in interpreting the phrase more than time perception. Is it looking at moving it ‘forward’ on a calendar, thus to Friday? Or moved forward as opposed to the more common phrase of ‘moved back’. Moved back usually means it comes two days later, with that phrase in mind the ‘opposite’ would be ‘moved forward’=sooner.
In my case I see both the young woman and the old, so I’d ask for clarification or a specific date. I’ve also encountered another variation of this. Moving two days doesn’t mean start time ~48 hours displaced from the point of origin, it means ~72 hours, two days =between= old point and new, noninclusive.
Personally, I swim back and forth in time, but neither matters. I’m caught in a riptide. 😉
Get better soon, Liz
I went for Monday.
In an office, a meeting is “moved up” or “moved back.” “Moved forward” seemed closer to “up” than “back,” so . . .
Of course, you have to wonder about how “moved up” and “moved back” were established. If you think of time as an appointment book, where the future is toward the back or bottom of the book, it makes sense.
I have often noted that time moves irregularly for me. I put something (say, a bill that is not due for two weeks) off for “a couple of days” and suddenly I realize it is 30 days overdue. I comment on something that happened “a couple of years ago” and suddenly I add it up and realize it was 25 years ago! And when did I get to be 65? Dag nab it, just “a couple of years ago” I was only 25. 😉
Don’t disillusion me, Rikk! When I last spoke to you on the phone, you WERE 25 and I still think of you in that way!
Actually, if someone told me an important Wednesday meeting was to be “moved forward two days” I would immediately ask “is that Monday or Friday?”. No reason not to be specific. I just noticed a link to Liz that had an old address, and was confirming the correct address, and ended up reading this post again. Darn internet – you can’t do “just one thing” without being distracted. Is it Wednesday yet?)
Welcome back to the land of the living! Here’s hoping that you – and your muse – can settle here for a while.
Glad to hear you’re feeling better!
My muse pretty much took a leave of absence for ten years, and she is still prone to disappearing for a month or two at a time.
Mine was also unavailable for a decade or so, Stefan, and one of these days I’m going to blog about it. But only when I’m feeling really really pugnacious, because having her walled up was very bad in every aspect and still makes me angry at the circumstances. I’m just glad she’s back and (mostly glad) she’s trying to make up for lost time.
just put that old moose back in the bottle and toss it into the sea. thanks for visiting me blog 😀
Ever thought of tribal tattooing? I love your artwork. I wish I could afford it. 🙂 Glad you’re feeling better.
Thank you, Anem. The designs would certainly work for tribal-style tattoos but designs like this certainly aren’t proprietary to me. I’ve also seen them used for cut parchment art, which makes for very pretty wall art.
I love your drawings from MERP! I saw Middle Earth through your art as a child.
Happy spirits for the season, and may you happily imbibe good spirits!
Best wishes to you too, for Christmas. I’ll cross my fingers and assume that the reddish smears on the one gazing out of the window are nothing less innocent than light/shadow effects… 😉
Ha! Cardis are often marked with “points” of color — black with tan points, black/white and brindle, or in this case merle with tan points. It’s amusing to me that I chose to make this dog a merle, since that is the only color in the available schemes that I’ve never had (nor particularly expect to). I’ve mostly had B&W with either tan or brindle points, one beloved red, and a dear rescue brindle.
and here I thought those were blood splashes from the bungling burglar than tried to come in… Hi Liz! Happy Holidays to ya and those cardis. On a more serious note – beautiful card. Your art work is always amazing. Send me some warmth from down there – it’s only 9F.
-roo
Very nice card!
I just got back from picking up my Belgian shepherd from the kennel. A friend of the owner announced that Kira will have a role in a children’s book she is writing / illustrating, thanks to her skill at climbing fences.
I do love your ‘Pictures Have Stories’ and I’m *so* glad that ‘Divvy Up the Loot’ will be making an appearance in dT&T. It’s a new piece to me and it’s lovely!
It’s a new piece to everyone but Daniel (who bought it) and those who saw it up for sale at TusCon years ago. 🙂
Always great to hear about how the art got made and to actually SEE a previously unseen painting by Liz! Great post and good luck with the auction!
Fascinating to read your story, Liz. I knew your mother and dad, of course, but I didn’t know he took art classes. I remember him as a city planner, after the navy of course.
He was very much a weekend artist, painting and sculpting with plasticine clay and ceramics. I have a lot of his watercolors from Hawaii. The whole family did these things, and I have to wonder if my mom’s comment was simply that his style changed … but not necessarily for worse, just different. Certainly my work has changed over time, and in reaction to things I’ve learned or been taught.
I am SO GLAD you come read my blog, Catherine! You are someone I wish lived closer, that we could get to know each other better. 🙂
Note the “early Danforth style” of discrete figures converging on a common center (the triangular composition Liz mentions). Back in high school (yeah, I’m old), the idea of a GAME that you could carry in your back pocket and play was way cool (hey, we were Geeks before Geeks were cool). The artwork was engaging and made us want to explore this strange new world of heroic fighting fantasy. We could BE those characters from Lord of the Rings (a series of books before they were a series of movies) and slug it out.
Yes, those are BELL BOTTOMS: Disco Dragon, anyone?
oh, and SUBSCRIBED 😀
Nope David, the cover of Melee you linked is NOT my artwork. 🙂
As for the awesomeness of bell bottoms… it’s been observed on many another occasion! Reason? I couldn’t draw boots and shoes particularly well! Certainly not in such small bits. And heeeey…. Steve Jackson never complained!!
Still, the actual LD Melee cover offers a companion look to those ol’ days. And I did peg the bell bottoms 😀
I’m a sucker for sylvan scenes. What I really like about this painting is the mysterious forest pathway, leading to adventure.
If you mouse over the picture, you’ll see some of my comments about the mysteries I worked in as a conscious choice, visual threads left hanging. And yes, the path leading you into the picture was a deliberate part of that. 🙂
I’m glad you like the piece!
Oh wow, this piece had such an impact on me as a middle school age gamer. The composition is fantastic, the grotesqueness of the demon, the pathos of the dead fairy, the otherworldliness of the magic user. Not to mention all the other little details which leave you wondering about the story.
As for the scanty clothing, that you also referenced in your post on the Monsters! Monsters! cover, it needs no defence. It just looks wonderful, references baroque and renaissance art, and implies a rich fantasy world with its own culture and mores, not just a gamer’s mentality of “would this be practical or not”.
Wow, thanks! It’s such a kick for me, that people are still looking back at the older posts like this one… and reminding me of the new piece I want to do for the deluxe edition! With so much that’s gone on, it had slipped my mind. *makes-a-note*
The forest creature looks just like I imagine the magician Shimrod’s pet looks like in Jack Vance’s Lyonesse. It was a furry thing of unknown species as I recall. And the piece overall fits the mood of that series. Usually your work (to me) is all about line and space, but in this one you showed a deft eye for color.
I’m slightly embarrassed to say I never read those, and perhaps more embarrassed (but not surprised) that our local library doesn’t carry them. I have just put in for an InterLibrary Loan request though. 😉
Glad to spread the holy word of Vance! Seriously you have a treat in store for you. 🙂
The first (Suldrun’s Garden) is the best, and a truly magical novel. You’ll know after reading it whether you’d still enjoy the slight dip in quality in the latter two.
Elven Lords has received a bit of $1000. Anyone else?
Hmm. The trolls got much bigger by ‘two seconds later’, and those shadows are just showing off! 😉
*****
I think I vaguely understand where you were coming from with ‘divvy up the loot’, since I’ve done similar things with writing (though only at a very amateur level). I stare at a scene I’m ‘supposed’ to be writing blankly and don’t have a clue what to do; so I go off and write something trying to get inside what some of the characters involved are thinking, or a piece of other background material.
*****
I found it nice to discover another blog post had been made here; the prolonged absence of updates was something I was wondering about.
Writing a secondary piece to develop one’s thinking about the primary project…. I think there’s a long and treasured history of doing such things! Certainly I know I’ve done similar things in my own writing. Interesting that you make the parallel about the artwork … and yes, I agree they have a similar raison d’etre.
I do feel badly I haven’t been writing updates. I’ve never been extremely consistent about it (despite all my best intentions) but I trust you can understand why, given the pressure I feel to work on T&T without interruption. 🙂
Things I like about the cover concept (and I’m looking at both the image above and the one from the Free RPG day):
There’s a very elegant S-curve that flows throughout the composition from (starting in the lower rh corner) the dwarf’s hammer handle up through the archer’s pose to the wizard’s gestures, then to the ??? flowing up into the scene.
There’s just a hint of a troll in the background–I read this as if the adventuring party is reacting to the ???, while a bigger, badder threat looms in the background that none of them is reacting to (yet.) Which is quite clever (hope it’s enough “Troll” for the product, cuz I likes it.)
The characters are very well thought-out suggesting backstory thru visuals.
The ??? rising up out of the floor of the cavern is way-cool, and she oozes menace.
What I wish was stronger:
A more urgent and forceful sense of action and tension throughout the scene as conveyed by the characters and their poses.
For example, the caster’s clothes are billowing, denoting action, but his hands could be posed in a more forceful gesture than the one in the sketch. Also, it would help if he was leaning *into* the action rather than away from it.
The archer is probably the most dynamic of the three–but even there it would be cool to see her right arm up, elbow in the air, caught in the midst of drawing an arrow from her quiver. (That gesture would play perfectly into the aforementioned s-curve.)
The dwarf…he has a lot of character, and while I’m glad that he doesn’t have the stereotypical mega-blade axe…it’s just not shouting “ACTION!” to me. More of a forward crouch/half turning posture as reacts to what’s going on? And, for the most prominent face on the cover, the expression is very, very neutral. Maybe something more expressive (a scowl, a war-cry, a “what the hell is it now, firk-ding-blast it?!!)
Thank you for the thoughtful response to the sketch, Steve. I must clarify/disagree on some points, but I hope not in an argumentative aspect.
I prefer to paint that moment of anticipation before action really explodes, even in an action picture. Consider the difference between the all-out action of the 7e cover of T&T and the “it’s started but about to get much, much worse” of 5e. It’s one of the things about the 7e cover I don’t really care for … in media res is great for writing, but visually, I prefer the dynamic tension of unrealized action fraught with anticipation.
That S-curve you refer to is interesting to me… I see your point, but my eye makes a Q-shape (my fall-back from years of looking at Art Nouveau compositions). There is also a hard-edged left-facing carat (think CAP-comma on your keyboard) built entirely of light flow, which I intend to augment. Those are the elements of action as much as whether the characters are jumping up and down like monkeys!
The caster is leaning away because he’d probably like to be RUNNING away! At the very least, he is rocked back on his heels. His spell is not a TTYF (which would be too repetitive to previous covers) but presumably some kind of protective shield or warding. (I haven’t decided exactly how to handle it yet.) He’s the only one who has gotten a good look at things. And that’s why the dwarf’s face is so bland… he knows something is up, but has absolutely no idea what, yet. If you look closely at the sketch (what you can see of it) his lip is curled and he’s got a ferocious scowl starting up, but his “action” is at least a full second into the future. More to the point — while being full-face-on, he is probably going to be the LEAST eye-catching face in the painting, something you can tell by the extent to which he falls in darkness.
As for the archer, I refer you to http://www.lizdanforth.com/2013/01/the-archer-deluxe-tt/ She is the anchor of this painting, the main character facing the threat. Both dwarf and mage will fall back with atmospheric perspective.
And the “bigger badder threat” overshadowing the ??? … tsk tsk. No comment there, except to say “don’t make more assumptions than the data can justify.” LOL
Liz, thank you very much for your reply. As a fellow artist I love to get a glimpse into the process and the thoughts behind the art we see.
Oh Liz, trying to class up the joint and taking the high road with your art?
It’ll all end in tears, tears I say…
😉
Neither more nor less than in years gone by! The difference is that now I have the context to try and explain what I’m doing!
As for tears… my brushes are cleaned with tears and blood. Trust me on that! (You can decide if they are mine or that of others LOL).
I’m glad you enjoyed that, David. I have definite ideas of how the cover will look, in the end. The dT&T project is crowdsourced, fan-driven, and collaborative in execution, but this painting is not. (On matters like this, I barely cooperate with my titular art director, Steve Crompton!).
I truly have no objection to a critique of the work and “It doesn’t have enough action” is a complaint I’ve heard out before now. I have enough years and experience to say “No, sorry, too bad; this is the way it’s going to be.” I’d also suggest, in that respect, people should go look at book covers of action adventure and sf/f books presently on the market. Even the decades-old Conan covers by Frazetta often have a dynamic stillness (Deathdealer, anyone??) more often than the red cloak ape. There are good artistic reasons for that.
Showing “work in progress” is not something I do readily. It’s much easier to have this kind of discussion after the fact, when everyone can see the end result.
I’m happy to hear about the successful conclusion of your auction. Well done.
Congrats to the winners. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to participate in this one.
Yay feeding the pets!
You have been a generous supporter at other times, Ellon, and I understand very well how fortunes ebb and flow in one’s life. I hope you see brighter days soon!
Liz,
Having recently purchased two pieces of art from you (for a well-regarded, but defunct CCG), I can comment on the buyer’s end, albeit for pieces other than what was auctioned here. For me, the art helps establish a deeper connection with the game or setting. One featured an iconic character central to the narrative arc. It shows him just at the cusp of manhood – still innocent, but knowing dark times are ahead. I also appreciated the authenticity of the southwestern landscape that Liz clearly knows and loves. The other piece was for a spell card that had the game effect of removing a deed or property from the game. Liz’s art really brought the theme and effect to life. Looking at the art reminds me of those times where I used the card to swing/change the game. Whether RPG, CCGs, tabletops, miniatures, the best gaming moments are about creating and sharing memories. Good art helps set the stage for those special game moments. Thanks Liz, for helping create those special memories 😀
Are any of your old pen drawings for sale?In particular the old middle-earth ones
Lots and lots of them, yes! I should put up an auction of those. I’ve sold quite a few recently, but there are many more. Subscribe to the blog and I’ll let everyone know as soon as I have a reasonable way to present a good selection!
Y’know, once DT&T hits the streets, it might be a good time to hit some cons (Archon in St. Louis has an “artist’s alley” for selling autographed reprints, posters and such.) Your work seems like it would lend itself to selling hand-colored copies.
I used to do a lot of cons, and many have artist shows and art alleys alike. I hope I can do some cons after dT&T is off my plate!
You are the best.
🙂
There’s some half-levity-ish, half-serious-ish talk of a T&T COLORING BOOK on the Inner Sanctum. If I can figure out a way to fund it, there’d be a need for lots of simple B&W line art of adventurers and monsters.
Haa!! I’d love to participate but ALL my available attention is on getting the darn rules out, Stefan. Already-existing work — maybe!? Nothing new until this monster is vanquished.
Oh, gosh . . . the coloring book idea is somewhere between a whim and idle speculation. It will be many months before it gels. If ever!
Looking at this I wondered for a moment how artists in previous ages could have survived; but of course they had uber-wealthy patrons. Michelangelo and Leonardo had the Medicis; or in a later era, on the musical front, Tchaikovsky had a wealthy widow. In the old days, politicians and the wealthy sponsored living artists; now they fight over the works of dead ones…
Fascinating blog post Liz! I really had no idea how many cards you had painted for various cards games nor was I aware of the variety of techniques for you used to create backgrounds and textures. I find out something new about you every time I get in touch with you.
One never knows what piece of art you do that gets the most notice. And its often not related to how much time or effort was put into said piece. R.Crumb did a quick drawing of Mr’ Natural that made him over half a million dollars and he’d drawn highly detailed portraits of Jazz musicians from the 1920’s that he loved, but few people were even interested in. Most times an artist has no idea that a piece of art will become iconic – that often happens years later.
Liz has created an iconic Magic card and that’s an achievement not to be overlooked. Few artists ever get that strike of lightening that combines great art, notoriety and iconic status. Good luck with the auction – I’m sure many of us will be looking forward to seeing the eBay listing for it!
Just for the record, I happen to *love* your most ghastly images. 🙂
I like them, but for some odd reason, they don’t seem to be quite as “popular” as some! But I am grateful for the ghastly image that led us to find ourselves introduced to one another so many years ago… 🙂
Said ghastly image has occupied a place of honor on my office wall since I received it. 🙂
I just want to say that Scott has brokered original CCG artwork sales between myself and another well-known CCG artist. I have found Scott to be completely professional and ‘artist first’ – Scott ONLY takes reimbursement for postage, fees (e.g. eBay listing/selling fees). All other non-fee monies go directly to the artist.
I am DELIGHTED that Scott is brokering the sale of this iconic piece on Liz’s behalf. Likewise, I encourage Liz’s fans (and fans of original M:TG art) to bid with full confidence.
DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with either Scott Mosser or Liz Danforth, other than being a satisfied buyer.
We will be watching for it Liz and would live to give it a good home to go with our others!
I would be delighted to know it went to someone who appreciates my work so much!
nice post Liz.
I’m always fascinated by your posts sharing how a piece of art came into being. The whole process is just as much aa mystery to me as how people are able to draw ANYTHING! At all! Ever!
A few months ago I found, during one of my early-morning dog walks, a big pile of discarded M:TG cards. They were next to what I euphamistically call a “deep discount moving sale” box . . . a pile of items left by a dumpster, by someone moving away.
I spent hours sorting out the cards into neat piles*, and admiring the art, but didn’t think to check if any of the paintings were by you!
*Gave them to a co-worker who plays the game.
S’okay, Stefan. I recognized decades ago that people who know me in one venue have no idea what I do in other venues where I am equally well-recognized (or UN-recognized) but for something else. If I had dedicated myself to Just One Thing, I might’ve had more impact. But I would also have not had nearly as much fun living my life…
Great article. I get the feeling today’s Diablo III / WoW Magic art just doesn’t have this kind of creative energy in each piece, nor the creative license to let the artist express themselves. I’d maybe argue that Merchant Scroll (while way more of a literal piece) is also one of your most recognizable works (and I’m fortunate to have a signed one!).
Less than 12 hours to go… Scott has offered to let international collectors contact him directly if they wish to bid, but it must be done promptly.
While it’s at $5200 right now, I expect there will be a flurry of activity at the last hour or even last few minutes. This should be interesting!
Your drawing ability is really amazing. Thanks for inspiring me!
One of the most comforting and scary things I’ve read. Thank you for the link to the Spoon Theory. Saved, linked, and printed Ms Miserandino’s article and shall attempt to use it if anyone in my family really wants to know how living in a shutting-down body works. (I blunked out Chines’ explanation when he decided to start using obscenities. Why add to my depression?)
Wonder how it will work with people who love to be “one up”?
Congratulations on your accomplishments! You seem to feel you’re mainly just enduring, but to me – it appears you’re succeeding. And succeeding very, very well.
Hang in there! You’re an example to me now, and I need my Alan Swanns as large as I can get. (Lousy grammar, but I’m either quoting or paraphrasing.)
*jeep! and God Bless!
—-Grandpa Tzhett
I’m glad you made it out of the caverns and have some time to breath deep and regroup!
Ah yes, that nagging feeling that maybe you ought (if you had the time) to be *writing* something (in your case a blog) for what readers/followers you have, but you never quite seems to have the resources spare which you need… 😀
Realize this: when I do write something, it means I think you are collectively worth the spoons I have put to use for you here.
Good luck Liz! Love those pieces you put int the post. I hope the Convention brings you everything you are looking for. Sounds exciting and a little bit daunting!
I’ve always wanted to go to Illuxcon. I’m slightly jealous. Have a great time!
Your art is still really beautiful, . . . .since “Monsters Monsters”, when I was 15, . . . 16, . . .?
Thanks for the update, Liz. You know, or maybe you don’t, my sister is the Elizabeth in our family and my daughter is also Elizabeth. Both are called Beth, unlike you with Liz. But son Sam is the artist. You met him one year, I think. I’ll forward him your post. Sorry to hear about your pain; our bodies do wear out. Good luck with your plan for writing! Have you ever looked at my memoir Nigeria Revisited My Life and Loves Abroad?
No, Catherine, I did not know all of this! Too many of our extended family keep to themselves, and sometimes I only hear of things long after I think I should have. Would you do me a favor and drop me a line? I would love to ask you some questions. My address is on the Contact Me page… http://www.lizdanforth.com/about/.
And I am definitely going to pick up your memoir. 🙂
Hey Liz. Glad Illuxcon was such a hit! I’d love to go someday – maybe one summer when I’m actually employed, and my family isn’t busy doing ultra-important things like increasing in number 🙂
Those AP paintings look amazing! It’s hard to believe that you crammed so much detail into such a small space.
Knick, that “increasing family size” understandably comes first! But yes… IXcon is pretty damn amazing, and my words are a vast understatement. It took me several years to get there, and I’m sure you’ll be as delighted as I was, once you put it all together. At least it’s held in your end of the country!
Glad you found renewed inspiration and sorry to hear about your pain and hope its eradication goes smoothly. FYI we bought a home 200 miles away last summer and moved from St. Louis back to our hometown, Springfield, MO. Your painting made a move from my office at the old location to a new one above the mantel of our fireplace in our living room. Now we not only see it daily, but everyone who comes here, including those attending our regular get togethers and parties, and I of course tell them all the story behind it. We joke at times that it is a family portrait, but the question is whether the furry fellow stepping out from behind the rock is my son emerging from his “man cave” (he is a bit of an artist himself, and draws in there regularly), or me stepping forth from my office. He is pointing the way to our home for our guests, and it is fitting that they are in a forest, as we are very near a lake and woods, and often see families of deer and raccoons in neighboring yards. Thank you again for this!
Bill, I cannot tell you how happy I was to read this. The Elven Lords painting hung for many years, where it was front and center for me to see. It’s honestly pretty damn cool to hear that it is still providing that kind of pleasure in a new home. As for a family portrait? Hm, I am not sure I’d want to know who the cloaked guy is. He always seemed to vibrate between being a bodyguard and a danger to the main figure. Even I was never quite sure about that (and the ambiguity was deliberate but unsettling in its own right.)
Hi Liz,
Thanks for the post – I found it an inspiring and entirely sympathetic read. Glad to hear Illuxcon was a success, and sorry to hear about your pain – I hope you get it under control with all speed (I’m a fellow Fighter With Food, BTW 🙂 ).
I was excited to hear about your fiction writing and especially about your plan to paint “The Summoner”. Your art has been very dear to me ever since my first foray into RPGs, and I love the Summoner, and also the “Summoner Sorceress on the Sand” (I don’t know what it’s actually called) and the front cover of the orange-cover T&T 5th edition – beautifully evocative pieces. Your inks have a magical quality, almost to the extent that I sometimes think having them in colour would be distracting! Very much looking forward to seeing your future work (and Darksmoke is also intriguing me!).
Love and chaos,
Sarah
Thank you, Sarah — you’re a wonder in your own right! I appreciate your comment here.
“Planning” to paint The Summoner may be an overstatement at this stage: more like an intense desire to figure out how to make time to do it, and to make the changes necessary to be able to.
If the “Sorceress on the Sand” is p146 in dT&T, that isn’t mine to abduct into paint. 🙂 That is one of Rob Carver’s wonderful and weird pieces. And yes, it’s always been a cool pic to me too.
The thing about putting my linework into color is that I’ve already worked out so many of the issues with the piece, that making it a painting is starting halfway up the mountain, as it were. There is always far more to be worked out than “just” color — I have a certain minimalism of backgrounds, among other things — so it is both helpful and inspiring to start with something I enjoyed the first time, and get to revisit.
On the other hand, I have one old ink that I started painting (years ago) into oils. That is a medium I rarely use. But I quit partway through simply because I had a failure of courage: it was turning out so well, I was afraid I might ruin it trying too hard — I wouldn’t be able to finish it satisfactorily. I might blog about that piece someday… I might even revisit it and see if I could finish it now, with a few more years and a revivified confidence under my belt.
Hi Liz, I wish you a happy new year! I would like to hear more from you about Star Wars 😉 I have a complicated history with it myself, and right now I’m delving into it again, reading old comics and discovering other aspects of it. I like the Al Williamson art and feel of the old comics and his pulpy fungus-worlds. And the new movie really appreciates the many layers of the phenomenon Star Wars for the first time. It could be more daring aesthetically, slower sometimes. But it is in the spirit – really and in a good way – of Star Wars, and here mostly of Episode 4. That are my (yet) untested first thoughts about it 😉 Have a nice day.
The thing about me and Star Wars is that it is not really about Star Wars. Star Wars is the substitute icon for a whole crapload of shit that stopped my life cold for most of a decade. That I *LET* stop me cold; I resent that most of all (although not all of it was within my control or even my ability to influence.) So trying to discuss Star Wars meaningfully and with context would require that I write an entire life memoir. Despite my cousin’s excellent example, I am not planning to do that any time soon.
Well, I found your link with Carrie’s Interview very good, your other links are still open in Tabs 😉 Overall it was a great post, your Middle Earth Nazgul image alone is fantastic again (I didn’t knew it) and it’s great to see your art coming up and surprising me. And Neil Gaiman’s quote found its way to a private sharing on facebook. It’s true for me for most parts of 2015 or at least thats my take right now. 2015 was a very strange year, especially for us germans. You see many refugees on the streets here in germany, they are celebrating with the new year with us, there are many dark sides we germans must face right now and some of us did surprisingly well. I am hopeful.
The fellow who bought the Nazgul paintings is one of your countrymen, in fact. We have had some of those wonderful conversations, and he also expressed some of your concerns about how the country is coping. From across the pond, I’d say I am encouraged overall.
2015 was an amazing year. 2014 was pretty cool, in the end – if I were going to measure happiness, I’d say that 2014 was the year that had the greatest delta between the beginning and the end – but 2015 saw the fruition of the dream barely begun in 2014. We definitely ticked all of Gaiman’s boxen in 2015. Hopefully in 2016 I’ll be able to figure out how it all works as we start the next big adventure!
I love that Devouring Deep, and fully painted backs should be in the three-digit range. I did some chicken farming a couple years back, and the farmer who ran the impromptu instruction sessions reminded us “If you’re going to sell eggs, don’t do it for less than $4 a dozen. You’re not doing anybody any favors by asking less.” The local economy is a real thing that we don’t completely understand, and it applies as much to art as it does to chickens.
I’m glad to get this new info about you. I find it fascinating how our lives go in directions we never imagined. I can’t even remembered what I imagined, but here I am!
I agree that we often cannot imagine, much less predict, where our lives will take us. The future has such wonders and challenges (both!), that I believe one must be ready to reinvent oneself, or adjust the sails, when dealing with the new world that is every dawn. I also think if one takes the time to know your own core, and then be true to oneself — this is what saves you from being blown about willynilly. I’ve been blown off course more than once, but have generally managed to return to my purpose and delight — sometimes from a whole new direction.
Love this! I recall, all too well, the first time I used the term , “mid-career”. It freaked me out.
As artists, we are all on the Journey!
Excellent, Liz. Your story certainly should be better known. IMHO, you have added class and beauty to every project you ever worked on.
I’d forgotten the MELEE cover! I have most of my old Metagaming material, but I’d lost that first edition of MELEE.
I recall a few pieces you did for FGU’s Space Opera books.
* * *
Funny: I “got into” computers to get into computer game design, but never, ever managed to make a contribution to that industry. (Other than editing a manual?)
Looking forward to more of this!
Ghawds yes! I’d forgotten those books (and some fantasy ones too). I honestly liked working for FGU because Scotty was usually were VERY open to letting me chose what to draw, what sizes, and so on. Lots of creative freedom. Not all companies worked (or work) that way.
I keep thinking of other companies I did work for too, that didn’t get mentioned. Hero Games and Justice Inc, for example. How could I forget those!?
Wow. I recall being captivated by your artwork in T&T. In an era when packaging was done by ziplock and artwork was… let’s say, eclectic, the beautiful Liz Danforth work really stood out as dynamic, expressive and exciting. Thanks for the retrospective!
More than recall, I am presently looking at T&T’s “Buffalo Castle” and marveling at the exquisite “danforth79” artwork that enlivens and adorns nearly every page (including the cover). Such a legacy! I still marvel at how I continue to be the proud owner of thoughtfully whimsical pieces by such a thunderous talent.
What a treat to see some of the work you’ve done outside of T&T and other stuff I’m familiar with. Mosaics, ceramics, that gorgeous T-Shirt design–and all the writing and editing! Truly impressive, Ms. Danforth.
I have two excellent pieces of your artwork hanging over my desk here at home. One shows an elven woman healing another woman while two male figures watch, and the other is obviously from Traveler showing how a ship crew passes the time during long flights by playing games. (IF you look closely, the game map shows they are playing Traveler.)
Having been peripherally aware of the breadth, I’m still surprised by a good bit of this. Then again, being an avid Traveller fan, I’ve often noted that no list of Traveller illustrators is complete without Liz Danforth.
Also being a T&T fan, it’s clear that the successes of T&T 5 and Deluxe are, in no small part, due to Liz Danforth, Editor. Liz, who translates Ken-speak into English. Liz, who reorders Ken-ramble into coherent chunks. (Ken’s great – but – he’s greater still when supported by Liz’s editing.)
I was aware of work on Crusaders, but not what other games.
I knew of art in TSR and Shadowrun. And in MTG.
Liz, there’s a word just for people like you: Polymath.
I admit that I like that word, but I also suspect there are more multi-talented people out there than are recognized as such. My purpose in doing so many things was to keep challenging and entertaining myself, and to keep a roof over my head (pretty much in that order… the roof part is occasionally iffy, as a result!)
Very much enjoyed your artwork in the “City of Terrors” T&T module and enjoyed actually meeting you once at Westercon (I think it was ’91 or ’92). I don’t recall too much of the conversation, except for your use of the term “umpty-squillion”, which I’d never heard before (and haven’t heard in conversation since), and that you were pretty gracious to a gamer/semi-artistic wannabe. All the best — Richard
Thank you so much for the memory of Westercon and umpty-squillion! I think I have to get that back into my vocabularial rotation. >.< I'm glad I wasn't a jerk and that the meeting was a good one.
I think this is great, great news and I wish you all the best success and happiness! Go (Dan)forth and CREATE!
I’ll tweet and post about this news in the usual suspect places!
I really need to think hard about what paying creative work I can/should do in my (still a year or two off) soft retirement. Writing? Game stuff? The day to day grind of office work makes even thinking about that difficult.
I haven’t felt a compulsion to do grown-up* coloring books myself, but the phenomena is interesting, and I only-half-joked about a Tunnels & Trolls coloring book a year or two ago. One with pencil mazes that double as adventure maps . . .
* “Adult coloring books” sounds like something that would mostly call for flesh-tones.
You’re not the first to make that observation, Stefan. And there are some which are exactly that (as I understand it #notthatIwouldknow).
[Insert Octavia Butler reference]
Since the most Crompton of blogs can’t read my response, I shall post it here, by way of wishing That Danforth Lady all her well-deserved success:
Let’s go crazy and predict the Mystery Player is Steven Spielberg and that we’ll soon see the New Adventures of Old Indiana Jones on Trollworld (“TRAPPED in a world he NEVER MADE, without his guns, without Nazis, and without bacon!”) coming to a theater near us.
Or maybe not.
Um, maybe not. 🙂
… and I was sooo looking forward to your storyboards or costume designs. (sigh)
I *love* ‘stories behind the art’ and seeing preliminary concept/sketch work and following the process from idea to finished piece/artwork. MORE PLEASE!
I love telling these stories, David. When I was AGoH at NASFiC about 10 years ago, my guest of honor speech was a slideshow of paintings and the photographs and/or elements that I used in the making of the pieces. Sometimes it would be a ceramic jug from a snapshot I grabbed at a restaurant in Spain, or the seven eyes on a monstrous beast painted on the roof of a medieval chapel, or a bored bear at the zoo playing with a stick, or the casual tiredness of a Rennie and the shadows of her shawl at the end of a long day.
I felt a little like I was showing people how I was cheating, or running the risk of explaining how a magic trick was done, but it was well-received. And I’d like to talk about all of these and more.
Unlike magic or mentalism, knowing the “how” doesn’t spoil our appreciation of such visual art. If anything, it helps us appreciate it more because so much of it is learned skills, the basis is raw talent and a unique way of seeing reality.
Your talent and interests are so different from mine.but a little like our son Sam’s. I believe you and he met at a conference many years ago! Hard for me to imagine how you create such amazing pieces. I admire what you do. I had to set myself a schedule of blogging every 4 days, and I’ve managed to stick to it. Never easy, but I collect bits and pieces on the days in between so I’m partway there when the 4th day rolls around!
The consistency of your post schedules has been remarkable, Catherine, and I’ve very much taken it as an inspiration and a goad. I don’t aspire to posting that often because I have too many other things I want to create (including written things) and we will only write so many words in our lifetimes. But working alone, I also value the sense of connection and community I take from being able to share part of my life here. We’ll see if I can maintain twice a month; that would be “often” in my book.
I wish I could say I remember meeting Sam, although I suspect I know when it might have been: Origins convention, many years ago, when a number of cousins I remember as “some of the Zastrows” came to the show to meet up. I felt shy and a bit overwhelmed because I didn’t know what all the connections were. One of the things I admired most from reading your autobiography (and powerfully felt the lack of in my own life) was the sense of connection to one’s kin of blood and bond. I’d love to connect up again with him and with you sometime, and for now I’m grateful we can keep in touch via our respective blogs!
So where’s the “like” button. Or better yet, the “like a lot” button! 😉
Taking time to say these few words, Rick, is the best “like a lot” button you could have tapped! Thanks! 🙂
Change is scary, especially when it has the potential for impacting the financial bottom line. But it’s also good, as I guess you’re discovering. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what develops, and wish you all the luck in the world. (BTW, I love the idea of behind-the-scenes posts, process posts, etc. Those are always interesting!)
I want it I want it Wannit Wannit wannit!!!
What a great coup!
I was preparing to self-publish two solitaire adventures. I still may produce printable versions, but now I’ll have a way to electronically publish.
Watch the skies.
Excellent news!
You are going to be so amazed… and I hope, pleased.
Great blog post Liz and YES these are truly exciting times. Stay tuned…
Hi Liz! Quoting the post is fine with me, I don’t make my posts public cause I’m shy.
I did learn eventually that the Eldritch Wizardry artist was a woman, so it’s not a perfect comparison. Maybe “art-directed by a woman” would be more technically correct. But the comparison is striking nonetheless.
It sounds wonderful, Liz. So far beyond anything I know or could understand. But I’m glad you do! Yes, you have to plan for getting around. Tough. I’ve had both knees replaced and recovered well, but not everyone does. Now I can walk easily.
The doc wants to replace the knee and the insurance company thinks otherwise. I’m not pushing it because (a) I have no one to help at home while recovering; and (b) my ankle is not going to “fix” as easily as a knee, so I’m still going to be half-lame. I’ve been told by folks in the medical field that ankle replacement technology isn’t up to snuff yet.
But really, (a) above is the real showstopper. I’m just forging on as well as I can for as long as I can, and hoping for the best.
Deep and thoughtful words Liz. I hope that 2017 will be a better one for you than 2016. I know that I may lose a number of things next year and I dread that happening. All we can do is try to trudge forward and make the most of it. Thank you for all you have done and all that you have yet to do. You are a great artist and as you hinted at above, art can often come with a price that many don’t see or aren’t aware of.
Be well and know that many of us send good thoughts your way!
Well-considered and well-written, my friend. May 2017 bring us all what we need, in spite of those who will oppose us.
I am so pleased that you have a Patreon page.
Still laughing (ruefully) over, “necessity, you mother.”
Thanks for asking, Liz, or — better said — for giving us this opportunity.
❤️
Good news! Will get word out.
I am waiting on my first paycheck of 2017 to see what my discretionary budget is like. I actually have a budget line for “Patreon!” and you’re first in if I can bump it up.
(Or I might drop a podcast creator who produced one episode last year . . .)
I consider myself both luv’d and test’d then! Huzzah!
I am tickled pink you are involved in this project, Liz. I must admit I wasn’t interested in this project until I heard that. Have a safe trip and a great time at GenCon.
Been involved from the get-go, Cameron! And happily … doing new art hand over fist, watching the project develop and weighing in where I’ve had anything useful to add to the conversation. The MetaArcade crew are led by a serious fan of T&T (David Reid) who simultaneously wields considerable experience, credentials, and know-how from the big time AAA games he’s worked on in the past. I think everyone involved feels lucky to have been able to work with the other members of the partnership, and it’s pretty awesome. 🙂
Great update! I hope you document & photograph the MetaArcade rollout.
Charging for signatures seems totally fair given the collectible nature of cards.
I hope procedures & rehab go well & swiftly. I got whacked by a bulging disk/sciatica thing ten years back; a first nasty “falling apart” shock, fortunately addressable by ongoing therapy but YOW, are airplane flights unpleasant.
I’m betting I will be Ms Redundant of Camp Redundancy were I to try to document the MetaArcade rollout! Moreover, they’re coming into the show a day before I am (I’m arriving very last-minute) so I’d say watch their social media for the latest and greatest.
I resisted charging to sign cards until I saw how pretty much every artist on the circuit had moved to that model. I would be leaving money on the table and cutting my own throat, when fans and players have come to expect it as the new normal, for better or worse.
I broke my left ankle in my twenties while fencing (saber) and spent the next 30 years as a runner pounding the scar tissue into an arthritic mass. A handful of years ago, I tore the meniscus on my right knee, and that exacerbated my already-wonky gait until now, running is out of the question and even walking has grown difficult over the last few years. Aggressive exercise is the only thing that ever kept my weight within normal bounds, and the fact I can’t exercise it off is contributing to the laundry list of problems. Gettin’ old is a *** except for the alternative.
All the best, Liz. Have fun at Gen Con. I wish I could come and have a chat with you. Maybe one day. 🙂
I hope so too! With luck, I might find myself on that side of the ocean one of these days, so perhaps it wouldn’t be such a long trek for you too.
Thanks, Liz! I love the “frangled” design, but I couldn’t see an implied narrative. Can you enlighten me?
It certainly IS rather abstracted, but the presence of an actual figurative element (the skeleton in this case) is unusual in my frangles — and it is the primary clue that this one is a little different.
My intent/read of the piece begins with the orange circle as a sun with white corona, the leaf-like designs suggest fecund earth, the dark-on-dark design as the reaches of distant space. The relatively harsh square of black and red on grey can be read as a human-made construct like a building, or as a Two Grey Hills blanket covering the grave where the skeleton lies under the earth, which is layered with the pebble-designs and the yellow loess. The hearts are for the beloved dead.
As I said on my Patreon (where there is more discussion of this piece), this one came about organically and unintentionally. I am NOT, by habit or nature, this pretentious or precious or “Ahhrtsy”! But once I saw the image taking shape, I ran with it. And without trying to be pretentious about it having “great deeper meaning”, I think it worked out quite well and rather accidentally took on a somewhat deeper meaning than I expected.
I have the colored pencil versions of Merien and Lierra. In fact, I have an entire wall of your pen and ink pieces. You are still the best in that form.
Thank you for such kind words!! I haven’t done the colored pencil pieces in quite a few years, or at least not many. (A few, recently, in their postcard format.) I’m glad my artwork has made you happy. Thank you!
Fascinating stuff, Liz. A life of art, achievement, and adventure then? More so than most of us manage in our lifetimes, at least, and much more to come I hope! Best wishes for a happy and successful 2019 🙂
Hi, I was wondering if you have any copies of Soldevi Excavations artist prints available? I have some friends going to the scg dallas to get my reg copy signed, but I’d love an artist proof if available. I’d be there myself but going thru some major health issues so can’t make it
Hi Carlos — Yes, I still have quite a few artist proofs available at this time, Soldevi Excavations among them. I plan to bring an assortment of APs with me, and can put one aside in your name. Just have your friends talk to me there. I’m sorry your health keeps you from attending.
I really loved Imp Possible Situations when I first read it in Mages Blood etc, and always enjoyed your art, especially in the various editions of T&T. Glad you are still around and staying busy!
Thank you so much! I am definitely still around, still staying VERY busy. The website here is a bit out of date [massive understatement] but I am hoping to get it much revised later this year. Appreciate your kind words very much.
If the Johnstown NY Danforths go back to one of the early Danforths in the US — Rev. Samuel Danforth (M. A., of Roxbury, second son of Nicholas Danforth, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was born in Framlingham, in the County of Suffolk, in England, in September, 1626), then yes. 🙂 My dad and another person of my close acquaintanceship have been ardent genealogists. There are a lot of us here.
I completelyl agree with you, Liz, and this point of view. Offer what you have, and let those who browse the tweeting get what they can out of it. That said, I wish less people felt the need to tell me they’re having coffee or eating supper. Twitpics are especially good for insight into character–worth more than 1000 words, imho.
Your update was very interesting, Liz, and insightful! I, too, am working on a story that has considerably more written in my head than “on paper” (or in bytes, I guess). However, once I am home from Hawai’i, I intend to get considerably more serious about the avocations I’ve been dabbling in for the past year.
If you ever find yourself with a few spare moments and feel like chatting, a few of us hang out regularly in the “saucywenches” chatroom at conference.jabber.org.
Happy New Year!
Sounds like you are inspired to write, which is definitely worth a lot, IMHO. I tend to stray from “this is the one way to be a writer” sort of advice, if only because every professional and amateur I’ve ever met tend to develop their own habits. 🙂
@Steve, I’ll see what I can do about the chat!
@Monica, the inspiration was exactly what I needed — a focus. Thank you for that. Writerly advice is GREAT when it is “you might consider trying this out because it worked for me.” It sucks loud and long when it’s “My way or the highway.”
Lol, I played T&T in the early 80s and fell in love with your artwork. I now look at your website and see you play WoW, my second passion in life. Thank you for brightening my life and inspiring my imagination for the last ..’cough’.. 30 years. Keep playing WoW and remember you are very appreciated by your fans. Mat x (London, UK)
Hullo, glad to see you’re rebooting. I’ve been a fan of your work since I first got my hands on T&T back in 1980. I hope things go well and look forward to more posts.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! This is kinda like soliciting friends to help with an exercise or stop-smoking program, and it’s nice to know I’m not talking to a empty venue. Hope I’ll keep you coming back… that’s the plan, after all.
Where did your receive the information that Esperanto is an “oddity” ?
Can I add that Esperanto is not only a great idea, but is now a living language.
The study course http://www.lernu.net is now receiving 120,000 hits per month.
That can’t be bad 🙂
I used the term “an oddity” not in “receiving the information” but in simple observation over the last multiple decades. An artifically constructed language is odd in and of itself, and Esperanto (and its competitors for being an artificial “universal” language) seems to have gone completely off many people’s radar compared to the years when I was trying to learn it — witness your need to have and promote “a lobby” for it.
I love the idea, believe me, although I no longer believe a universal language is even possible. Looking around at usage-numbers on the Net, I see that it’s getting used and even used natively, and I’m overjoyed that it has thrived. Nevertheless, it simply doesn’t garner attention the way it did when it was so greatly ballyhoo’d in the middle of the last century. At least it has more speakers than Klingon or Quenya or other artifically constructed languages! And no, that’s not bad. 🙂
Yay for Sekrit Projects! Nice face in the sketch, up above there.
I find that folks who tell me illustration can’t be considered art(e) generally don’t do much art. Most of the artists I know just say “Hand me that sharpener, woodja?”
Not talking to an empty venue. 🙂 Best of luck!
Hey Liz, I’m finding your perspective on creativity (and so much more) very helpful — the link to the video of Simon Sinek in particular. Thanks!
Sheesh… had a bad link for Ragnar, now corrected. This guy is the soul of patience with my stumbles!
Never a problem Liz. Since we don’t have a company to rely on for support, freelancers rely on each other. Share knowledge and all that. I don’t do everything by myself, I have help (Matt and Monica, Yourself, many others).
The current high bid is $120 (from TL). Thank you to those of you who have bid thus far!
Current bid is now $200 (and my thanks to KB!).
Thank you for the story, and I hope you do this again.
I’ve been wrestling with this very thing lately myself.
I like MacLeod’s chapter “Embrace Crofting” in Evil Plans. It’s not exactly what he meant, but it reminded me that all the self-promo, social media stuff is just another one of the jobs I have to divide my time among. Not Sexy, but necessary.
This wonderful treasure will adorn our cave and be a talisman to keep us safe. Thank You.
Your Friends from the Southern Most Realm.
The winner of Liz’s painting just happens to be one of the original members of Trollhalla. He has always been a true champion of the the Trollish realm.
Indeed, Ken! And I’ve had considerable pleasure conversing with him because of this. The events in his home country have also extended the “story”, and I plan to write a little on that here when next I get to these pages.
Thanks for sharing that bit of history of the cover art, a very interesting and enjoyable read.
Well from one City to another thank you Ms. Danforth for a facinating insight into the creation of what is probably the bext of all the solitaire books published by any company.
Amber is a great series – I could see why you where all so caught up in it.
it’s a great cover piece – i hope it does find a good home!
It is a fantastic piece – had I the $, I’d give it as good a home as I could…
Hi Liz,
Thank you for sharing these memories. I still have my original copy of City of Terrors. I have fond memories of playing the solo.
Thanks for sharing the memories on this piece of art. A nice trip down someone else’s memory lane. Love the feeling of nostalgia this gave me!
Oh if only I had the money.
I too hope that it goes to a great loving home.
Thank you for the story. It was a great ‘trip’. 🙂
Wish you the best in this.
Thanks for the nice comments, everyone.
The piece was purchased by a private collector on eBay for $800. My pretty lengthy correspondence with this individual assures me that it is, in fact, going to a very good home — and I’m happy.
I read the whole thing! I’ve yet to fire up the DA2 demo, and haven’t finished DA:O. I love the stories BioWare weaves, and the worlds they craft. I am haunted by the upcoming release of Mass Effect 3 and finishing the saga of Commander Shepard.
Hmm. Interesting. I’ve not played either Dragon Age game, but there did seem to be a lot of “I love one but not the other” reviews.
It seems to be a case of wanting to enjoy a story vs. wanting to explore a story. I think the “on rails” and “stuck in one city” complaints come from people who want to explore more than kick back and enjoy a set story.
I also, personally, don’t consider a part of the game where you have some input to be a “cut scene”. If you’re still contributing to the game through selections and dialogs, then it’s not really a cutscene. A cutscene is when all control is taken away. And, yeah, that’s just annoying when you lose control.
Hi Liz. Glad you found me! I’ll keep an eye out for your pledge ~ The Hours For Art telethon is all about giving writers and artists like you support in making the time for what they really want to do. Being really itchy to write is the best motivation 🙂
Apropos of nothing at all, I just wanted to mention that I’m glad you’re blogging more! (And if you aren’t blogging more, my apologies for only just finding your articles!)
Part of my plan last fall, upon “rebooting the freelancer,” was to write a post at least once a week. I don’t always succeed but I’m definitely writing more than I was last year. I’m glad you found the posts here!
So yeah… some of the card signings DID take quite a while. But they got done eventually! http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20679-The-Portents-a-funny-story
Reading this with a big grin on my face, Liz! So glad to hear that you’re scratching that itch. And your description of your wake-up writing sessions is nearly identical to my experience. There’s something magical about that early morning state of mind. I wish you continued happiness in the next ten weeks.
Thank you for supplying the impetus for me to take this project on, Alison!
I really love the almost boar, boar-cow, whatever it is. I can totally see adventurers running away like mad.
Liz, have you ever given Blackmore’s Night a listen? Richie Blackmore, formerly the lead for the heavy metal group Deep Purple, and his wife have created a sound that I find perfect for playing WoW or writing fantasy.
Some of their songs have metal elements, but in a renaissance or almost baroque manner (if that makes sense). There are also Celtic and Nordic elements. And the lyrics are also capable of stirring one’s imagination in the direction it seems you want to go.
Pandora.com introduced me to Blackmore’s Night and yes, it’s in my Celtica/Nordica mix with McKennitt and Gjallarhorn! You’re absolutely right.
Thanks for directing me to music I’d never heard before. Funny, creepy, beautiful, moving.
Glad you found some new music from this post, Frankie. I could have linked more of it, but I mainly did so for the more unusual ones. For other performers, Google or Pandora or the library can certainly help.
Liz – Thanks for this post – I really like the concept art works – thanks for sharing them. I will be very interested to see what develops with Namaste
Thank you, Ellen! Believe me, I am not blind to the potential application of this for schools and libraries teaching game design…
This is awesome news, Liz, and it’s great to see you there in the thick of it. They couldn’t have picked a better artist than you for concept art, so save a couple of those prints for me. You think the Namaste people would let me hang out behind inside the booth with them for part of the show?
For those interested in another blogger with a first-hand look at how the Storybricks are working, check this out: http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2011/08/storybricks.html
OMG Ken St. Andre!!!!! Now I am really bummed that I am not coming to GenCon T_T. You are most welcome anytime to our booth 😀
There’s your answer, Ken, straight from The Big Man himself! See you there. 🙂
Some suggestions for the Middle-Earth cards you say you’re not sure on the names of:
Saruman = Saruman the Wise (Against the Shadow expansion)
Alone & Afraid = Alone and Unadvised (Against the Shadow expansion)
Ent at Isenguard = Liquid Fire (The White Hand expansion)
Balrog and Gandalf = Darkness Wielded (The Balrog expansion, the shadow-deeps box)
I’m a bit unclear if the last one is the one you’re looking for or not. It has the Balrog on the bridge, but Gandalf isn’t very much in evidence.
I also found, whilst I was going through the Shadow deeps box, your name on the ‘Remains of Thangorodrim’ site card…
Sorry, but I don’t have the ‘host’ box from the Balrog expansion, so can’t check those.
Thank you, Charles! I forgot about “Remains of Thangorodrim” but I do remember it. I think you ALSO spotted another I’d forgotten about — “Darkness Wielded” has the Balrog on an arch of the bridge as I recall and, as you say, Gandalf nowhere to be seen. However, there is another card that does have the two of them, although Gandalf is hardly in iconic guise. You’re seeing him from behind, his robes in tatters, in battle with the Balrog — that is the one I remember (having the original art still at home).
The mention of ‘stormy looking’ on the updated blog entry rang a bell. I think you did the art for a card in the other [‘Balrog’s Host’] box in the Balrog expansion called ‘Crowned with Storm’.
Further to my previous research, I’ve traced some more with your name on as the artist:
By the Ringwraith’s Word, (collaboration with B. Churashev), from The Lidless Eye expansion
Treason the Greatest Foe, from the Against the Shadow Expansion
Powers too Dark and Terrible, from the Against the Shadow expansion
Our Own Wolves, from the Against the Shadow expansion
Tower Raided, from the Against the Shadow expansion
The Pûkel-Deeps, from the Against the Shadow expansion
Chambers in the Royal Court, from the White Hand expansion
Prophet of Doom, from the White Hand Expansion
I’m a little confused by a mention I came across on one online site attributing the ‘Shelob’ artwork to you, even though the actual name on the card is Randy Gallegos…
Now that I find particularly interesting, Charles: I never did a collaboration with B. Churashev, nor had any card named By the Ringwraith’s Word. Looking it up online, that image is not mine. I wonder where the mixup comes from.
As for Shelob, the sites that reference my name with that card do not have images, which makes me suspect they’re cribbing each other’s lists and someone got it wrong originally. Without the image to compare, the inaccuracy is being continued. And no, I didn’t do a Shelob.
Hi Liz, Thanks for sharing your impressions with those us who missed this year’s show. I hope to return next year and hope to see you there. Good luck with the ebay endavors… the boxes and boxes of product in the basement should probably follow a similar path. I know my wife would be delighted if that was the case. Likewise I wish you well with your battle with the scale. I know it’s a tough one but you’ve always seemed a strong and couragous woman and I know you can do whatever you set your mind to. So dig in, take a walk and be happy. And while you’re at it, move some ink too. I’d love to see new Danforth works in 2011 and hope you’ll be at it for a long long time to come. Good luck. I wish oyou all the best. ~ Jeff
Jeff, I am quite sure people would be overjoyed to see you there, and I am planning to do what I can to get there next year. 45th anniversary for the con!
You should check out the previous post here, or the “latest works” section Recently, some of the ink I’ve been moving is for Namaste Entertainment, and I’ve been really happy with it.
Hi Liz,
THe Sky Lord and Sky Noble are exquisite.
Classic linework and graceful forms… as per usual. Thanks for sharing the images Liz! ~ Jeff
I think there was a short story in Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Day it Rained Forever’ collection where television fails (due to sunspots or something) and after several days of shock people have to go out and start doing things again. The story’s told from the point of view of someone who’s been out of town for a while (gold-prospecting???) and comes back to discover everything’s changed whilst he’s been away…
That was an optimistic story about people being able to find things to do away from the screens in their homes (even if the situation was forced on them)… 🙂
Anyway, good luck with the exercise. I personally find walking helpful to thinking about stories (either other peoples or making up my own).
thank you for this review. i think it is outstanding. just playing first act of DA2 after freezing wow after 6 years and think you hit the nail.
Re: Photos…
You’re still a good looking woman, Liz. And one of the best known and best loved RPG artists of all time. And the fans still love your editing job on T&T 5E…
Not to mention annoyingly humble.
I must not be THAT humble, Aramis. I approved your comment. (Though I admit it made me cringe to do so.) XP
Hey Liz, thanks for the props. I’m more than happy to help, and I’m sure that Charles feels the same way. It also doesn’t hurt that you’re always pleasant and friendly, so I look forward to seeing your emails in my inbox.
WoW, oh how I miss thee. I haven’t played since May and I do miss it. I had to stop while writing my novel because it was a distraction. I plan to come back this Spring after I’m published. I can’t wait!
I will have some things to say about WoW and writing myself, here and in the next part of the WoW Winsider interview. And gratz on getting your novel published!
I haven’t played either Dragon Age. You nailed the problems with WoW perfectly as far as I’m concerned. Thank you for your insights. This middle-aged straight girl might have to check out Hawke soon.
It’s nice to be asked for help by someone with regard to a shared interest.
And if the time’s available, it’s fun to help out. It’s great to have the chance to be invited to speak or write about something I know and love.
🙂
(Currently helping with proofreading Headless Hydra Games’ forthcoming ‘Mor Aldenn, City of Mages’ here. Break over now! Back to the pdf… 😉 )
Shannon, check out the DA2 trailer. That fight is playable in-game at the end of Act II — and it’s hard as hell.
You don’t need to have played DA:O to enjoy DA2 — some confirmed Bioware fans believe you’ll hate DA2 if you liked DA:O.
Me, I liked both. I’ve finished DA2 once since I wrote this post originally. My first run was with a rogue male Hawke and I am nearly finished with a female warrior Hawke being played as differently as possible from the first playthrough, so I can see what changes. I remain impressed with the game.
Great Blog! I used to ‘write up’ stories from pen and paper roleplay sessions. Somehow, letting the game handle plot and setting allowed me more time and energy to fill in the details. Part of it was also documenting the event…and part of it was the fact that it was just strangely enjoyable – even if nobody read them but me! I also saw the Time article on fanfic and realised I wasn’t the only one! And recently I bought (yes Paid for) a novel by a first time writer that was inspired by roleplay game sessions. It’s fresh, does all sorts of strange and unpredicatble stuff and frankly I never know what is going to happen next. It pleasantly avoids so many of the ‘rules’ of novel writing that we have by now all internalised anyway. Anyway- just thought I’d share – and thanks again for writing your blog.
Thanks for sharing that, Liz. I always considered you to be a writer as well as an artist, and never knew how much influence He had on you. What is “Crusaders of Khazan” if not the greatest Tunnels and Trolls story ever told? I want to read your writing. Write on!
Lovely post, Liz. Now I need to find some time to read your writing as well. 🙂
I see a crucial difference between deliberately writing for an audience and writing just for yourself. If you’re addressing others, I feel you have to stop and explain things – what the history is, what the politics are, who the important players are and why they matter? With recurring characters at the start of every story you need a way to reintroduce them, whilst keeping them fresh for those who are your frequent readers.
I write very badly, but at least when I write for myself I can indulge with reminiscinces of that clockwork orange plot the biscuits attempted that one year to take out the royal family in Gracklenoble which was thwarted due to the incidence of a ‘swordstoad between charters’ (so to speak) in the area, or the quest to find the staff made for the tip of the greatest anvil chorus ever to pass out of the forges of the Dubzenheim, or that time a few casual references to something like a nurbulating fromisandial dropwort drove a warlord’s team of mathematicians to a frenzy…
I don’t have to stop and look back over my shoulder every ten minutes, wondering if the audience will be keeping up?
Anyway, as I said, I’m a very bad writer. Or something like that…
And fan fiction perhaps blurs the boundaries between the audience and the private a little. The act of writing for yourself in a shared world means even if you don’t stop and explain what’s going on every couple of sentences, other people who know at least the general gist of what’s going on with that world may be able to read what you’ve written and halfway understand it.
This is where I’m supposed to make some sort of cute, deeply insightful remark to wrap up with, to excuse the earlier blitherings….
Ummmm……
😉
Now you’ll get people jealous of you because you can do art and write. I’ll just have to console myself that I’m probably a better programmer than you. 😉
Okay, more seriously, it’s great that you’ve discovered and accepted this part of you. I think many of us geeks had that “you’re too smart” period in our lives. Now you just need more time to do everything you enjoy properly. 😉
I guarantee you’re a better programmer than me, Brian — last time I tried to program anything, I was learning BASIC, and the demands of this website’s back end are enough to make me tear out my hair.
And yeah, I quite certain this is a common geek theme, unremarkable in that respect. The writers and editors and storymakers I know all surely have faced it, along with “You can’t read all those books; what are you trying to prove carrying them around!”
Moreover, anyone who is “jealous” is missing the entire point here. I do this stuff because it’s FUN for me. That’s it. That’s what being a geek over something is about.
Ahhh, the torments of school days. How I still completely fail to miss them. Alas, I was not picked upon for any such elevated reason as erudition but because I wore glasses… Oh well. I suppose to the minds of countless playground tormentors throughout global history it probably all comes down to the same universal reason: Look For Someone – Anyone – Who For Any Obvious Reason Does Not Fit In.
However, that’s off on a tangent. Back on the topic of saying things at length, as an artist can’t you just do a quick doodle if someone asks you to be brief? A picture being worth a thousand words and all that… 😉
Heck, I just used a ‘;)’ as a sort of minidoodle visual shorthand to attempt to convey a sense of mischief I could otherwise have taken several sentence over…
Gah! ‘sentence’ should have been ‘sentences’ and there is no edit facility on this blog.
:shakefist:
Although in this day and age of internet links, many of us do use pictures or occasional youtube links (even if they’re not ones which we ourselves are responsible for creating) to convey thoughts where mere words fail…
I have often been accused of building clocks when people ask me the time, Charles. I want them to be quite sure they’re getting the complete picture, the right answer.
Come to think of it, that’s probably some of the roots of my librarianship too.
Ah, I think I see what you mean. I sometimes put ‘AD’ in dates when signing things because I want it to be absolutely clear which system for numbering years I’m using…
Did that earlier this evening in fact.
I started a new job 18 months ago. In this job, I am now required to email my boss with updates and questions (as well as emailing the customers). He asked me to upload a script, and I requested clarification – should I use a new account, or an extant one? He replied with two words: “Extant? What?”
The word is gradually sliding out of my vocabulary, because he’s caught me using it twice since, and each time I’ve gotten smacked down for it. I guess he just doesn’t like it.
Depending on your relationship with your job and boss, consider whether you can make it a “teaching moment”: “Extant — it’s a word like ‘existing’ or ‘already made’ but implies a stronger sense of something created and polished, and ready to be used.”
Or you can go the Churchill route with your boss. “I can make a new one or use an old one.”
Either way, don’t let the word get away. You used it here, didn’t you?
I get email “inspirations” from Simon Sinek (the “Start with Why” guy) and this reminder of an old one came up next to notification of your post here: “The difference between those who change the world and those who don’t is that those who do believe they can.”
You can. Believe it. (I’ve seen it.)
Thanks for telling the stories, Liz. I hope you get a great sale out of it. I’d buy it, but I have about as much money as you do.
I have always loved the alligator in particular.
Didn’t you use the same spellcaster on the ‘Never Refuse’ art for the White Hand expansion of I.C.E.’s Middle Earth: The Wizards collectible card game?
I know when I saw ‘The Summoner’ posted on your blog in the entry several weeks ago, one of the first things I thought was to the effect of ‘hang on, I’ve seen someone like this in an action-spellcasting pose somewhere before…’
Charles, not “the same” because I don’t make a habit of revisiting old works… but the same feel, the same not-quite-nakedness, the same sense of deliberate evil: yes, “Never Refuse” has the same echo of this scene. The emotional content is intentionally there to make it clear who the bad guys in the scene are. 🙂
Liz, for another shout out to this image, check out the essay “Naked Went the Gamer” by Ron Edwards — it’s about (best I can sum it up) the “sanitizing” or “Disneyfication” process the RPG industry as a whole went through in the 1980s in an attempt to make everything harmless and squeaky clean for the mass market… and how the disappearance of actual nudity in RPG art (to be replaced by the ridiculous “fur bikinis” of Dragonlance) reflected that process.
http://adept-press.com/ideas-and-discourse/other-essays/naked-went-the-gamer/
I’d be curious what your take was on that!
Having read the post, I disagree on many counts and agree on a few. A tiny comment box isn’t the place for a full-blown discussion. However, I’m already making notes on a new blogpost because of an email I received this morning about the topic raised in this post, regarding the clothing of fantasy figures. I’d been considering talking about it after reading a blog some weeks ago anyway… perhaps now is the time.
Oh, and as the original Melee artist, I can tell you I know I did not have cock and balls hanging out from the gargoyle on the cover, no matter what he imagines.
Cool — it’ll be interesting to hear your reactions. I didn’t know you’d done a cover for Melee — it looks like there were at least three versions of the cover, and he’s not talking about the one you did (which I assume is the one on the left, in the group of three on this page):
http://apaladinincitadel.blogspot.com/2011/02/fantasy-trip-too-much-of-good-thing.html
Wow, that’s a pretty sweet drawing. I didn’t even know about that. Here’s a better image of it:
http://tomeoftreasures.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=931&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=3896b7dcc9d7d22fb49b1531301fc537
From the Paladin blogger, http://apaladinincitadel.blogspot.com/2011/03/wizard-microgame-micro-art.html and http://apaladinincitadel.blogspot.com/2011/03/melee-microgame-counters-bell-bottoms.html … which actually will factor into my reaction to Edwards’ essay.
I have such fond memories of this Piece,It sweeps me back to the City of Gull, the arena of Khazan and Mistywood. Its the type of artwork that sparks the imagination and stills holds up very well even today.
Isn’t it the philosophy of the Stargate? ‘Portal supplied; dial up the adventure required.’
😉
This was done long before Stargate but well after “City on the Edge of Forever.” I’d say that’s probably more its antecedent, aside from my love of that style of circle-behind-the-scene design element (which is very Mucha).
I think the first time I came across a picture like that with a circle in the background was a cover of Alan Garner’s ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen’, which I think was from the eighties (although could have been earlier). I searched around the web for images, but the only ones I’ve been able to find aren’t terribly clear on detail. This is the best I’ve been able to find so far, and I’m afraid I don’t know who drew this version of the cover:
http://www.plokta.com/deliciouslibrary/images/156CEC3D-7834-498E-B54C-FDF9D2FE8AE5-256.png
You should explore Mucha’s work, which was EVERYWHERE when I was younger (in the 70s), and his design style influenced many.
This is another poster that hung on my wall for years: http://bit.ly/qeJgFU and many of his works evidence the circular or “Q” framing.
Although whilst looking for information, I was surprised how many different covers of the Weirdstone there have been. Multiple generations across several countries have each had their own cover for the book it seems…
We didn’t really do art at school, so besides the odd book-cover the art I grew up with were on the stamps I collected for a time such as the french 1946 Roc-Amadour stamp: http://images5.images5.images8.stamps-gallery.com/Rocamadour-stamp-10167834
and the french 1953 literary figures and national industries stamps such as:
http://images5.images5.images8.stamps-gallery.com/Gargantua-stamp-10167717
and
http://images5.images5.images8.stamps-gallery.com/Mannequin-stamp-10167718
It was fantastic the detail that the artists of an earlier age could get into something so small and yet which could be reproduced…
Later on I discovered Alfred Wainwright who produced a series of pictorial guides to the English Lake District, and who produced incredible line drawings…
I’ve done a quick Google images for Mucha, and I’m not quite sure what to make of him. The internet being the internet, I can’t be sure if what Google images shows is an at all fair representation of what he’s done.
Some of ito does remind me a bit of a couple of Royal Doulton figurines though:
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQwmjFQkXovs1lMVLHrxr3NwJ_ezGGUUONIe5lXUTvosq9wbTLi
and
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSUQ8T9CERZTHgfZZlPMatnoothvgIucY2Exv7yNFtbUSdZ4w5o8Q
Sorry to hear about your puppy. 🙁
My question: What would be your top 5 ways for an artist to make a drawing (let’s say female) sexy but not demeaning? In writing it’s mostly about attitude, but that can be hard to pull off in a picture. Curious to what your insights are.
Off the cuff: (1) A glance or just the right grin. (2) Posture. (3) Perspective: close up ass shot probably bad but over the shoulder probably good. (4) Clothes that spark the imagination but not autonomically, the way Darth Vader’s mask speaks volumes about his personality while hiding everything. (5) Unremittant confidence.
These all work for both men and women.
I’m just starting to connect with my cyber friends again. I’m happy to see this post. While I consider myself feminine, I’m probably not a feminist in the traditional sense. I am intrigued by the idea of someone (Finally) drawing sexy women, but not ones with boobs that would give them backaches and needing some special equipment to hold them up it they appeared in the real world. In Star Wars Galaxies my females never had breasts as large as it is possible to make them, yet they were still very feminine. So… I do enjoy reading about the things going on in your life however this topic currently rises to the top.
Sorry to hear about the dog. I wondered why it had been several weeks since you’d posted.
Comments and arguments about depictions of male and female forms have been around on messageboards (and in magazine or newspaper letters columns) for years. I don’t know enough about the art world or artists to even start to speculate on if a watershed has been reached, but it seems to me that in many things civilisations or cultures don’t usually finally switch direction without one or two people with a vision and charisma finally standing up and saying ‘okay, we have to change direction on these things *now*’.
Thinking about if I have a definitive response to ‘The Broader Question’ which you posed… 😀
Charles, the sexualized depiction of (especially but not exclusively) women is much discussed, yes of COURSE. The discussion I’m stumbling on every time I turn around right now is IN GAMES, which is where I work. Much fault is laid at the door of companies that do not (and largely cannot, for lack of applicants) hire women. That’s not the same question as the full-range societal question… the gaming one is the one I can best address and do anything about.
I have always felt like I was the adventurer coming thru the door and discoving the conjurer within the room….
What a great picture !
I was hoping you would revisit some of your art and give us a sequel….. like picture number 2 and 3 of the story…
especially for the art from City of Terrors…
I recall a picture I think you did with a lone adventurer going up some steps in an abandoned city.. Long straight sword was his hand and he was looking back over his shoulder like he had heard a sound … but he was looking out of the page like it was me who made the sound and got his attention…
Additionally I LOVE the fashionable clothes your adventurers wear…
I have bought over twenty of those Tunnels and Trolls Solo adventures and Your art was sooo spectacular….
I hope to someday see ALL of the art you made for Tunnels and Trolls So I am hoping you continue posting Them and commenting on them…
Thank you, John! I wonder what the picture is you describe — nothing I can think of comes immediately to mind. 🙁
I think the “Pictures Have Stories” series are well-received. As I have stories to tell, I think I’ll continue to post about them!
One of the (many)things I always liked about your art was the fact the women were wearing complete suits of armour instead of chain mail bikinis.
As to the question, I’d love to hear more about the history of T&T, and your part in it. Especially more about the playing side of things. It would be great to know more about the different campaigns people ran back in that Phoenix group in the early days, the way the game was played and evolved. Other than that I like the mix of posts you put up in general.
I really like the self-portrait.
I do too. Updating mental image of Liz ….
DONE.
Hello
I thought I would post here in the section “Pictures have stories” and ask about My favorite cover art for a role playing game….
You drew the cover art for the Role Playing Game Monsters Monsters….
I have always loved that particular cover and i think it is for many reasons…
The Monster riding a monster that is grasping the warriors shield… The warrior is wielding a Morning Star !!! And the Dark haired woman is moving into attack….
I can nearly hear the screech of the Beaked monster..!
I was hoping you might say a few words about the cover…?
I did see another Monsters Monsters cover with a continuation of the same scene where The warriors shield has been ripped off his arm. The Monster riding a Monster Is rearing up and the woman has turned toward the Monster Monsters Swinging her sword….
And Then…
And Then…
I have been waiting a long time to learn their fate….
I was hoping you might have more of them …
Sounds like fun. I wish I’d been able to go – that would be nice, to go to a con that’s about as far away from me as I can get and still be in the contiguous 48 states.
I would’ve dressed up as a Sand Person, and if anybody asked, I would’ve said “I’m a TusCon Raider!” Then I’d’ve hit them over the head with my gaffi stick and run away while they were stunned by my bad pun.
Knick, that crowd would probably hit you with twelve puns as bad or worse, before you even made it out the door…. just fair warning, if you ever make it to the convention!
Sounds like my kind of people, then.
Wow Liz, you HAVE been busy! For me its been really gratifying to be able to work on the French T&T Rules and to be able to layout Ken St Andre’s T&T Rules around Liz’s gorgeous art! Working with it again made me thinkg that piece she had done would be perfect for the City of the Gods book, I’m also laying out. Ken st Andre is also in that book as well! Its a small world world adfter all, I guess,,,
I really like that you show it is possible to re-prioritise, but that tough decisions have to be made.
Just like a financial budget, a time budget forces one to make choices, Ellen. For better or worse, though, there’s no one extending credit or advances in a time budget.
I’ve seen you re-organizing your life, Liz, and I say stick with it! You are the Wonder Woman in the T & T Justice League of Talent. I’m not finished yet, and neither are you–so much creativity that you posess, and I’m pleased to be connected to it.
Just a quick message to you wish you all the best for 2012! 😀
Thank you, Charles! I’ve been trying to get to another post before the year is out but I’ve been hellaciously busy. I am definitely running out of time… 😉
I would post something witty and poignant, but I can’t think of anything at the moment. Have a happy new year, and you can count on further entertainment from me in the year to come!
I was our joy and privilege to offer some small support last year. We wish you all the best for ’12 from The Southern Most Realm.
Aw, thank, Liz. 🙂 Looking forward to a great 2012 with you! 🙂
Thank you for a fascinating interview and for staying in touch to create a friendship I hope will continue to blossom in 2012 … As for the desk — you’re just a … stand-up kinda gal, Liz! 😉
I’m very pleased to have met you (only electronically, regrettably) and had the opportunity to purchase such a fine piece of art work from you. I still feel a bit guilty at getting it from you at such a bargain price. 😉
Best wishes, and I hope to have more chances to interact with you in the coming year.
Mahrundl
“…drilling down to focus on our respective creative lives…”
Word. I hope that 2012 begins to yield the fruit of your creative efforts! Happy New Year, my friend!
Our chance meeting at Gencon was the best thing that happened for me socially at that con and I’m really happy to be “hanging out” online with you Liz. I’m also honored to be working with you again! Here’s to a GREAT 2012!
cheers Steve
Thanks, Liz!
Always fun to hear stories about the old days and the stories behind art that I remember well. (Although the copy of M!M! I had was the Flying Buffalo version with a pen and ink cover, inspired by but different from this one).
BTW, if I remember correctly, the edition of M!M! I had identified that beast as a Snollygoster, whether it swas supposed to be one when you painted it or not. 🙂
Right! There was a “one minute later” version of this; I’d forgotten!
This is getting a bit more subjective, but I much prefer the Zune Marketplace. The interface is colorful, has more flair, and some cool features like ‘Mixview’ that let you quickly see related albums, songs, or other users related to what you’re listening to. Clicking on one of those will center on that item, and another set of “neighbors” will come into view, allowing you to navigate around exploring by similar artists, songs, or users. Speaking of users, the Zune “Social” is also great fun, letting you find others with shared tastes and becoming friends with them. You then can listen to a playlist created based on an amalgamation of what all your friends are listening to, which is also enjoyable. Those concerned with privacy will be relieved to know you can prevent the public from seeing your personal listening habits if you so choose.
Yep there sure is another version of this cover! In many ways’ it is a “lost” piece of Liz art as it only appeared on the old Monsters Monstersrules and was printed in brown ink on brown paper with Red overlays – making it difficult to really see the beautiful Liz Danforth details. Maybe you’ll get to see it soon… we’ll see…
Can’t aford a bid myself (struggling writer) but glad the guy fighting the octopuss is staying. It’s pretty iconic. Love your work.
Oh, I totally have to do this. T&T — well, M!M! actually — was my introduction to role-playing. In fact, I have two editions of Buffalo Castle, the 1978 spiral-bound 5th edition, and the stapled 15th edition from 1981.
My bids won’t be anywhere near what you deserve, though. Two+ years of unemployment cuts into the discretionary spending. Still, I have to try!
Liz, this is a brilliant idea. I will definitely send you a bid for the bandit in armor picture.
I like that octupus – keep that one by all means!
For those of you who are fans of Liz’s art, you’re going to be in for a feast of her work in the French T&T. Some of it is brand new and some of it is from the the old T&T Rules & Monsters Monsters. But we are also including additonal rare Liz art that has not been seen in decades – so it will be quite a collection! (There’s a even a few pieces by me – believe it or not)
Always loved the octopus, the way it rises out of those stylized waves. Looking back I think one of the factors that always made me love your work, Liz, was the way you’d work patterns and textures of different sorts into it.
In the octopus image, we have the stylized waves, the rows of suckers, the tartan vest, the furry loincloth, the slightly stylized hair texture, a couple circles suggesting a pattern on the sword, even a couple zigzags on the arm brace, and finally the brickwork/stonework beneath the warrior.
THAT is something I have always loved, but wouldn’t have been able to point out for a long time.
Homework assignment for anyone reading along: identify all the patterns/textures in the “glowering orc” image on the Monsters Monsters page. And that’s just a dude looking over a wall.
Great idea! My favorite part of this story was your equating of mercenaries with artists. Heh heh. I hope you get a lot of HIGH bids! -Ben A.
I appreciate all the comments here! Also the bids that have come in, and those who have said “I’ll take whatever picture is open!”
Ben, there’s a joke writers tell about themselves, as being prostitutes: “First you do it for yourself, then you do it for friends, and then you do it for the money.” Arguably, every working creative does this, but I’d rather keep the “free-lance hired mercenary” image, personally. 🙂
Ok I’m in! I bid $20 to draw ME into Buffalo Castle! I can’t afford the orginal art – but I can swing $20. I’ve draw myself into Nuclaer War and Traps, so its time for me to appear in T&T. I’d like to be sort of Roguish if possible.
You can use my Facebook phto for ref (Sure give me the hat with a feather in it)or I can pose nude for for you at a later date…
Steve… we’ll talk. 8D
Liz, it’s time to update this site. You told me the winners had been selected.
All i can say is, Trollhallans, you missed a great opportunity here. I, however, did not miss it. Bwa ha ha ha!
I’m well aware of that, Ken, but I’m working my butt off making some of those pictures! And the winners do all know…
It was my honor to be able to color some of Liz’s work. The first time it happened was almost by accident. I was working on a deck of cards and one of the cards included an illustration by Liz. Since all the other cards were in color, I thought it would match better if the piece were colored, so I offered to do it. Needless to say, Liz was hesitant, but agreed to let me try. She was very happy with the results and we’ve looked tfor opptunites to team up again! : )
The Traveller piece is wonderful! (Also good to hear that Miller’s work is continuing on the new edition.)
I’m so glad I discovered this blog; I have always been a big fan of your art. Seeing new work from you is a total joy!
The lady with the bot sure looks like she could be George Takei’s sister. (Or a younger George in Drag.) It’s a really startling resemblance, intentional or not. Not to current George look, but to George as he looked while on the set of Black Sheep Squadron… see photo at: http://sharetv.org/images/black_sheep_squadron/maj_kato-char.jpg
I’d still say the resemblance is more in the eye of the beholder than in the ink on the paper. If anything the Black Sheep photo (dang that’s small!) looks even less like the woman here.
Oh, clearly that’s Sulu shaking hands with C-3P0. I don’t know how anyone could see anything else in that picture.
Actually Liz, what strikes me is that the handshake you’ve drawn looks a lot more natural than the photo. They’ve got their arms held out so far it just looks wrong – like they’re pulling on each other or something.
Just remember this:
1) George Takei is beautiful (I can’t deny it. The man is awesome).
2) Beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder.
3) Ergo, people seeing George in this drawing are drunk!
Good to be back on speaking terms with my Norton and have a chance to read your posts for more than a 1/4 second before the warnings begin.
Honestly, PLEASE let me know if this ever happens again!
I use a Mac. No virus catchers here. Should I?
Welcome back to the land of the living! Or at least the undead.
Anem, Macs are less at risk than PCs, using a Linux-like OS.
Unix underpinnings, yes …
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dsandler/1259007648/
The first thing that caught my eye, annoyingly, was that the “notch-in-the-bone” in the “real” painting isn’t deep or angled enough to match the drawing. Otherwise, that painting is truly awesome (in the true, original sense of that word)! Wow! Quogmyre is to be commended as a genuine artist, all others being sham! 🙂
–Glarrrn of Trollhalla.
Liz, this always was one of my faves of yours. It’s nice to see it had success far beyond the usual. I like peripheral stories told by visuals that can be interpreted by the reader, and this is one of the best – Twice! I don’t know if you saw “Hugo”, but there’s just this kind of cleverness in the flash-by scene of the Inspector looking at his wristwatch; it was an armored trench watch, (trust me to catch that instantly, i know) and it said scads of how he prolly got his bum leg going over the top in that kind of hell. Your drawing and the watch do the same thing, they deepen the experience subtly without all that tattooed on one’s forehead with the usual blunt instrument. Well done, I say, twice-over.
Its a great 3d piece – no doubt about it, and it actually SAVED Liz’s orginal (in a manner of speaking)and helped it get in the new T&T Rulebook! Here’s how that happened…
Shortly after Liz got the 3d image by Quoghmyre, she e-mailed it to me saying how amazing itan how did I think it matched the orginal. At this point in the process, the Rulebook was almost finished and I had never seen a Liz illustration that looked anything like the full-color image she has just send me. It was then that we realized that I hadn’t gotten that image! Liz immediatley sent me her black & white version and I found a good home for it on page 25. So if it hadn’t been for Quoghmyre’s version, Liz’s orginal version wouldn’t have been in the new rulebook! So thanks Quoghmyre!
Quoghmyre’s piece reminds me of what a good inker can do to a great drawing. He could have ruined the feel of the piece, but instead he brought out the details that made the piece shine even more. I love both.
blush… I feel like a cheeky imp coming to the notice of giants.
Thank you all for such kind words. You guys have inspired me for longer than, any of us, care to remember. That I have been able to give back in some small measure makes me proud. My copy of “T&T le france” is in transit and I look forward to perusing the pictures.
Thanks again, Q
Absolutely stupendous iteration. Blows me away.
Am glad it went to a good home. And I do regret that it’s not the cover which is part of the current PDF. (sigh)
*jeep! & God Bless!
–Grandpa Tzhett
Oops! My error! I see it’s on the FBI site, but not as a PDF. I remember (now) that I didn’t order it because it has a different cover. (Somehow, I misremembered ordering it as a download — about three or four years ago.)
I believe that much of Flying Buffalo’s material is available on RPGDriveThru. I will encourage you to purchase there, or directly from FBInc, because there is at least one site online offering T&T material (sometimes for free) but which has no license and no permission to distribute, and which does not support the creative minds who brought you the words and art you enjoy! That is simply caveat emptor and information provided for purposes of education. 😉
But thank you for the kind words!
Liz Maker. Sounds like a character out of Orson Scott Card’s Seventh Son series.
But I believe you. Your Making is every bit as fantastic to me as any magic that happens in books. And I think that it’s great that you keep Making!
Thank you so much Liz! I feel so honored that you would post about me!
Thanks, Liz! You’ve helped make it a very special day indeed.
Wow! Your work continues to get better every year – and you were, even in 1979, my favorite RPG artist. Continue this way, and put out a portfolio or prints sometime soon. Please?
*jeep! & God Bless!
–Grandpa Tzhett
I’ve been a fan of yours since I was less than 6’2″ Always loved your art (and no, I’m neither asking for free stuff or a date). What an honor to finally get to e-mail you!
I love to see you doing game work again!
Those are great, Liz! And hey, happy birthday, Tina!
Highpool is by far my favourite map. The description of the valley after you kill Red Ryder is the best bit of text in the game.
I’d repressed the memory of that poor boy and his dog.
Such beautifully-wrought tragedy! I cannot wait to see what you create for us next!
I just read this today and boy am I glad I did. I’ve not been familiar with you, but I shall be. Thank you for making my day in the sandbox bright.
Did you get the sign on the Internet? It’s in Chicago, on Fullerton.
Chris, yes — if you hover over the pic for the pop-up text, you’ll see I make note that the sign is in Chicago.
Thanks for all the comments, people! Mark, your pic is inked and looks pretty damn sweet if I say so myself. Uncles and Grandpas? Coolnesss… and yeah, Duncan, I’ve been around long enough that I’ve had people introduce me to their teenaged kids and say “I was his age when I was playing games you worked on.” I’m flattered and simultaneously wondering where I left my walker and my get-off-my-lawn cane. 8D
When I do an art book (not if, WHEN), you’ll probably hear about it here first. I had hoped to do is for last year’s holiday season … maybe sooner than that, this year?
Wasteland was one of my favorite games ever. Even in that great game, the Highpool map was special. It wasn’t until my second time playing through that I learned the lesson you mention of walking away. I am very happy that you will be involved with the sequel and I’m looking forward to playing the maps you work on.
I can’t tell you how happy and scared and awed and humbled your comments are making to me. And how I’m sure as hell going to do my best to make sure the parts I get to work on will live up to your expectations. It’s rather an honor to have your trust in this. 🙂
I believe you also had a wicked hand in the creation of the Grimtooth’s Traps books. I regret ever lending those out and never seeing them again.
I cannot wait to experience your fiendish genius in Wasteland 2.
Artbook! Oh yeah! Can I get a WOOT?
VV00+!!!!
Aye, I’m … er, “acquainted” with Mr Grimtooth, as it were. But he had many editors, never being entirely satisfied with our work. He was a hard taskmaster, to say the least! (And if you didn’t know, Flying Buffalo is slowly bringing them back into print. Sad that you lost the first set, but it’s a fixable problem. 🙂
I turned the Highpool storyline into a bit of machinima:
Nice to see you’ll be contributing to Wasteland 2!
Cellulaer, I am awed! It’s insanely cool to see Highpool brought alive in machinima like that! Wow!!! Thanks for the link!
I never played Wasteland but am supporting Wasteland 2 now and I gotta say that reading about your design of the kid and his rabid dog scenario sounded very good. I’m now really looking forward to playing Wasteland 2 with content in it from your “sick mind” ;)!
Liz,
Great post! While I’ve been thrilled to see Wasteland 2 becoming a reality, I’m not involved other than as an interested bystander… and now journalist reporting on it. I’m looking forward to seeing what havoc you can wreak with expectations this time…
— Steve
I did misunderstand then, Steve, alas. But it’s good to see you here, and thank you for the kind words!
I put in my email address and it asked “Are you sure you want to do that? Try again.”
Who knows what’ll happen.
Here in the Comments section? Hmmm. While this WordPress theme basically LOOKS the same as before, it is actually completely different. It may be a feature of the theme Gaz is working with, to be more cautious.
Nah, in the “Subscribe via email” box.
See Liz… This is why your art is so popular. You think you’re producing a simple black and white line-and-ink drawing. But it is always with a hidden history – and we imagine those colours and that story. That’s why it works. And some people (e.g., Quoghmyre) have the talent to show the rest of us those colours.
(The faerie sacrifice for the demon on the first pages of T&T 5.5 freaks me out… and I can’t help but feel sorry for the giant rat on p27 of Sewers of Oblivion)
Weird, Knick. I tested it just now, using a different email address, and it didn’t do that. Not sure what the deal is, then.
I”m special 🙂
Nah, it’s probably because I’ve got NoScript, and I ran into a javascript element that I hadn’t yet allowed. We’ll see if it picked up on the subscription or not when you post something.
I like the scale of the art as presented here, and the fact that I can just click on one, as opposed to the previous forced slides.
Also, I’m tickled by the fact that you have a “nekkid peeples” tag.
I love seeing your line work. Your cleaning project should help find more of your work quicker. 🙂
Thank you, Anem! I know where it is, mostly. I need to scan it, size it, and put up in the gallery… heck, what I need is a clone. Or two. 🙂
Your work continues to get better & better. I’m a really big fan of your line art.
Yay, I’m a branch!
As a note, I can’t see that a protected post has been made – but I can see that Steve commented on a protected post 🙂
Hi Liz,
great to hear you’re on board for the new Wasteland game! Very excited to see what you come up with. If you’re curious, I recently finished a soundtrack for Wasteland – you can listen to my memories of Highpool…
http://soundcloud.com/edwinmontgomery/sets/wasteland-2
So that’s what it was all about! lol Hey good luck and have a great time! Its very cool that you are reaching out like that Liz.
Steve
If you’re referring to me asking you for larger versions of several pieces, Steve … look at the date on this post, which was weeks ago. I suppose I should say something briefly about the Games+Learning+Society conference coming up, where they are also holding an artshow of visual work which has appeared in or is associated with games!
You know my call on this one — yes, very sexy. No, not at all exploitative. That’s not something very many people can pull off, and you do it, and you’ve always done it. You draw sexy people who are people first, and sexy incidentally. (And as far as I can judge, you’ve always given sexy men at *least* equal time with sexy women.)
If you’re troubled about this issue, untrouble yourself! You somehow have the magic power to get the best of both worlds, sexy yet not exploitative. And apparently without even trying hard. Be grateful! 🙂
Not so much troubled, Ed, as prone to overthink things, and mull on any subject that doesn’t lend itself to easy answers. But thank you — I hope others would agree with your opinion!
Interesting post, Liz. One other angle to consider is that clothing rarely seems to be a personal choice for a magic user. Often they’ll wear ritual garb that helps their magic, for example. I think there’s also the dichotomy between the magical and physical realms in many settings, so a magician who spends most of his/her time in the magical realms might not pay too much attention to his/her clothes. This is probably especially true of the necromancers, where they dabble in the forbidden and might be consumed with studying the dead, so they don’t always wear the latest fashions or even mended clothes.
As for the sexism angle, I think you covered it well enough. I don’t see any of the pictures as exploitative. I think the one that comes closest would be the book on the female form, especially the undraped version on the cover. 🙂 I suspect that was intended to titillate more than your art. 🙂
I really do appreciate the glimpses of the motivation behind the art. Definitely looking forward to the story on Freyalise Supplicant.
I think you’re right about the book, Brian!! There is a definitely thread of “too polite to view porn but will look at art books” through the books I inherited from my dad. He was an artist in his own right, so I don’t mean to take anything away from him in that regard. But his selection of books has a certain tenor running through them, and the cover of this book fits that paradigm.
Your art is, as always, amazing, and a significant contribution to any venue in which it is included. I can’t even draw good stick people, so I am not about to criticize your work. I always enjoy seeing it wherever I am fortunate enough to find it. You go, girl! My lycanthrope guy, Wulf the wayfarer, will be glad to come and take your side if anyone dares to insult your contributions to the genre.
Thank you, Roy. Tastes differ, and while I have certainly heard people prefer others’ work to mine, I really have no complaints about how I seem to be viewed in the genre. Quite the contrary; I am often amazed by how my contributions are received.
Wonderful post. The intersection of Power and Mind is Wizardry, but that’s not the intersection where Clothes or Fashion live. If you live in your mind, like a Silicon Valley Engineer, clothes don’t matter so much–and care for them sometimes gets in the way. If you are a hardware engineer, or even better mechanical, your clothes take a horrible beating. Because I work with acids for some of my projects, I occasionally have clothes almost disappear–and I’m knowledgeable and careful (well, relatively). (I find the results of acid etching clothing fascinating, and may intentionally make a steampunk alchemy outfit…)
Necromancers would be much more on both “Show the Power with Clothes” and “Fail to Take Care of things” scale, and would dress in robes, that would be tattered. If you have values of power over death and control of mindless beings, I doubt the conditions of your clothing matter much.
And the sort of people who control you with a gesture and a word? Yeah, clothes would be another mean to that end.
But your retrospective of this theme within your art provides the backbone (and ribs) of a full discussion. Thank yoU!
I love the acid-spotted clothes idea … and yes, I’ve had artist friends who work with chemicals and fire (welders, for example) whose clothes definitely show the evidence of their preferred mediums.
Your artwork has continued to be in my top five illustrators of all time category. You’re in good company: Barry Windsor Smith, Aubrey Beardsley, Frank Frazetta, and Alphonse Mucha! I studied art, but am an indifferent sculptor and pen and ink person. That being said, I’m also a huge fan of swords and sorcery, and your artwork has that “essence” of fantasy in the sword and sorcery genre. It stands up well as heroic or modern fantasy too!
Regarding the issue of nudity in fantasy art, I think there is almost a need for it in some ways. What I mean is that fantasy and particularly Swords and Sorcery has elements of primal and the primeval in it: Man vs. The Natural and the Supernatural. The lack of clothing is not only literal but symbolic of mankinds intrinsic strength (whether physical or supernatural) versus the overwhelming might of the known and unknown. After all clothes don’t fare too well against tigers, or trolls…. Not only that but tattered clothes give the impression of gritty strength and endurance as far as I’m concerned.
As far as how magic is depicted…. Well, I was once a practicing Wiccan and magic is not so much a visual thing as a visualized thing. The long term effects of magic are only percieved through patience and hindsight. Fantasy magic on the other hand can do whatever it bloody well pleases! It IS magic after all!
I can’t believe you put me in the company of those lights, Dwight, but thank you sincerely.
I like your take on the Man vs Nature aspect of fantasy although I’ll have to think about whether I agree it’s the key fundament to fantasy. My initial reaction is “no” but I can see where you’re coming from, despite that.
I would simply add that it is one of many things that build as a foundation for the genre. Humankind versus the supernatural/unknown is probably the oldest story people have been telling or interacting with in some form or another since we could communicate.
As an aside, I worked for college libraries during my higher education days, and I married a wonderful woman who is a library technician at the Washington State Law Library of the Supreme Court. She knew I was all right when I asked her, “So what sytem do you use? Library of Congress, or something else?” We just celebrated 12 years together last Friday.
None of this has anything to do with the comment I made in my first posting, but I thought you’d like to know a little bit more about me. I am fortunate to live in Olympia, Washington, and that we have an excellent library and inter-library loan service. I thought you might like to hear that too!
It is good to learn more about the people here — thank you for sharing! And yes… always good to hear positive libraries tales as well, indeed. 8D
Liz,
One of the things I have always admired about your art is that you draw clothed peopled very well. Whereas I don’t. There was a standard set decades ago that seemed to have all women scantily clad and buxom, and all men shirtless and with well developed abdominals (“six-pack” in today’s terms). Maybe it was Frank Frazetta, maybe John Buscema’s Conan, or Boris Vallejo. Don’t know, but it stuck. My wife often asks why I draw most of my fantasy women in the same way. And I say because I also have to draw the men in that stereotype too. “Equal time rule” I suppose. Moralists tend to only see, and be opposed to, the scantily clad buxom female and not the scatily clad ripped male. What to do?
Love you art as always.
That standard goes back to fantasy and S/F’s lurid pulp cover history, David.
And given what I come across in the blogosphere discussing this whole topic, there is some definitely complaining going on about the unrealistic ripped males too. The key difference seems to be that the women are horrifically distorted in pose and anatomy, positions no human being could attain outside Cirque de Soleil. The men may be idealized, but their poses are considerably more natural.
Cirque de Soleil? I remember 300 being described as an extended infomercial for HGH…
Looks like your wizards/sorceress’ need more than one bundle of warm dry clothing & pack
I LOVE how you draw (or paint) draped fabrics. Lots of great stuff here. I think a lot of artists draw things intuitively and then discover the reason why they drew it that way later. (i know I often do anyway. As for ankedness… well I have to confess my best work has probably been of nekked people, (specifically women) because when I draw them, I spend oh so much more time on getting them “just right”.
Right on both counts, Steve. Which also accounts for why my men are often less well-garbed than my women, I think. If you get it “just right” then why would the artist want to cover it up??
I just got back into playing after about a 15 year hiatus. I always keep an eye out for cards that are done by folks I know! 🙂 It’s always a joy to go through stuff friends have given me and find one of your cards!
That’s cool, Jess! Bring them to Heroes & Villains July 8th (M13 Pre-release event) and I’d be delighted to sign anything of mine you have! Would be great to see you again too. 🙂
Ghods this is SO weird! I just did a card design (Front & Back) for Chuck Kraver who is about to release MAGIC ART SKETCH CARDS, so that artist can do art on a blank card with a border. The back looks like the back of the Magic Card (almost). Anyway You’ll be hearing from him soon as at the very least he’ll want to have you do a custom card for his own personal Magic deck (He’s a HUGE player) And who knows what else…
Attitudes to sex vary depending on your nature, culture, and upbringing. Personally, I feel the clue is in the word ‘fantasy’, and there’s nothing wrong with fantasy. In fact, I think fantasy, sexual or otherwise, is an important learning tool and safety valve. Drawings are not exploited people. They are drawings. If you’re coming out and saying ‘I think men (/women) are inferior and that’s why I draw them half naked’, then expect to be shot down in flames. If you’re saying, as I think you are, ‘I respect both men and women of all cultures, but I’ll draw people according to my aesthetic, fantastic, and sexual preferences, simply because I can’, then more power to your elbow! Those who oppress and exploit should be condemned, but they shouldn’t be allowed to stop the rest of us enjoying ourselves in the privacy of our own homes or in our fantasy lives. I’ll take this opportunity to say that I was first introduced to your art, Liz, in the early 80s, T&T 5th ed., in a friend’s father’s basement drinking club in Bath, England. Being 15 or so I didn’t have much money for drinking, but four friends played T&T from dusk till dawn, and Liz Danforth’s art played the major part in evoking the appropriate atmosphere. Never to be forgotten.
Thank you for the compliment, Don. I’m glad my artwork was well-received by your 15-year-old self, and I hope it continues to please.
Regarding drawings being exploitative: there I have to disagree with you. I believe they can be, the same as in any other entertainment or entertainment-associated medium whether movies, games or music. (Perhaps that isn’t your point, but rather that no real people were degraded in the making of any of my pieces up above.)
It’s a tricky word, “exploitation” that often falls under the definition of “I know it when I see it.” Sometimes an exploitative image is so blatantly so, most people of a variety of natures, cultures, and upbringing will agree. Other times, not so much.
Perhaps this is fodder for a lengthier discussion.
That is indeed my point, and so for now we’ll have to agree to disagree, but I’d welcome that lengthier discussion sometime. Much respect.
Gaw-jee-us!
Now my brain is spinning again …
I think that you are particularly gifted for colours.
Hymn to Tourach illustration is a particularly good example!
Dang, Liz, it’s hard to believe that security cops can walk up to you on public property and tell you to stop taking pictues and to delete what you have taken. not wishing the job on you or me but this kind of totalitarianism needs to be challenged and revoked.
Several people have commented on this to me via private channels since I wrote this. I should make it clear that I was taking pictures of a federal facility — and there are restrictions on that since 9/11.
“and there are restrictions on that since 9/11.”
No, actually there aren’t. This is the big problem with the War On Photography.. much like the rest of post 9/11 Security Theatre, it is based on no actual law. Someone in a uniform just asserts that “things are different” (aka “you have fewer rights”) “since 9/11” and law abiding, well meaning people such as yourself believe it.
The chance that you were taking a picture of a building you are actually not allowed to take a picture of is vanishingly small, federal building or not. Even if you were somehow taking a picture of a top secret facility, the idea of photos being associated with terrorism is a non-sequitur. Yep, people staking out targets in movies at shady in cars and take pictures of their targets. Real terrorists don’t need to take pictures of their targets, because their targets are most often public places for which, for example, floor plans are available. With cell phone cameras ubiquitous, this association of conspicuous-photography-with-a-camera with incipient terrorism is even more non-sequitur.
Google “War On Photography” and you will find countless cases of people being told to stop taking legal pictures. Petty tyrants proliferate, and your (polite, reasonable on its face) compliance encourages them.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/you-can-photograph-that-federal-building/
”
Under the settlement, announced Monday by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the Federal Protective Service said that it would inform its officers and employees in writing of the “public’s general right to photograph the exterior of federal courthouses from publicly accessible spaces” and remind them that “there are currently no general security regulations prohibiting exterior photography by individuals from publicly accessible spaces, absent a written local rule, regulation or order.”
”
!!! AWESOMER !!!
Do you know if they are done hiring writers for Wasteland 2? I’d exchanged a couple e-mails with Brian Fargo, but that was some while ago. Glad you’re working on it.
I don’t know anything about how things like that are being handled, Chris. Sorry, but I can’t help much on that.
There are threads on the WL2 forums where inXile has solicited ideas from the public on what is to go in the game, and even asked for folks to post their interest in helping out and their credentials. I can only imagine they are scrutinizing the juiciest of these posts and perhaps will even offer some folks a job, or maybe offer to use their stuff if they like it. It can’t hurt to stop by and put in your two cents.
The same thing happened to my cousin. He was taking pictures of downtown where I live for a history assignment. Except they took the camera and deleted the photos themselves and gave his camera back. He got the same response from the officer about 9/11 and federal buildings.
Interesting. I suppose I see the sense in such precautions but I can also see how it might lead to a sense of surrealism when one encounters this attitude. Be glad you didn’t tell the security fellow you were taking reference photos in order to conceptualise what the area might look like as a post-apocalyptic wasteland though, consequences for that might have been far more serious than a polite warning.
Heh… yeah I thought of that after driving away. And as you say, I was glad I didn’t elaborate.
Obviously you need that app created for OWS that streams your photos and video to a secure server as you take them. 😉
I’m laughing, but suspect they’re already following your online activities. Shiver.
I am, and always have been, pretty much an open book since the advent of the online world. It’s the only way I can expect to do business to my satisfaction.
You did what was probably safest for you, Liz, but just for future reference, if you are on public land, you can take pictures of anything you want, even Federal buildings, even post 9/11. Of additional note: a warrant is required for an officer to see the photos on your camera.
http://www.aclu.org/free-speech/know-your-rights-photographers
Beyond the ACLU, there are other sites and organizations trying to correct the myths about permitted photography. Sometimes they can be a bit shrill, but it is easy to become agitated when your rights are being abused. This is probably the best known of the watchdog sites.
http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/carlosmiller
(And yes, I get my knickers in a twist about things like this.)
I appreciate the links and comments from everyone, more than I can tell you. This is a topic that has only lightly ever been on my radar — I have had more issues with people being told they could not photograph police officers handling arrests, for example.
Federal buildings? Fell under the “meh, w/e” radar, so when I was told by An Authority Figure to knock it off, I did.
I’ll note that, while I was in a public space, I was also alone. That opens up a whole sidebar discussion of how the female population must always deal with questions of personal security throughout their lives in a way that few men can even imagine, but this isn’t the thread for that.
MKHall, Awesome and others who have commented privately or in other venues: thank you for making me better informed, and also those others who might read this.
Restrictions on photographing a Federal facility? Weird stuff.
Download this and keep it with you when taking photos: http://www.krages.com/phoright.htm
You rock. Thank you. Done and done.
I get what’s being said about legal rights, and I applaud resistance on point of law, but I’m not willing to try to face down a belligerent security guard and get my camera confiscated, or myself detained or arrested. Because the guards who don’t know about the law don’t give a damn about taking someone’s camera or arresting them *even if they’re in the wrong.* Sure, I could buy another camera (or phone) and get myself released, but in the mneantime is it worth the hassle? I *could* end up on a watch list. Certainly this is what law enforcement counts on, but it nonetheless could lead to repercussions. What’s to say a security guard believes that piece of paper?
Now, don’t get me wrong: if it’s legal, we should be able to do it. But sometimes it’s not worth the hassle. And, as Liz mentioned, women alone are at a disadvantage.
In fairness, he was not belligerent. And in light of people’s comments here, I could have easily refused his polite requests if I had been knowledgeable. I found the whole thing ridiculous, even at the time (and even as I was feeling pretty spooked), because heck, if I’d snapped a shot as I drove past, I doubt I’d’ve had MiBs at my door when I got home. But I had stopped the car, and was there a little while — enough time for someone to notice and send the guy out in his truck, or for him to come upon me on his regular patrols.
Would the incident have been worth getting tossed, or my phone confiscated? Would’ve been great press for Wasteland. (Too bad I’m not getting royalties; it’d be worth going back!)
I’m loving the conviction with which you defend the security guard. I think that it says something about you that this officer confronted you with what you later found out was an unjustified demand, and you still maintain repeatedly that he wasn’t uncivil about it.
I don’t know if it comes from wanting to maintain the integrity of the story, or wanting to make sure that he’s not unfairly vilified, or simply remembering that his view of the situation may have been entirely different. Whatever the case, you’re sticking to your guns with integrity, and that’s commendable.
It is mostly the second: wanting to make sure he was not unfairly vilified. I was intimidated by the situation, not so much by the man.
One of my hobbyhorses is the lack of nuanced discourse about the troubling conditions in today’s society, with so much being cast in simple black and white terms. Yes, I see heroes and I see villains on the societal stage, but the vast majority of things are much grayer. It will not help the course of conversation to speak untruthfully of my experience.
I can play with facts for greater drama in game design. And believe you me, Wasteland will be chucky-jam full of gray situations, from me and from others.
Liz, I meant to mention this back when you wrote this but I’ve been busy — I got harassed by a couple of city public works employees because I was taking a picture of — of all things — a watertower in a small town. These fellows had, in their own mind, promoted themselves to defenders of the public infrastructure from terror, and they *actually reported me to Homeland Security* after I reported the whole thing to the local paper and they ran a story on it, subjecting them to much outrage & derision. The sum total result of this, that I know of, was a Homeland Security person stopping by my house when I wasn’t home and leaving his card with my wife. Still, it’s a little scary to think I might be on some list somewhere. Here’s the story as reported with reasonable accuracy (they misreported what I said slightly, but that happens): http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/09/mans_nerdy_hobby_lands_him_in.html
This is very interesting. I’m getting into writing, myself (gamebooks, for me) and I’ve often wondered if this sort of encounter would be in my future somewhere, if I make it fly. It’s neat to hear your experience of being on that side of it.
Also, those pictures are amazing. I’ve always loved the aesthetic of desolation (don’t ask me why). Seeing your photos makes me really look forward to Wasteland.
I spent yesterday in badly-needed R&R mode, out in the less-populated areas of Arizona. If InXile uses some of the pics I snapped, people will be surprised how lush this desert can be at the end of summer after a month of monsoon-season rains.
Now they just need to come to New England For KrabJab East, just like PAX East.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Although with four dozen of you, I worry that you won’t have very many pages …
We will each get our moment in the spotlight… 🙂
Ah, it will be EPIC!!
Woohoo Wasteland 2 references! 🙂 Can’t wait for the kickstarter to come to fruition!
Interesting conincidence . . . I unearthed a box of T&T stuff recently, and found a baggy of Middle Earth and Magic cards signed by you at I-Con and passed along to me by the late great Jeff Glass. I hadn’t known you’d been to I-Con!
I was sorry to hear Jeff had passed away. I remember I-Con vividly for quite a few reasons, but not least of which because — taking place in April — Arizona is already very hot but New York is still frigidly cold. I had not even packed anything more than a light jacket, which I accidentally left behind in my car at the airport. I spent the entire convention frozen to the bone… and enjoyed it anyway!
I love your artwork. Your Middle Earth piece has a T&T feel to it. Also, thanks for the advice. I would have thought that you would turn down jobs if the price didn’t meet your standards. I have a client that’s being “cheap”, but I have nothing else going on right now. Looks like I’ll be taking it.
Negotiations are exactly that, Anem, and for a reason. Respect yourself, respect your work, talent, and practiced skill — and realize that sometimes you are paid in something else you want. Just make sure it IS something else that you want and/or need.
Sitting in my stuffy UK office on a slow Friday afternoon, I had a sudden, random urge to see again the cover of that solo T&T adventure I used to love poring over in my youth. It always seemed so exotic – much more so than the mundane AD&D artwork that was around then. I Googled ‘City of Terrors’ and found myself here. Thanks for the story, Liz, and thanks so much for the wonderful art that made my world a more interesting place when I was growing up.
Tony, thank you! I’m really glad to hear when people tell me such work as I did, loving doing it, made some difference to them. Thank you!
I was also really pleasantly surprised by Pandaria. ^_^ We’ve got some other returners in the Libraries & Librarians guild on Aerie Peak, too.
I’m not as much into the whole Panda Panda thing. Although to be fair, I think that I’m more not into sitting indoors staring at the same computer I use for my day job. Once the eternal ice arrives again, I’ll probably play more Warcraft because there’s nothing else to do while frozen in place. Seriously, what does Bolvar do with himself these days?
Glad I was able to provoke you into another post – and very glad to hear that you’re not dead or insane. I mean, insane-er.
Liz: The OCD technical writer in me wants to note that the website watermark in the second illo (of the hand) is missing a D.
Fixed! Thank you for letting me know.
Not so much a watermark as hoping that, if someone swipes something, at least they know where it came from. I’d rather they simply respect me and not swipe, but nothing I can do will seriously change that without doing more damage than good.
Well I am lucky enough to have seen this piece in even more detail than the rest of you and I can say that I believe it really IS going to a new breakthru for Liz. And having read a big chunk of her stories, I think many of you Liz fans and friends out there are going to be in for a treat! So stay tuned and get ready for a really special Liz Danforth production! Congratz Liz
Stunning! Even the sketch has such a depth of charater. Love it!
You show see the color study she did – bold and exciting!
Now I’m jealous 🙂
Also, thanks Liz for clarifying things for me the other day – I was trying to reconcile Winter, who in my head is a Blue/Red mage, and Hymn to Tourach, which is a spell that I can’t see him ever casting. Now I’ve got it all sorted.
For anyone else who might find it an odd jump between Winter and the Magic card: the key commonalities of the two pictures are the extended hand(s) and the expectation of magically-assisted translocation. 🙂
wow…. here I was surfing for ‘gnomish’ info after Second Life kicked me offline (I was visiting a fantasy RP zone) and suddenly remembered Tunnels & Trolls — which led me here. I LOVED the drawings you did for T&T… it was what got me ‘hooked’ on fantasy gaming… even if I did kind of ‘defect’ over to D&D and later AD&D. I tried to emulate your work over the years (unsuccessfully) but.. STILL think it is some fun ‘candy’ for the eye.
Koldrake, thank you for your kind words… and for bringing this post back to my attention. As I’ll note in today’s blog entry, you have sparked my own imagination (as I hope I’ve sparked those who saw this picture originally) and although I’m in the middle of other artwork, I’m going to the sketchbook today…
This is very, very good news! I’m looking forward to having a copy in hand.
…and I, for one, cannot wait!
“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
Please, mum, I want some more.
And you are responsible for me sending that YouTube clip to my wife, creatle Very Loud Haw-Haws that can be heard all over the complex.
What? Little ol’ me with a secret plan to reforge the Trollish Fellowship an start anew the age of greatness and wonder that once reigned supreme in gaming fandom?
A new age of greatness where I get to work on Tunnels & Trolls in a more than ancillary way?…
Ridiculous – I never gave it a moments thought. Really.
heh heh…. Steve
Seriously – this is gonna be REALLY cool! You’ll see…
Where’s the ‘like’ button? 🙂 I’m very excited to see the result of this reunion!
1986 fan who sho still thinks its great likes’
My only question is “how can I help?”
Besides pledging to the Kickstarter, of course.
Kickstarter is just over the horizon. We’ve done a lot on our own, because we didn’t want to sell pie in the sky. (Castles in the air, maybe! But not pie. Ozone flavored pie is just icky.) But we can’t do it all, and we’ve been concocting some interesting incentives I think. Like I said — stay tuned!
Pie? We get pie?
I am really looking forward to this….what great nostalgia combined with bringing a new start to a classic game!
Ah, long nights spent in a friend’s father’s intimate, evocative, and appropriately subterranean nightclub… flagons of ale (we didn’t have to role-play that) and fists full of dice… the adventures of Byll the battle-dwarf… Balrogs and Ribzotty Gibberbats… Sorry, drifted away there, yes I’ll be pledging!
Ribzotty Gibberbats??? Now that I’d like to see. NO, WAIT… forget that. I do NOT want to see Ribzotty Gibberbats, at least not unless my wizard was well and truly surrounded by shieldmates and boon companions…!
All I need now is for someone to reissue all the Sorcerer’s Apprentice magazines and life will be complete!
Patrice also brought that up, a year or so ago. But magazines generally purchase only “first rights” (or one-time reprint rights if something has seen publication elsewhere, as was the case with some of the fiction we bought). Somewhere I have a disc with all of SA collected together, to go through and see what we *could* reprint … but I think it would be pretty thin fare. We’ll have to see.
Now, that’s a disk I could happily steal from you!!! 🙂 I did have a conversation with someone a while back about this and it was mooted but the problem would appear to be tracking down all the contributors. I did suggest that a simple copy to disk would be more than adequate – that is, it wouldn’t have to be printed – and for those old enough to remember it would be a wave of nostalgia and for those young enough to be new to the game it would find a ready market. Sadly my collection got misappropriated when I got divorced some years ago.
Whether the content is on a disk or printed, there would be issues of rights I could not personally countenance transgressing, Philip. 🙂 And in truth, many of the contributors have disappeared or passed away over the years: Manly Wade Wellman, Roger Zelazny, Fred Saberhagen, Karl Edward Wagner, Stephan Peregrine, and many others are no longer with us. While some of them surely have estates to approach regarding these rights, I am equally sure that some heirs and assigns would say nothing more coherent than “whhhhuuuuutttt???” even if we could still find them.
Yes, I fully understand. One day I’m sure I’ll find a collection in a second hand shop (although it hasn’t happened yet!) 🙂
Any general idea when the kickstarter will “kick off”?
Soon…. 😉
ETA: Okay, that’s not a very fair answer although accurate in its vagueness. Expect Santa to bring something to make your holidays more interesting, if not sooner. We’ve got some hoops to jump through still.
Boy, am I glad I survived the drought of the 90’s with no new T&T stuff. I can’t wait for the new edition & am glad the team is back together again.
Patience is a virtue! All things come to trolls that wait 🙂
Liz, your art introduced me to a lifelong hobby that has kept my imagination alive and sparking since the early 80s. Thank you so much. I cried when I just found out you sold these iconic RPG pieces on eBay – and I missed them…sob. So looking forward to the new deluxe game. I am a special education teacher and am in the process of introducing T&T to my pupils. They will love it, and your visuals will help blow them away as they did me a few decades ago. Please keep it coming. x
Oh Matt, you are wonderful to say this! We are hard at work today (and even yesterday, on Christmas!) working to make the Deluxe edition come to be. Thank you for the encouragement!
As for this piece of artwork: I’ll let you in on a secret… one of the pictures I want to do in the new edition will refer back to this one. In an interesting, cool way, I think! But we have a lot of hoops to jump through first.
Looks like a ton of fun! Now with MOAR TROLLS?! Yes please. I am not sure how many were originally in it, but I imagine more is always good (unless they are hungry for human).
You can never go wrong with more Trolls … well, unless you’re sat in the middle of a clearing surrounded by Trolls who are all looking at you as if you’re some particularly esoteric piece of potential food they haven’t quite figured out the recipie to use for yet and are mentally trying to draw lines bisecting limbs to indicate their prefernce for cuts …
*ahem* Sorry, been editing today. Need to come back to the real world … Ignore everything before and just go with “More trolls are good” 🙂
Hmm. Definitely like to see the draft of Bilbo & Me, even (or especially) if it’s just a draft.
And I’d really like to see the Elves of Lindon piece; it’s long been a favourite of mine.
It has been a hard – full on marathon, the likes of which none of you could quess. All of us have gone beyond the vale (or is it pale?) to get this to read great and to look great. We have some wonderful pledge items we can’t wait for you to see!
Hold on – Its going to be fun ride! All Hail the Trollish Fellowship!
“Beyond the pale”, Steve…
http://talkwordy.com/2011/02/25/beyond_the_pal/ is a wonderful article on an interesting bit of history!
Deluxe T&T Kickstarter May go Live tomorrow!
We are holding our breath waiting for the final OK from Kickstarter.
Be sure to check during the 4th of Jan. to see if we are live!
Should it be God bless us, every one — or God help us, every one? I thought I had outgrown being a fanboy.
Never thought I’d see this day. What’s amazing is that I’m so excited for this volume – even though I’ll only use, perhaps, five pages of the rules. TnT was all about how to avoid using any rules – but the books were so much fun to read, that I can’t wait to see the new words, the new options, the new rules-I’ll-probably-ignore-but-find-fascinating, and especially the new art. Something that has been missing since Sorcerer’s Apprentice went away – is coming back.
I’m glad that you feel that way. To me, I always thought your best work was the illustrations found in T&T v5.
It stabs me in the heart to hear there was a time when you “didn’t even think anyone gave a damn about Liz Danforth’s art or whether she’d ever do so much as a single sketch ever again.”
I’ve written this elsewhere, but your work, in T&T specifically, *defined* fantasy art for me as a child. T&T was my first game (back in about 1980!) and your work was a huge part of what made it wonderful to me. I’m glad we’re all on the internet now and can tell you what your work means to us.
Not only the illustrations in v5, anem kram, but the editing of v5 as well…
Hi Liz,
Well, you know how I feel about both T&T (the game that started me on a 30+ year roleplaying hobby) and your art (Love it! And so proud to own a few pieces). Long may this adventure continue and dT&T seems a great way to further that.
Mike
I’m happy to see it’s going so well and glad I could be a part of it. Playing T&T with a group of my friends was a great part of my youth and your art played a great part of what made the game so appealing.
Thank You,
Marc
Liz–
This has not changed my view of Kickstarter itself (it’s just a thing, not inherently good or bad) or far too many projects I see here (skepticism bordering on sadness and revulsion at the choice of funding), but you guys did everything right. The numbers make sense. The plan makes sense. The ambitions make sense.
And never underestimate the credibility you bring to the project. Love your art (still kicking myself that I rejoined the community just after you sold the interior back cover of 5.0), but knowing you’re handling editing chores makes me want to go up my pledge…I think I’ll do that now.
David/M’oskqorrg
Dunno how I missed the kickstarter going up 36 hours ago, but that’s been remedied.
And I wish I’d been able to reach out to you in the Bad Years. Oh well, that’s the past. I’ll just have to settle for continuing to show support now!
Liz,
I know how you feel. I have put so much of my life on hold for various things. I am not a great artist, but that was one of the few “talents” I felt I had, but I took a good 20+ years off to pursue other more “rational” pursuits. But, Tunnels & Trolls allowed me to get back into it and get published as an artist after the long sabbatical. I have also gotten back into guitar playing after selling my guitar and equipment to pay for other parts of life some 10 years ago. I do not think the world is ready for me to do anything more than pluck around with my guitar in private. Other areas people think I have been doing it for years, but I have not. Also, most people do not know I am an artist, video maker, writer, and poor guitar player. I am just glad you are back. As I’ve mentioned some where else, I love your work and it is up there with the Frazetta’s, Neal Adams’, John Buscema’s, and John Byrne’s who I respect and love also.
The prodigal daughter returns. 🙂
Quite often when you’re a fan, you assume that the person you admire is constantly told that they’re loved. And you stay quiet, and you feel foolish at the idea of telling someone so important to you, how great they are. I’d never though the result of that could be someone with so much talent being so surprised that your work is adored.
I haven’t had the pleasure of growing up with T&T, but I’ve met those that have, and I’ve seen that it’s had a profound impact on their love of gaming.
I think sometimes it’s easy to forget (especially as an artist with a mind swirling full of imagery) that not everyone looks on the world through the same eyes. Some folks only need words to picture beautiful worlds, whereas others need a spark like artwork to start their mind on that journey. The keystone of their understanding and exploration could easily be a page of beautiful art rather then the words around it.
Your artwork started visions, left openings to those that may not otherwise have found them, and gave form to the world – a world partly made of book, and partly made of the reader. You allowed people find something so special and personal through quality illustration.
Liz, I’m glad you’re discovering how much your art meant to a whole generation of gamers. I know myself and everyone in my group loved the distinctive style of classic T&T, and the “Danforth look” had a lot to so with that.
Off now to pledge entirely too much money to the project …
You people are putting me in tears. I can hardly type. You have no idea how much your words mean to me, Thank you.
Trust is the keyword for me – I have pledged even though I gave never met or corresponded with any of you guys but I have read enough to know that you will put your heart and soul into the project because you guys have a respect and a love for the fans.
T+T was my first and best RPG and opened up a whole new world for me many years ago and although I havent played in years this excites me and I cant wait to get the pen/paper and dice out again
Like everyone else I am pleased at the outpouring of support for the game , T+T never died but maybe just dosed off for a while 🙂
I am profoundly aware of the factor of trust, Mo. It is an honor, a weight, and an inspiration for me (and I believe for the others) to give it our all. Thank you.
“TnT was all about how to avoid using any rules”
I d agree, and hope ypu can bear that in mind. I d suggest lots of world back ground, and play examples.
There are a lot of rules in T&T if the intention was to use none at all — why publish any RPG when playing childhood Make Believe will do the job satisfactorily, by your assessment? (That isn’t a rhetorical question — that’s actually an option for some folk.) But basically, I cannot agree with your statement that T&T is about no rules, so perhaps you oversimplified the concept of using what works best for you and your friends, and tossing what does not.
Ultimately, the rules will be written by Ken. I am the editor and developer. I believe that he and I both envision a strong, simple structure to the core game, with rich elaborations possible. I know he is bringing in a great deal of world background.
Oh yes, it was definitely an oversimplification on my part (I yam the original poster of that statement) to represent the freewheeling games when our character literally (Don’t ask me how!) took over and Mr GM (me) couldn’t/wouldn’t stop the game to look up a specific rule. There were maybe five rules I could keep in my head (the number has since gone down) and frequently extrapolated. Or, if the character tried something especially entertaining, I ruled it worked.
Nah – I wouldn’t ever put the TnT system down. It ain’t broje, and it allows the correct level of crunch or improvisation as each situation requires.
Can I help it if my players were almost always so entertaining?
Sometimes the audience remembers there are people of flesh and blood behind the work they appreciate. 🙂
As I’ve admitted before, I missed Tunnels & Trolls the first time around. The inclusion of the original editions in this KS campaign has me especially excited!
Here’s to something I’m definitely looking forward to. 🙂 Keep up the great work, Liz!
Liz your contributions to T&T are what makes it T&T to me. I always thumb through every product that you have work in, just to admire your illustrations. Your style stands out enough that I can pick it out instantly.
With that in mind, I was thinking about miniatures and T&T. I know they have never been a part of the game per se, but they are one of the loves of my gaming life. I discovered paper miniatures recently and have wondered if you have ever considered doing paper miniatures. I think your art style is very robust , and would work well for such an item..
Dwight, I actually did the paper miniatures in the original Darksmoke, and there are others in the MSPE adventure of Stormhaven. This topic has arisen among the Fellowship, both before and after folks devoted to using miniatures asked about whether they are going to be better integrated into T&T, which has never relied on them.
I know Ken is adding some words about using minis into dT&T and, as someone who doesn’t use them much himself, I believe he is touching base with those who do, to be sure the rules do justice to the topic. That will, of course, open the doors to the possibility that some time in the future (if I can dig out from under the other work piled on my plate!), you might see what you’re asked for here. Don’t hold your breath — no promises and emphatically not any time soon! But who knows, exactly…. 🙂
No worries. It’s more of a wishlist sorta thing for me. By the way Idreen of Gy is my favorite paper mini you did. Boy I hope I spelled that right. Guess I’ll have to dig out the Isle of Darksmoke!
This is such a wonderful post! I’ve been meaning to comment on it for some time, but haven’t had the chance. Every day has been filled with new things that had to be done for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls that I haven’t had the chance to return here.
I read this a week ago and almost cried (ok fine – I DID cry when I read it) Its what I DREAMED dT&T might be for me, Ken, Bear and especially Liz. Luring her back into the fold was not something she was in a rush to do. No one knows how draining it can be to try to live up to one’s own expectations of perfection and Liz has VERY high standards that she sets for herself. Too high for regular humans – which obviously makes Liz something special indeed.
I hope all of us can hold onto that special feeling – that Fellowship we have gained from this very amazing journey. I now the results are going to be OUTSTANDING. I hope that we can all survive our turns at carrying the burden of “the Ring” We really have become a fellowship – that is not just a term we throw around for fun. I love you all and Liz, you will never know what working with you on this project means to me… There are no words to describe it. This is truly a magical time. Steve
I should note that the “November 12th deadline” came and went — not only for me, but for several other artists. Coordinating dozens of freelancers (some of whom left the business or moved on to other sorts of illustration completely) in the two decades since we were all in the Magic decks together is a challenge. Bless the socks of those herding those wet cats — better them than me!
This painting is progressing, but much of my attention has shifted to the Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls project. All I’ll say is — I’m working as hard as I can, and I think everyone will be pleased with the results in time, whether they know me for being a Magic artist or for Tunnels & Trolls or both.
Frankly, I’m overjoyed to see a fantasy or science fiction female who ISN’T huge breasted. It’s as rare as a flat-chested Wally Wood woman.
I agree with grandpache. It’s nice to see a ‘real’ woman!
I like your Archer’s expression & the focus of her eyes. I like that punk-rock look too. I didn’t know about the positioning of her arrows & bow. I thought she was getting ready to drop it and go for her sword. I can’t wait to see the cover.
Check out that video. It will change everything you think you know about combat archery.
Yeah love that archer too. At first glance a thought she might be an elf, but then I realized she has human ears. It’s really nice! More to come I’m sure!
The other thing I love about Liz’s art (besides the normally/reality proportioned body parts) is the clothing. She covers her characters realistically, complimentary, and convincingly. Love it, Liz.
What a great behind the scenes look at the evolution of a cover! I look forward to more entries as work goes forward.
Awesome! And the story you give us in introducing us adds to the intriguing nature of the image. Thank you!
Trrrommm likes the Archer
Gritty and dynamic.
Just brilliant! 🙂
Liz, thank you so much for giving us a real woman, sensibly dressed for adventure. As the father of two adventurous girls it is nice to have role models like this.
I’m eager to see the rest of the cover.
This comment warms my heart more than almost anything else said here (and I really DO appreciate the compliments from everyone). A friend and I recently discussed the role models we had growing up, in fiction and film, and how difficult it was to calibrate between who we were on the inside vs who we were expected to be on the outside. Give your girls a hug for me, would you?
Brill! Can’t wait for the next instalment.
I like the nose. Not sure why, but she just has such an expressive nose.
Looks great!
I love it when fantasy and FRP characters are depicted as real and realistic. The world just does not need any more half-naked barbarians or scantily-clad slave girls. THIS is how a ‘real’ adventurer should dress; practical, but with style and and a hint of ‘not of this world’. Great stuff and I can’t wait to see the rest.
You always bring a touch of reality with your art. Maybe less than “ideal” but authentic. With your art it is always easier to I agile myself sharing the scene
*i agile should be imagine.
All right! Enough with this soft, lovey-dovey type posts. I know – it’s my fault – I started it. Unbecoming of a Trollish Delver, wasn’t I?
To get us back into an aggressive, belching, scratching sort of T&T mood, I present from Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 6, paragraph 17, which will give us the proper caption for the (admittedly great) illustration above:
“A is for Archer, who shoots with a bow.”
Now lets go out there and BE GRUFF!!
growl, roar!!
She looks grim as hell and I love it. Almost said I would want to share a brew with her but she probably doesn’t have time for such trifles. She looks alert — farsighted both with visual acumen, and in her values and decision making.
At least that is a piece of my story for her thus far. Can’t wait to see more of your character!
Jason, I’d guess this is NOT the moment to say “Hey kiddo, wanna come share a brewski with me” but in my mind, she can relax and have a good time “back at the tavern” with the best of ’em… but only once the week’s adventures are done, and she’s been able to cash in whatever she hauled out of the hole she and her buddies have gotten themselves into…
Yeah I think I’ll wait until she’s done with her slaying. 😉
And after SHE got finished slaying us, our wives would slay us!
hahahaha!
Not being an artist at all, I still found this fascinating. Thanks, Liz.
I so love your line work. And the draping! To die for!
Fascinating post. Been busy, so only just now got around to reading it.
Spiritually, I tend to call myself “agnostic” instead of “atheist” as is the style. I think there’s the possibility of experiences beyond our five senses and beyond the ability for science to explain. But, I think it’s equally obvious that most of us have no direct contact with an external divinity. If there is a higher power, it’s beyond our understanding.
But, perhaps we get glimpses of it. Or, maybe it’s all neuroscience. To the layperson, there’s not a whole lot of difference between those two. And for the creative mind, the line between them is as fuzzy as anything you can imagine.
I hope you’ll read Hallucinations, Brian. I am certain you’ll find it as utterly fascinating as I did. And after writing/deleting several other comments to your comment, I’m going to say “Let’s get together over a drink some time and have a long discussion…” 🙂
I need to get caught up on my Oliver Sacks reading. I haven’t yet cracked the covers of his book on music.
I had two hypnogogic dreams in recent memory. One I knew what it was as it was happening, so that the vague-faced “bogeyman” I could sense in the room was annoying rather than scary. I felt kind of resentful toward my brain for making it.
The other involved a group of goofy, costumed people gadding about outside the vacation cabin where I was staying. The walls had developed wide gaps between the boards through which I could see these ren-faire rejects spraying water and whooping it up. I knew they’d go away if I could pound on the wall, but I was paralysed and unable to move my arm.
Thanks for sharing, Stefan! Yeah, he refers to the music book in this one, and that’s going on my TBR pile also.
this is a while in coming, too, and on a post so many months old, but you forgot one thing – I moved a whole family (well, just the two of us) to Phoenix just to be near you guys and T&T. 😀
And what friends you became. Remember, you and Mike were the witnesses at my wife’s ceremony for becoming an American citizen.
Finding the kickstarter and connecting back with everyone has been wonderful!
Take care Liz.
stay frosty…
-roo
aka Ashley Morton 😀
Just ran across this. This is definitely one of my favorite pieces. Love this one and I love hearing the story behind it!
Thank you, Rob! We’ll see if I have time to revisit this concept for the new edition, eh? Don’t hold your breath… I have a lot of work (art and editing and writing) that I need to do before even thinking about this … but it IS something I’ve been thinking about doing. Deadlines will probably dictate whether it happens or not. 🙂
Improve! Recover! Feel better!
Let us know what we can do to help. Feel the love from your fans/friends.
Oh gosh I had hoped you had mostly recovered. I figured we hadn’t heard from you because you were making up for lost time with T&T. You don’t know me as anything more than a fan but if I can give you a hand with ANYTHING just let me know. I am sure getting behind is driving you mad. Also if you do make it to GenCon (which I selfishly hope you do) my husband and I will both be there so if you need something (even if it’s just gophering) let me know and we’ll make sure you have access to us.
Thank you for the offer, Glenda. Right now, going to GenCon is still up in the air. This illness has really thrown all my plans in the dumper.
Be well! T&T can wait!
Just take your time; recovering is the priority here.
Been there. Pneumonia while stationed in Korea, in the middle of a mission-critical exercise. Which meant no going to sick bay, with troops depending on my branch. When maneuvers ended, I collapsed and have no memory of the following week. Took forever to get back on my feet.
You don’t want that. So obey your body now, so it doesn’t go AWOL on you. No lives are in danger if you’re late.
Except Fang the Dissectable, and he doesn’t count.
Liz! Just concentrate on getting better. I of course want my T&TD but not if it’s at the cost of you being sick for God knows how long. Your health comes first.
That sounds miserable – glad to hear you’re on the mend. Illness is a terrible thing, it not only attacks our bodies but our energy and creativity. Funny how the ephemeral stuff is so frailly rooted to our physical bodies. Wishing you the best!
I’m sending you warm thoughts of a speedy recovery, Liz. I hope you recover fully soon. I know you were being super-productive for a while before this, so it’s probably chaffing you to have to slow down. But, yeah, definitely get your rest and recover, then get ready to get back in the game fighting when you’re 100%!
As always, let me know if you need anything.
Oh, I know exactly how you have been feeling. I didn’t realize I had pneumonia until I had problems breathing- as in I couldn’t. I could stagger about 50′, stop catch a little air, and stumbled into Urgent care. Long story short: Oxygen level was at 82 and dropping, a week of IV antibiotics and oxygen treatments at home for three weeks. Hang in there Liz, my prayers are for a swift recovery.
I’m so sorry to hear. How tough! We think we’re strong, but then our bodies remind us that we’re actually pretty frail!
Take it easy Liz.
I love your use of card art to illustrate your condition!
I’m familiar with that crackly feeling in the chest, from a mild but still deeply dreary-making case of bronchitis. I managed to walk my dog and put together meals, but that was about it.
I’d rather dT&T be late than have any member of the team endanger health (or sanity) to beat a deadline.
Liz,
Have a Healing Feeling or… four. Rest and be well. As for DT&T; You are one of the primary reasons I gave to the campaign and I would be saddened, if you were to be unable to continue in your current capacity. T&T’s return to glory would be diminished, in no small way, without your insightful contributions and skillful editing.
John, that is very kind and flattering of you! I have zero intention of stepping out of the project… it means a lot to me, and to all the Fellowship, for this project to have gotten the kind of passionate support which we see. Both Ken and I believe strongly this ought to be the definitive edition of the game (although sometimes we disagree about exactly what that means!), a worthy response to the trust you all have placed in our hands. I am sorry my being sick has delayed it, but if I don’t have the focus and drive to work with the skill and creativity I expect of myself, I have to put the work to one side until I can do a proper job. All of you deserve nothing less.
I would rather have a late Deluxe T&T than one which lacked for your contributions. I bet most or all of the backers feel the same. Take your time. And take pneumonia dead seriously, it can and does kill. Though it sounds like you’re past the point where we would have lost you if we were going to.
I hope you recover soon, Liz. I wish I could offer any helpful advice except crash wherever you’re comfortable, sleep when you need to for as long as you can, and keep up on your meds while eating whenever you can. Having suffered through 5 pneumonias in 7 months in 2008/2009, I can well sympathize. I lost 15 lbs in one week on #4, not a weight loss method which I approve or endorse. When I heard you had walking pneumonia, I thought you might be able to shake it pretty soon. Very sorry to hear it went full-blown.
Keep in mind that recurrent pneumonia is having it more than once in a two year period. If that happens, talk to me and I’ll give you some more info on what to demand of your doctors.
Thank you Wayne. Rick said “walking pneumonia” in the Kickstarter update, not realizing there was a difference, I believe. I sure hope I don’t come down with anything like this EVER again, because I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.
What everyone else has been saying, Liz: your health is more important to us than getting a game book sooner rather than later. Focus on healing now. dT&T can wait, and so can we.
I know it is so frustrating to feel poorly and have so much time be unproductive, not to mention its not a lot of fun just existing. Do take the time you need and focus on getting yourself healed, please. Take care.
Liz, dT&T is only a game. You are a wonderful person and much more important. Concentrate on getting well. The rest will be there for you when you recover.
Take your time on getting better – games can be late, we’d rather you weren’t! (Late, that is.)
hiya Liz – we already chatted. Be good, get well, sending strong wellness thoughts your way.
-ashley aka roo
Sorry to hear the news, Liz. Take your time. Cheers — Pat
I hope you are continuing to feel better, you are an incredible person, and please take care of yourself. Get better soon!
Thank you! I’ve started working a bit more but still sleeping more than usual as well. I hope to update the blog this weekend too! I appreciate the kind wishes, more than you can know. 😉
My immediate answer was Friday, but after thinking a bit I settled on Monday. Although I’m pretty sure that the correct answer is “At a significantly more disruptive time.”
Glad to hear that you’re feeling better. Hopefully things will be back to “normal” soon?
Without a doubt, the one correct answer must be “At a significantly more disruptive time.” Good catch!!
Interestingly enough if Liz had said the meeting needs to be moved up two days I would have given a different answer than I did
Groobleday.
And my answer was Monday. But then I thought “Wait, forward means going forward into the future, therefore Friday. But as you say Liz, either answer is correct. Very interesting stuff. I have a huge interest in time as a concept and as a quantum force (like gravity). The current thinking on time among many physicists is that time moves in the direction it does (the arrow of time as they call it) because that’s the way the universe moved when it exploded forth. If the universe had come into being is some other manner, we might not have time at all, or cause and effect might not be linked as things mostly are in this universe.
Some theorists say that while we can travel into the future (and back to our own present) We will never be able to travel back into a past before the time we create a means to travel into the future.
A couple of years ago Stephan Hawkins had a party to welcome any and all time travelers to appear and celebrate (or at least reveal themselves) He announced all over news media and the internet to make sure the message got out. However, no one showed up for his party. So if no one in the whole past and future history of life on Earth took him up on his offer – it seems unlikely that anyone developed a means to easily travel into the past. So perhaps it can’t be done.
Just for the record, travelling ahead into the future is very possible and in fact anytime you fly on a jet you are “skipping ahead into the future by a billionth of a second or so. I guess we are all travelling through time really. We are molecules in a river that is constantly flowing downstream and there is little we can do to change that, so make the best of the time you have…
Thanks Liz for the stimulating post!
Steven S Crompton http://stevenscrompton.wordpress.com/
My immediate answer was Friday, for the reasons Steven gave. I too have a great interest in time as a concept, coming mostly from a philosophical perspective. Zeno’s Paradoxes have an interesting resolution when one considers time as a quantity on the same level as space.
For those unfamiliar with it, Zeno’s Dichotomy Paradox says that catching up to a stationary object is impossible, because first, one must get halfway there, then halfway across the remaining distance, and so on ad infinitum. However, this does not take time, and therefore velocity, into account on their own terms. If we assume a constant velocity, then the infinite sum of halves (1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 …, which has an upper limit of 1) representing the distance also represents the time taken to move that distance, so each unit of distance has its own associated unit of time. This is made concrete in the equations of Einstein’s theory of special relativity, in which time and distance are distorted by extremely high velocities; time slows down, and length and distance contract, both in the same proportions.
More interesting to me is the observation (for which I cannot find a specific source to credit) that a recent solution of the equations for general relativity and quantum theory results in time disappearing from both sets of equations. In effect, we can unify the theory of the macroscopic with the theory of the microscopic by making time a non-entity. The following link introduces an article from Scientific American that examines the idea:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-time-an-illusion
Cause and effect are also a source of consternation for me, thanks largely to the writings of David Hume. Would causality break down if time were simply a fourth dimension of space that one could move through at will? Does it even exist in the first place? If time is indeed an illusion, how do we define causality at all? By necessity, a cause must precede an effect, but only because of the “arrow of time” as mentioned by Steven. The writings of Paul Davies, particularly his book “About Time,” are a great starting point for anyone interested in this aspect of reality, whether as a science or as a matter for philosophy.
Many thanks to Liz for the interesting post, and to Steven for the fascinating thoughts on the matter.
I have always been fascinated by the physics of time, which you both are addressing in your comments. The SciAm article definitely will merit longer perusal when I can wrap my cottonball brains around it.
What’s interesting to me is that I evidently FAILED to convey the Time Warped author’s focus on the extent to which time is an internal, mental function (although no single place in the brain can be pinned down as our clock-tender), and the perception of which is highly mutable.
Time, as something to be addressed in physics, is one thing. Like quarks or neutrinos, it’s addressable (given time, I expect!).
The workings of the human mind, and the brain, fascinate me much more. What is your spatial relationship to time? Is the past on your left or the right? (Likely, if you are reading this in your native language, it’s the former iirc.) Is “soon” higher up on your computer keyboard or lower? Are weekends of a different shape than the regular workweek, and why are your most impactful memories of public events clearest from your mid-teens and your most impactful memories of personal events (barring a major lifechange) from your early 20s? Why is 1492 easy to remember, or even 1914, but the year Lennon was shot, or the year Katrina hit more difficult if you weren’t there on hand for one or the other? What month did the Boston Marathon bombing take place?
The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves do much to constitute our identity. Memory and emotion play a huge part in this, of course, and both of those alter our perception of time. Along with, I have to say, just about every other experience we can have as human beings.
And that, at the core of it, is perhaps where I went wrong at the start of this blog. The blog isn’t about TIME so much as the =perception= of time, and those highly varied perceptions have profound consequences.
To all hopeful astrophysicists and Puzzlers-of-Mental-Perceptions: It might interest you to know that Zeno’s Paradox of Motion (aka “Achilles & the Tortoise”) was solved either in the past or in the future by Ozma of Oz (“Paradox in Oz” 1999) and by Alan Scott (Green Lantern #39 1949, “the Impossible Mr Paradox”). Zeno himself was killed in battle with Captain America in Avengers #15 (1965).
Reality is for people who cannot handle fantasy.
My immediate answer was Friday, and because of the way my brain is wired, I have a difficult time accepting Monday as an appropriate answer. In fact, your answer might have been different if it had been made known to you that the statement about Wednesday’s meeting being moved forward two days was made on a Tuesday.
As for the party Steven S Crompton mentioned above that Stephen Hawking held for time travelers, why would any time travelers from the future bother to even try to go to the party when they already know from their history books that they didn’t make it? The fact that no one showed up doesn’t prove anything about time travel. Maybe Stephen Hawking’s idea wasn’t as brilliant as he thought. Or maybe he just wasn’t taking it seriously.
I’ve posted a few thoughts about time travel on my blog: http://emilahthicke.wordpress.com/
I haven’t posted there in a while, as I’ve been sick too and then when I felt better, I had other things I wanted to catch up on first. It doesn’t seem so long ago that I wrote my last post, but it’s actually been months. Regardless, maybe you’ll find some of my previous posts of interest. Hope you are feeling better soon.
I’m so happy that you are doing better; please continue to do so. You’ve given so much of yourself, it is time for the fans (especially this one) to give back in some small way (I tells ya!) Take care!
For me the ‘move forward two days’ depends on immediate frame of mind in interpreting the phrase more than time perception. Is it looking at moving it ‘forward’ on a calendar, thus to Friday? Or moved forward as opposed to the more common phrase of ‘moved back’. Moved back usually means it comes two days later, with that phrase in mind the ‘opposite’ would be ‘moved forward’=sooner.
In my case I see both the young woman and the old, so I’d ask for clarification or a specific date. I’ve also encountered another variation of this. Moving two days doesn’t mean start time ~48 hours displaced from the point of origin, it means ~72 hours, two days =between= old point and new, noninclusive.
Personally, I swim back and forth in time, but neither matters. I’m caught in a riptide. 😉
Get better soon, Liz
I went for Monday.
In an office, a meeting is “moved up” or “moved back.” “Moved forward” seemed closer to “up” than “back,” so . . .
Of course, you have to wonder about how “moved up” and “moved back” were established. If you think of time as an appointment book, where the future is toward the back or bottom of the book, it makes sense.
I have often noted that time moves irregularly for me. I put something (say, a bill that is not due for two weeks) off for “a couple of days” and suddenly I realize it is 30 days overdue. I comment on something that happened “a couple of years ago” and suddenly I add it up and realize it was 25 years ago! And when did I get to be 65? Dag nab it, just “a couple of years ago” I was only 25. 😉
Don’t disillusion me, Rikk! When I last spoke to you on the phone, you WERE 25 and I still think of you in that way!
Actually, if someone told me an important Wednesday meeting was to be “moved forward two days” I would immediately ask “is that Monday or Friday?”. No reason not to be specific. I just noticed a link to Liz that had an old address, and was confirming the correct address, and ended up reading this post again. Darn internet – you can’t do “just one thing” without being distracted. Is it Wednesday yet?)
Welcome back to the land of the living! Here’s hoping that you – and your muse – can settle here for a while.
Glad to hear you’re feeling better!
My muse pretty much took a leave of absence for ten years, and she is still prone to disappearing for a month or two at a time.
Mine was also unavailable for a decade or so, Stefan, and one of these days I’m going to blog about it. But only when I’m feeling really really pugnacious, because having her walled up was very bad in every aspect and still makes me angry at the circumstances. I’m just glad she’s back and (mostly glad) she’s trying to make up for lost time.
just put that old moose back in the bottle and toss it into the sea. thanks for visiting me blog 😀
Ever thought of tribal tattooing? I love your artwork. I wish I could afford it. 🙂 Glad you’re feeling better.
Thank you, Anem. The designs would certainly work for tribal-style tattoos but designs like this certainly aren’t proprietary to me. I’ve also seen them used for cut parchment art, which makes for very pretty wall art.
I love your drawings from MERP! I saw Middle Earth through your art as a child.
Ákos
Hungary
Thank you, Ákos! I am delighted to know my work reached someone halfway across the world from me!
Happy spirits for the season, and may you happily imbibe good spirits!
Best wishes to you too, for Christmas. I’ll cross my fingers and assume that the reddish smears on the one gazing out of the window are nothing less innocent than light/shadow effects… 😉
Ha! Cardis are often marked with “points” of color — black with tan points, black/white and brindle, or in this case merle with tan points. It’s amusing to me that I chose to make this dog a merle, since that is the only color in the available schemes that I’ve never had (nor particularly expect to). I’ve mostly had B&W with either tan or brindle points, one beloved red, and a dear rescue brindle.
and here I thought those were blood splashes from the bungling burglar than tried to come in… Hi Liz! Happy Holidays to ya and those cardis. On a more serious note – beautiful card. Your art work is always amazing. Send me some warmth from down there – it’s only 9F.
-roo
Very nice card!
I just got back from picking up my Belgian shepherd from the kennel. A friend of the owner announced that Kira will have a role in a children’s book she is writing / illustrating, thanks to her skill at climbing fences.
Happy New Year!
Always great artwork Liz! Thanks for sharing
I do love your ‘Pictures Have Stories’ and I’m *so* glad that ‘Divvy Up the Loot’ will be making an appearance in dT&T. It’s a new piece to me and it’s lovely!
It’s a new piece to everyone but Daniel (who bought it) and those who saw it up for sale at TusCon years ago. 🙂
Always great to hear about how the art got made and to actually SEE a previously unseen painting by Liz! Great post and good luck with the auction!
Fascinating to read your story, Liz. I knew your mother and dad, of course, but I didn’t know he took art classes. I remember him as a city planner, after the navy of course.
He was very much a weekend artist, painting and sculpting with plasticine clay and ceramics. I have a lot of his watercolors from Hawaii. The whole family did these things, and I have to wonder if my mom’s comment was simply that his style changed … but not necessarily for worse, just different. Certainly my work has changed over time, and in reaction to things I’ve learned or been taught.
I am SO GLAD you come read my blog, Catherine! You are someone I wish lived closer, that we could get to know each other better. 🙂
First bid is already in at $511. Thank you!
By way of comparison, here is a link to the Melee cover:
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/69374/melee
Note the “early Danforth style” of discrete figures converging on a common center (the triangular composition Liz mentions). Back in high school (yeah, I’m old), the idea of a GAME that you could carry in your back pocket and play was way cool (hey, we were Geeks before Geeks were cool). The artwork was engaging and made us want to explore this strange new world of heroic fighting fantasy. We could BE those characters from Lord of the Rings (a series of books before they were a series of movies) and slug it out.
And since not everyone knows of Melee, the counters were filled silhouettes of various heroic fantasy figures of both genders. Back then, the well accoutred Hero/Heroine wore, wait for it:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JqFgAuNzPa4/TW8hZBY2X9I/AAAAAAAABTQ/J6GAtTNDZ5I/s1600/bell%2Bbottoms.JPG
Yes, those are BELL BOTTOMS: Disco Dragon, anyone?
oh, and SUBSCRIBED 😀
Nope David, the cover of Melee you linked is NOT my artwork. 🙂
As for the awesomeness of bell bottoms… it’s been observed on many another occasion! Reason? I couldn’t draw boots and shoes particularly well! Certainly not in such small bits. And heeeey…. Steve Jackson never complained!!
Here is your array of Melee covers… http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/953991/who-was-the-artist-for-the-cover-of-melee-wizard-a
Still, the actual LD Melee cover offers a companion look to those ol’ days. And I did peg the bell bottoms 😀
I’m a sucker for sylvan scenes. What I really like about this painting is the mysterious forest pathway, leading to adventure.
If you mouse over the picture, you’ll see some of my comments about the mysteries I worked in as a conscious choice, visual threads left hanging. And yes, the path leading you into the picture was a deliberate part of that. 🙂
I’m glad you like the piece!
Oh wow, this piece had such an impact on me as a middle school age gamer. The composition is fantastic, the grotesqueness of the demon, the pathos of the dead fairy, the otherworldliness of the magic user. Not to mention all the other little details which leave you wondering about the story.
As for the scanty clothing, that you also referenced in your post on the Monsters! Monsters! cover, it needs no defence. It just looks wonderful, references baroque and renaissance art, and implies a rich fantasy world with its own culture and mores, not just a gamer’s mentality of “would this be practical or not”.
Wow, thanks! It’s such a kick for me, that people are still looking back at the older posts like this one… and reminding me of the new piece I want to do for the deluxe edition! With so much that’s gone on, it had slipped my mind. *makes-a-note*
The forest creature looks just like I imagine the magician Shimrod’s pet looks like in Jack Vance’s Lyonesse. It was a furry thing of unknown species as I recall. And the piece overall fits the mood of that series. Usually your work (to me) is all about line and space, but in this one you showed a deft eye for color.
I’m slightly embarrassed to say I never read those, and perhaps more embarrassed (but not surprised) that our local library doesn’t carry them. I have just put in for an InterLibrary Loan request though. 😉
Glad to spread the holy word of Vance! Seriously you have a treat in store for you. 🙂
The first (Suldrun’s Garden) is the best, and a truly magical novel. You’ll know after reading it whether you’d still enjoy the slight dip in quality in the latter two.
Elven Lords has received a bit of $1000. Anyone else?
Hmm. The trolls got much bigger by ‘two seconds later’, and those shadows are just showing off! 😉
*****
I think I vaguely understand where you were coming from with ‘divvy up the loot’, since I’ve done similar things with writing (though only at a very amateur level). I stare at a scene I’m ‘supposed’ to be writing blankly and don’t have a clue what to do; so I go off and write something trying to get inside what some of the characters involved are thinking, or a piece of other background material.
*****
I found it nice to discover another blog post had been made here; the prolonged absence of updates was something I was wondering about.
Writing a secondary piece to develop one’s thinking about the primary project…. I think there’s a long and treasured history of doing such things! Certainly I know I’ve done similar things in my own writing. Interesting that you make the parallel about the artwork … and yes, I agree they have a similar raison d’etre.
I do feel badly I haven’t been writing updates. I’ve never been extremely consistent about it (despite all my best intentions) but I trust you can understand why, given the pressure I feel to work on T&T without interruption. 🙂
Things I like about the cover concept (and I’m looking at both the image above and the one from the Free RPG day):
There’s a very elegant S-curve that flows throughout the composition from (starting in the lower rh corner) the dwarf’s hammer handle up through the archer’s pose to the wizard’s gestures, then to the ??? flowing up into the scene.
There’s just a hint of a troll in the background–I read this as if the adventuring party is reacting to the ???, while a bigger, badder threat looms in the background that none of them is reacting to (yet.) Which is quite clever (hope it’s enough “Troll” for the product, cuz I likes it.)
The characters are very well thought-out suggesting backstory thru visuals.
The ??? rising up out of the floor of the cavern is way-cool, and she oozes menace.
What I wish was stronger:
A more urgent and forceful sense of action and tension throughout the scene as conveyed by the characters and their poses.
For example, the caster’s clothes are billowing, denoting action, but his hands could be posed in a more forceful gesture than the one in the sketch. Also, it would help if he was leaning *into* the action rather than away from it.
The archer is probably the most dynamic of the three–but even there it would be cool to see her right arm up, elbow in the air, caught in the midst of drawing an arrow from her quiver. (That gesture would play perfectly into the aforementioned s-curve.)
The dwarf…he has a lot of character, and while I’m glad that he doesn’t have the stereotypical mega-blade axe…it’s just not shouting “ACTION!” to me. More of a forward crouch/half turning posture as reacts to what’s going on? And, for the most prominent face on the cover, the expression is very, very neutral. Maybe something more expressive (a scowl, a war-cry, a “what the hell is it now, firk-ding-blast it?!!)
Thank you for the thoughtful response to the sketch, Steve. I must clarify/disagree on some points, but I hope not in an argumentative aspect.
I prefer to paint that moment of anticipation before action really explodes, even in an action picture. Consider the difference between the all-out action of the 7e cover of T&T and the “it’s started but about to get much, much worse” of 5e. It’s one of the things about the 7e cover I don’t really care for … in media res is great for writing, but visually, I prefer the dynamic tension of unrealized action fraught with anticipation.
That S-curve you refer to is interesting to me… I see your point, but my eye makes a Q-shape (my fall-back from years of looking at Art Nouveau compositions). There is also a hard-edged left-facing carat (think CAP-comma on your keyboard) built entirely of light flow, which I intend to augment. Those are the elements of action as much as whether the characters are jumping up and down like monkeys!
The caster is leaning away because he’d probably like to be RUNNING away! At the very least, he is rocked back on his heels. His spell is not a TTYF (which would be too repetitive to previous covers) but presumably some kind of protective shield or warding. (I haven’t decided exactly how to handle it yet.) He’s the only one who has gotten a good look at things. And that’s why the dwarf’s face is so bland… he knows something is up, but has absolutely no idea what, yet. If you look closely at the sketch (what you can see of it) his lip is curled and he’s got a ferocious scowl starting up, but his “action” is at least a full second into the future. More to the point — while being full-face-on, he is probably going to be the LEAST eye-catching face in the painting, something you can tell by the extent to which he falls in darkness.
As for the archer, I refer you to http://www.lizdanforth.com/2013/01/the-archer-deluxe-tt/ She is the anchor of this painting, the main character facing the threat. Both dwarf and mage will fall back with atmospheric perspective.
And the “bigger badder threat” overshadowing the ??? … tsk tsk. No comment there, except to say “don’t make more assumptions than the data can justify.” LOL
Liz, thank you very much for your reply. As a fellow artist I love to get a glimpse into the process and the thoughts behind the art we see.
Oh Liz, trying to class up the joint and taking the high road with your art?
It’ll all end in tears, tears I say…
😉
Neither more nor less than in years gone by! The difference is that now I have the context to try and explain what I’m doing!
As for tears… my brushes are cleaned with tears and blood. Trust me on that! (You can decide if they are mine or that of others LOL).
I’m glad you enjoyed that, David. I have definite ideas of how the cover will look, in the end. The dT&T project is crowdsourced, fan-driven, and collaborative in execution, but this painting is not. (On matters like this, I barely cooperate with my titular art director, Steve Crompton!).
I truly have no objection to a critique of the work and “It doesn’t have enough action” is a complaint I’ve heard out before now. I have enough years and experience to say “No, sorry, too bad; this is the way it’s going to be.” I’d also suggest, in that respect, people should go look at book covers of action adventure and sf/f books presently on the market. Even the decades-old Conan covers by Frazetta often have a dynamic stillness (Deathdealer, anyone??) more often than the red cloak ape. There are good artistic reasons for that.
Showing “work in progress” is not something I do readily. It’s much easier to have this kind of discussion after the fact, when everyone can see the end result.
I’m happy to hear about the successful conclusion of your auction. Well done.
Congrats to the winners. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to participate in this one.
Yay feeding the pets!
You have been a generous supporter at other times, Ellon, and I understand very well how fortunes ebb and flow in one’s life. I hope you see brighter days soon!
Liz,
Having recently purchased two pieces of art from you (for a well-regarded, but defunct CCG), I can comment on the buyer’s end, albeit for pieces other than what was auctioned here. For me, the art helps establish a deeper connection with the game or setting. One featured an iconic character central to the narrative arc. It shows him just at the cusp of manhood – still innocent, but knowing dark times are ahead. I also appreciated the authenticity of the southwestern landscape that Liz clearly knows and loves. The other piece was for a spell card that had the game effect of removing a deed or property from the game. Liz’s art really brought the theme and effect to life. Looking at the art reminds me of those times where I used the card to swing/change the game. Whether RPG, CCGs, tabletops, miniatures, the best gaming moments are about creating and sharing memories. Good art helps set the stage for those special game moments. Thanks Liz, for helping create those special memories 😀
Are any of your old pen drawings for sale?In particular the old middle-earth ones
Lots and lots of them, yes! I should put up an auction of those. I’ve sold quite a few recently, but there are many more. Subscribe to the blog and I’ll let everyone know as soon as I have a reasonable way to present a good selection!
Y’know, once DT&T hits the streets, it might be a good time to hit some cons (Archon in St. Louis has an “artist’s alley” for selling autographed reprints, posters and such.) Your work seems like it would lend itself to selling hand-colored copies.
I used to do a lot of cons, and many have artist shows and art alleys alike. I hope I can do some cons after dT&T is off my plate!
You are the best.
🙂
There’s some half-levity-ish, half-serious-ish talk of a T&T COLORING BOOK on the Inner Sanctum. If I can figure out a way to fund it, there’d be a need for lots of simple B&W line art of adventurers and monsters.
Haa!! I’d love to participate but ALL my available attention is on getting the darn rules out, Stefan. Already-existing work — maybe!? Nothing new until this monster is vanquished.
Oh, gosh . . . the coloring book idea is somewhere between a whim and idle speculation. It will be many months before it gels. If ever!
Looking at this I wondered for a moment how artists in previous ages could have survived; but of course they had uber-wealthy patrons. Michelangelo and Leonardo had the Medicis; or in a later era, on the musical front, Tchaikovsky had a wealthy widow. In the old days, politicians and the wealthy sponsored living artists; now they fight over the works of dead ones…
Fascinating blog post Liz! I really had no idea how many cards you had painted for various cards games nor was I aware of the variety of techniques for you used to create backgrounds and textures. I find out something new about you every time I get in touch with you.
One never knows what piece of art you do that gets the most notice. And its often not related to how much time or effort was put into said piece. R.Crumb did a quick drawing of Mr’ Natural that made him over half a million dollars and he’d drawn highly detailed portraits of Jazz musicians from the 1920’s that he loved, but few people were even interested in. Most times an artist has no idea that a piece of art will become iconic – that often happens years later.
Liz has created an iconic Magic card and that’s an achievement not to be overlooked. Few artists ever get that strike of lightening that combines great art, notoriety and iconic status. Good luck with the auction – I’m sure many of us will be looking forward to seeing the eBay listing for it!
Just for the record, I happen to *love* your most ghastly images. 🙂
I like them, but for some odd reason, they don’t seem to be quite as “popular” as some! But I am grateful for the ghastly image that led us to find ourselves introduced to one another so many years ago… 🙂
Said ghastly image has occupied a place of honor on my office wall since I received it. 🙂
I just want to say that Scott has brokered original CCG artwork sales between myself and another well-known CCG artist. I have found Scott to be completely professional and ‘artist first’ – Scott ONLY takes reimbursement for postage, fees (e.g. eBay listing/selling fees). All other non-fee monies go directly to the artist.
I am DELIGHTED that Scott is brokering the sale of this iconic piece on Liz’s behalf. Likewise, I encourage Liz’s fans (and fans of original M:TG art) to bid with full confidence.
DISCLAIMER: I am not affiliated with either Scott Mosser or Liz Danforth, other than being a satisfied buyer.
We will be watching for it Liz and would live to give it a good home to go with our others!
I would be delighted to know it went to someone who appreciates my work so much!
nice post Liz.
I’m always fascinated by your posts sharing how a piece of art came into being. The whole process is just as much aa mystery to me as how people are able to draw ANYTHING! At all! Ever!
Another appreciation for the backstory.
A few months ago I found, during one of my early-morning dog walks, a big pile of discarded M:TG cards. They were next to what I euphamistically call a “deep discount moving sale” box . . . a pile of items left by a dumpster, by someone moving away.
I spent hours sorting out the cards into neat piles*, and admiring the art, but didn’t think to check if any of the paintings were by you!
*Gave them to a co-worker who plays the game.
S’okay, Stefan. I recognized decades ago that people who know me in one venue have no idea what I do in other venues where I am equally well-recognized (or UN-recognized) but for something else. If I had dedicated myself to Just One Thing, I might’ve had more impact. But I would also have not had nearly as much fun living my life…
Liz – I’m putting the link to you ebay listing here as it is a bit hard to find…
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hymn-to-Tourach-Original-art-by-Liz-Danforth-Magic-the-Garthering-Fallen-Empires-/201220750009
Thank you for this, Steve. 🙂
Great article. I get the feeling today’s Diablo III / WoW Magic art just doesn’t have this kind of creative energy in each piece, nor the creative license to let the artist express themselves. I’d maybe argue that Merchant Scroll (while way more of a literal piece) is also one of your most recognizable works (and I’m fortunate to have a signed one!).
Less than 12 hours to go… Scott has offered to let international collectors contact him directly if they wish to bid, but it must be done promptly.
While it’s at $5200 right now, I expect there will be a flurry of activity at the last hour or even last few minutes. This should be interesting!
Your drawing ability is really amazing. Thanks for inspiring me!
One of the most comforting and scary things I’ve read. Thank you for the link to the Spoon Theory. Saved, linked, and printed Ms Miserandino’s article and shall attempt to use it if anyone in my family really wants to know how living in a shutting-down body works. (I blunked out Chines’ explanation when he decided to start using obscenities. Why add to my depression?)
Wonder how it will work with people who love to be “one up”?
Congratulations on your accomplishments! You seem to feel you’re mainly just enduring, but to me – it appears you’re succeeding. And succeeding very, very well.
Hang in there! You’re an example to me now, and I need my Alan Swanns as large as I can get. (Lousy grammar, but I’m either quoting or paraphrasing.)
*jeep! and God Bless!
—-Grandpa Tzhett
I’m glad you made it out of the caverns and have some time to breath deep and regroup!
Ah yes, that nagging feeling that maybe you ought (if you had the time) to be *writing* something (in your case a blog) for what readers/followers you have, but you never quite seems to have the resources spare which you need… 😀
Realize this: when I do write something, it means I think you are collectively worth the spoons I have put to use for you here.
Good luck Liz! Love those pieces you put int the post. I hope the Convention brings you everything you are looking for. Sounds exciting and a little bit daunting!
I’ve always wanted to go to Illuxcon. I’m slightly jealous. Have a great time!
Your art is still really beautiful, . . . .since “Monsters Monsters”, when I was 15, . . . 16, . . .?
A most fond – SALUTE !
Thanks for the update, Liz. You know, or maybe you don’t, my sister is the Elizabeth in our family and my daughter is also Elizabeth. Both are called Beth, unlike you with Liz. But son Sam is the artist. You met him one year, I think. I’ll forward him your post. Sorry to hear about your pain; our bodies do wear out. Good luck with your plan for writing! Have you ever looked at my memoir Nigeria Revisited My Life and Loves Abroad?
No, Catherine, I did not know all of this! Too many of our extended family keep to themselves, and sometimes I only hear of things long after I think I should have. Would you do me a favor and drop me a line? I would love to ask you some questions. My address is on the Contact Me page… http://www.lizdanforth.com/about/.
And I am definitely going to pick up your memoir. 🙂
Hey Liz. Glad Illuxcon was such a hit! I’d love to go someday – maybe one summer when I’m actually employed, and my family isn’t busy doing ultra-important things like increasing in number 🙂
Those AP paintings look amazing! It’s hard to believe that you crammed so much detail into such a small space.
Knick, that “increasing family size” understandably comes first! But yes… IXcon is pretty damn amazing, and my words are a vast understatement. It took me several years to get there, and I’m sure you’ll be as delighted as I was, once you put it all together. At least it’s held in your end of the country!
Glad you found renewed inspiration and sorry to hear about your pain and hope its eradication goes smoothly. FYI we bought a home 200 miles away last summer and moved from St. Louis back to our hometown, Springfield, MO. Your painting made a move from my office at the old location to a new one above the mantel of our fireplace in our living room. Now we not only see it daily, but everyone who comes here, including those attending our regular get togethers and parties, and I of course tell them all the story behind it. We joke at times that it is a family portrait, but the question is whether the furry fellow stepping out from behind the rock is my son emerging from his “man cave” (he is a bit of an artist himself, and draws in there regularly), or me stepping forth from my office. He is pointing the way to our home for our guests, and it is fitting that they are in a forest, as we are very near a lake and woods, and often see families of deer and raccoons in neighboring yards. Thank you again for this!
Bill, I cannot tell you how happy I was to read this. The Elven Lords painting hung for many years, where it was front and center for me to see. It’s honestly pretty damn cool to hear that it is still providing that kind of pleasure in a new home. As for a family portrait? Hm, I am not sure I’d want to know who the cloaked guy is. He always seemed to vibrate between being a bodyguard and a danger to the main figure. Even I was never quite sure about that (and the ambiguity was deliberate but unsettling in its own right.)
Hi Liz,
Thanks for the post – I found it an inspiring and entirely sympathetic read. Glad to hear Illuxcon was a success, and sorry to hear about your pain – I hope you get it under control with all speed (I’m a fellow Fighter With Food, BTW 🙂 ).
I was excited to hear about your fiction writing and especially about your plan to paint “The Summoner”. Your art has been very dear to me ever since my first foray into RPGs, and I love the Summoner, and also the “Summoner Sorceress on the Sand” (I don’t know what it’s actually called) and the front cover of the orange-cover T&T 5th edition – beautifully evocative pieces. Your inks have a magical quality, almost to the extent that I sometimes think having them in colour would be distracting! Very much looking forward to seeing your future work (and Darksmoke is also intriguing me!).
Love and chaos,
Sarah
Thank you, Sarah — you’re a wonder in your own right! I appreciate your comment here.
“Planning” to paint The Summoner may be an overstatement at this stage: more like an intense desire to figure out how to make time to do it, and to make the changes necessary to be able to.
If the “Sorceress on the Sand” is p146 in dT&T, that isn’t mine to abduct into paint. 🙂 That is one of Rob Carver’s wonderful and weird pieces. And yes, it’s always been a cool pic to me too.
The thing about putting my linework into color is that I’ve already worked out so many of the issues with the piece, that making it a painting is starting halfway up the mountain, as it were. There is always far more to be worked out than “just” color — I have a certain minimalism of backgrounds, among other things — so it is both helpful and inspiring to start with something I enjoyed the first time, and get to revisit.
On the other hand, I have one old ink that I started painting (years ago) into oils. That is a medium I rarely use. But I quit partway through simply because I had a failure of courage: it was turning out so well, I was afraid I might ruin it trying too hard — I wouldn’t be able to finish it satisfactorily. I might blog about that piece someday… I might even revisit it and see if I could finish it now, with a few more years and a revivified confidence under my belt.
Hi Liz, I wish you a happy new year! I would like to hear more from you about Star Wars 😉 I have a complicated history with it myself, and right now I’m delving into it again, reading old comics and discovering other aspects of it. I like the Al Williamson art and feel of the old comics and his pulpy fungus-worlds. And the new movie really appreciates the many layers of the phenomenon Star Wars for the first time. It could be more daring aesthetically, slower sometimes. But it is in the spirit – really and in a good way – of Star Wars, and here mostly of Episode 4. That are my (yet) untested first thoughts about it 😉 Have a nice day.
The thing about me and Star Wars is that it is not really about Star Wars. Star Wars is the substitute icon for a whole crapload of shit that stopped my life cold for most of a decade. That I *LET* stop me cold; I resent that most of all (although not all of it was within my control or even my ability to influence.) So trying to discuss Star Wars meaningfully and with context would require that I write an entire life memoir. Despite my cousin’s excellent example, I am not planning to do that any time soon.
Well, I found your link with Carrie’s Interview very good, your other links are still open in Tabs 😉 Overall it was a great post, your Middle Earth Nazgul image alone is fantastic again (I didn’t knew it) and it’s great to see your art coming up and surprising me. And Neil Gaiman’s quote found its way to a private sharing on facebook. It’s true for me for most parts of 2015 or at least thats my take right now. 2015 was a very strange year, especially for us germans. You see many refugees on the streets here in germany, they are celebrating with the new year with us, there are many dark sides we germans must face right now and some of us did surprisingly well. I am hopeful.
The fellow who bought the Nazgul paintings is one of your countrymen, in fact. We have had some of those wonderful conversations, and he also expressed some of your concerns about how the country is coping. From across the pond, I’d say I am encouraged overall.
2015 was an amazing year. 2014 was pretty cool, in the end – if I were going to measure happiness, I’d say that 2014 was the year that had the greatest delta between the beginning and the end – but 2015 saw the fruition of the dream barely begun in 2014. We definitely ticked all of Gaiman’s boxen in 2015. Hopefully in 2016 I’ll be able to figure out how it all works as we start the next big adventure!
I love that Devouring Deep, and fully painted backs should be in the three-digit range. I did some chicken farming a couple years back, and the farmer who ran the impromptu instruction sessions reminded us “If you’re going to sell eggs, don’t do it for less than $4 a dozen. You’re not doing anybody any favors by asking less.” The local economy is a real thing that we don’t completely understand, and it applies as much to art as it does to chickens.
I’m glad to get this new info about you. I find it fascinating how our lives go in directions we never imagined. I can’t even remembered what I imagined, but here I am!
I agree that we often cannot imagine, much less predict, where our lives will take us. The future has such wonders and challenges (both!), that I believe one must be ready to reinvent oneself, or adjust the sails, when dealing with the new world that is every dawn. I also think if one takes the time to know your own core, and then be true to oneself — this is what saves you from being blown about willynilly. I’ve been blown off course more than once, but have generally managed to return to my purpose and delight — sometimes from a whole new direction.
Love this! I recall, all too well, the first time I used the term , “mid-career”. It freaked me out.
As artists, we are all on the Journey!
Excellent, Liz. Your story certainly should be better known. IMHO, you have added class and beauty to every project you ever worked on.
I’d forgotten the MELEE cover! I have most of my old Metagaming material, but I’d lost that first edition of MELEE.
I recall a few pieces you did for FGU’s Space Opera books.
* * *
Funny: I “got into” computers to get into computer game design, but never, ever managed to make a contribution to that industry. (Other than editing a manual?)
Looking forward to more of this!
Ghawds yes! I’d forgotten those books (and some fantasy ones too). I honestly liked working for FGU because Scotty was usually were VERY open to letting me chose what to draw, what sizes, and so on. Lots of creative freedom. Not all companies worked (or work) that way.
I keep thinking of other companies I did work for too, that didn’t get mentioned. Hero Games and Justice Inc, for example. How could I forget those!?
Wow. I recall being captivated by your artwork in T&T. In an era when packaging was done by ziplock and artwork was… let’s say, eclectic, the beautiful Liz Danforth work really stood out as dynamic, expressive and exciting. Thanks for the retrospective!
More than recall, I am presently looking at T&T’s “Buffalo Castle” and marveling at the exquisite “danforth79” artwork that enlivens and adorns nearly every page (including the cover). Such a legacy! I still marvel at how I continue to be the proud owner of thoughtfully whimsical pieces by such a thunderous talent.
What a treat to see some of the work you’ve done outside of T&T and other stuff I’m familiar with. Mosaics, ceramics, that gorgeous T-Shirt design–and all the writing and editing! Truly impressive, Ms. Danforth.
I have two excellent pieces of your artwork hanging over my desk here at home. One shows an elven woman healing another woman while two male figures watch, and the other is obviously from Traveler showing how a ship crew passes the time during long flights by playing games. (IF you look closely, the game map shows they are playing Traveler.)
Having been peripherally aware of the breadth, I’m still surprised by a good bit of this. Then again, being an avid Traveller fan, I’ve often noted that no list of Traveller illustrators is complete without Liz Danforth.
Also being a T&T fan, it’s clear that the successes of T&T 5 and Deluxe are, in no small part, due to Liz Danforth, Editor. Liz, who translates Ken-speak into English. Liz, who reorders Ken-ramble into coherent chunks. (Ken’s great – but – he’s greater still when supported by Liz’s editing.)
I was aware of work on Crusaders, but not what other games.
I knew of art in TSR and Shadowrun. And in MTG.
Liz, there’s a word just for people like you: Polymath.
I admit that I like that word, but I also suspect there are more multi-talented people out there than are recognized as such. My purpose in doing so many things was to keep challenging and entertaining myself, and to keep a roof over my head (pretty much in that order… the roof part is occasionally iffy, as a result!)
Very much enjoyed your artwork in the “City of Terrors” T&T module and enjoyed actually meeting you once at Westercon (I think it was ’91 or ’92). I don’t recall too much of the conversation, except for your use of the term “umpty-squillion”, which I’d never heard before (and haven’t heard in conversation since), and that you were pretty gracious to a gamer/semi-artistic wannabe. All the best — Richard
Thank you so much for the memory of Westercon and umpty-squillion! I think I have to get that back into my vocabularial rotation. >.< I'm glad I wasn't a jerk and that the meeting was a good one.
I think this is great, great news and I wish you all the best success and happiness! Go (Dan)forth and CREATE!
I’ll tweet and post about this news in the usual suspect places!
I really need to think hard about what paying creative work I can/should do in my (still a year or two off) soft retirement. Writing? Game stuff? The day to day grind of office work makes even thinking about that difficult.
I haven’t felt a compulsion to do grown-up* coloring books myself, but the phenomena is interesting, and I only-half-joked about a Tunnels & Trolls coloring book a year or two ago. One with pencil mazes that double as adventure maps . . .
* “Adult coloring books” sounds like something that would mostly call for flesh-tones.
You’re not the first to make that observation, Stefan. And there are some which are exactly that (as I understand it #notthatIwouldknow).
[Insert Octavia Butler reference]
Since the most Crompton of blogs can’t read my response, I shall post it here, by way of wishing That Danforth Lady all her well-deserved success:
Let’s go crazy and predict the Mystery Player is Steven Spielberg and that we’ll soon see the New Adventures of Old Indiana Jones on Trollworld (“TRAPPED in a world he NEVER MADE, without his guns, without Nazis, and without bacon!”) coming to a theater near us.
Or maybe not.
Um, maybe not. 🙂
… and I was sooo looking forward to your storyboards or costume designs. (sigh)
I *love* ‘stories behind the art’ and seeing preliminary concept/sketch work and following the process from idea to finished piece/artwork. MORE PLEASE!
I love telling these stories, David. When I was AGoH at NASFiC about 10 years ago, my guest of honor speech was a slideshow of paintings and the photographs and/or elements that I used in the making of the pieces. Sometimes it would be a ceramic jug from a snapshot I grabbed at a restaurant in Spain, or the seven eyes on a monstrous beast painted on the roof of a medieval chapel, or a bored bear at the zoo playing with a stick, or the casual tiredness of a Rennie and the shadows of her shawl at the end of a long day.
I felt a little like I was showing people how I was cheating, or running the risk of explaining how a magic trick was done, but it was well-received. And I’d like to talk about all of these and more.
Unlike magic or mentalism, knowing the “how” doesn’t spoil our appreciation of such visual art. If anything, it helps us appreciate it more because so much of it is learned skills, the basis is raw talent and a unique way of seeing reality.
Your talent and interests are so different from mine.but a little like our son Sam’s. I believe you and he met at a conference many years ago! Hard for me to imagine how you create such amazing pieces. I admire what you do. I had to set myself a schedule of blogging every 4 days, and I’ve managed to stick to it. Never easy, but I collect bits and pieces on the days in between so I’m partway there when the 4th day rolls around!
The consistency of your post schedules has been remarkable, Catherine, and I’ve very much taken it as an inspiration and a goad. I don’t aspire to posting that often because I have too many other things I want to create (including written things) and we will only write so many words in our lifetimes. But working alone, I also value the sense of connection and community I take from being able to share part of my life here. We’ll see if I can maintain twice a month; that would be “often” in my book.
I wish I could say I remember meeting Sam, although I suspect I know when it might have been: Origins convention, many years ago, when a number of cousins I remember as “some of the Zastrows” came to the show to meet up. I felt shy and a bit overwhelmed because I didn’t know what all the connections were. One of the things I admired most from reading your autobiography (and powerfully felt the lack of in my own life) was the sense of connection to one’s kin of blood and bond. I’d love to connect up again with him and with you sometime, and for now I’m grateful we can keep in touch via our respective blogs!
So where’s the “like” button. Or better yet, the “like a lot” button! 😉
Taking time to say these few words, Rick, is the best “like a lot” button you could have tapped! Thanks! 🙂
Change is scary, especially when it has the potential for impacting the financial bottom line. But it’s also good, as I guess you’re discovering. I’m very much looking forward to seeing what develops, and wish you all the luck in the world. (BTW, I love the idea of behind-the-scenes posts, process posts, etc. Those are always interesting!)
I want it I want it Wannit Wannit wannit!!!
What a great coup!
I was preparing to self-publish two solitaire adventures. I still may produce printable versions, but now I’ll have a way to electronically publish.
Watch the skies.
Excellent news!
You are going to be so amazed… and I hope, pleased.
Great blog post Liz and YES these are truly exciting times. Stay tuned…
Hi Liz! Quoting the post is fine with me, I don’t make my posts public cause I’m shy.
I did learn eventually that the Eldritch Wizardry artist was a woman, so it’s not a perfect comparison. Maybe “art-directed by a woman” would be more technically correct. But the comparison is striking nonetheless.
It sounds wonderful, Liz. So far beyond anything I know or could understand. But I’m glad you do! Yes, you have to plan for getting around. Tough. I’ve had both knees replaced and recovered well, but not everyone does. Now I can walk easily.
The doc wants to replace the knee and the insurance company thinks otherwise. I’m not pushing it because (a) I have no one to help at home while recovering; and (b) my ankle is not going to “fix” as easily as a knee, so I’m still going to be half-lame. I’ve been told by folks in the medical field that ankle replacement technology isn’t up to snuff yet.
But really, (a) above is the real showstopper. I’m just forging on as well as I can for as long as I can, and hoping for the best.
Deep and thoughtful words Liz. I hope that 2017 will be a better one for you than 2016. I know that I may lose a number of things next year and I dread that happening. All we can do is try to trudge forward and make the most of it. Thank you for all you have done and all that you have yet to do. You are a great artist and as you hinted at above, art can often come with a price that many don’t see or aren’t aware of.
Be well and know that many of us send good thoughts your way!
Well-considered and well-written, my friend. May 2017 bring us all what we need, in spite of those who will oppose us.
I am so pleased that you have a Patreon page.
Still laughing (ruefully) over, “necessity, you mother.”
Thanks for asking, Liz, or — better said — for giving us this opportunity.
❤️
Good news! Will get word out.
I am waiting on my first paycheck of 2017 to see what my discretionary budget is like. I actually have a budget line for “Patreon!” and you’re first in if I can bump it up.
(Or I might drop a podcast creator who produced one episode last year . . .)
I consider myself both luv’d and test’d then! Huzzah!
I am tickled pink you are involved in this project, Liz. I must admit I wasn’t interested in this project until I heard that. Have a safe trip and a great time at GenCon.
Been involved from the get-go, Cameron! And happily … doing new art hand over fist, watching the project develop and weighing in where I’ve had anything useful to add to the conversation. The MetaArcade crew are led by a serious fan of T&T (David Reid) who simultaneously wields considerable experience, credentials, and know-how from the big time AAA games he’s worked on in the past. I think everyone involved feels lucky to have been able to work with the other members of the partnership, and it’s pretty awesome. 🙂
Great update! I hope you document & photograph the MetaArcade rollout.
Charging for signatures seems totally fair given the collectible nature of cards.
I hope procedures & rehab go well & swiftly. I got whacked by a bulging disk/sciatica thing ten years back; a first nasty “falling apart” shock, fortunately addressable by ongoing therapy but YOW, are airplane flights unpleasant.
I’m betting I will be Ms Redundant of Camp Redundancy were I to try to document the MetaArcade rollout! Moreover, they’re coming into the show a day before I am (I’m arriving very last-minute) so I’d say watch their social media for the latest and greatest.
I resisted charging to sign cards until I saw how pretty much every artist on the circuit had moved to that model. I would be leaving money on the table and cutting my own throat, when fans and players have come to expect it as the new normal, for better or worse.
I broke my left ankle in my twenties while fencing (saber) and spent the next 30 years as a runner pounding the scar tissue into an arthritic mass. A handful of years ago, I tore the meniscus on my right knee, and that exacerbated my already-wonky gait until now, running is out of the question and even walking has grown difficult over the last few years. Aggressive exercise is the only thing that ever kept my weight within normal bounds, and the fact I can’t exercise it off is contributing to the laundry list of problems. Gettin’ old is a *** except for the alternative.
All the best, Liz. Have fun at Gen Con. I wish I could come and have a chat with you. Maybe one day. 🙂
I hope so too! With luck, I might find myself on that side of the ocean one of these days, so perhaps it wouldn’t be such a long trek for you too.
Thanks, Liz! I love the “frangled” design, but I couldn’t see an implied narrative. Can you enlighten me?
It certainly IS rather abstracted, but the presence of an actual figurative element (the skeleton in this case) is unusual in my frangles — and it is the primary clue that this one is a little different.
My intent/read of the piece begins with the orange circle as a sun with white corona, the leaf-like designs suggest fecund earth, the dark-on-dark design as the reaches of distant space. The relatively harsh square of black and red on grey can be read as a human-made construct like a building, or as a Two Grey Hills blanket covering the grave where the skeleton lies under the earth, which is layered with the pebble-designs and the yellow loess. The hearts are for the beloved dead.
As I said on my Patreon (where there is more discussion of this piece), this one came about organically and unintentionally. I am NOT, by habit or nature, this pretentious or precious or “Ahhrtsy”! But once I saw the image taking shape, I ran with it. And without trying to be pretentious about it having “great deeper meaning”, I think it worked out quite well and rather accidentally took on a somewhat deeper meaning than I expected.
I have the colored pencil versions of Merien and Lierra. In fact, I have an entire wall of your pen and ink pieces. You are still the best in that form.
Thank you for such kind words!! I haven’t done the colored pencil pieces in quite a few years, or at least not many. (A few, recently, in their postcard format.) I’m glad my artwork has made you happy. Thank you!
el día de la muerte vive 🙂
-ashley
PS – love the bridal skeleton!
Enjoyed your Retrospective, Liz! Thank you!
Fascinating stuff, Liz. A life of art, achievement, and adventure then? More so than most of us manage in our lifetimes, at least, and much more to come I hope! Best wishes for a happy and successful 2019 🙂
Hiya Liz. Glad you made it.
Thanks. 🙂 So am I.
Hi, I was wondering if you have any copies of Soldevi Excavations artist prints available? I have some friends going to the scg dallas to get my reg copy signed, but I’d love an artist proof if available. I’d be there myself but going thru some major health issues so can’t make it
Hi Carlos — Yes, I still have quite a few artist proofs available at this time, Soldevi Excavations among them. I plan to bring an assortment of APs with me, and can put one aside in your name. Just have your friends talk to me there. I’m sorry your health keeps you from attending.
I really loved Imp Possible Situations when I first read it in Mages Blood etc, and always enjoyed your art, especially in the various editions of T&T. Glad you are still around and staying busy!
Thank you so much! I am definitely still around, still staying VERY busy. The website here is a bit out of date [massive understatement] but I am hoping to get it much revised later this year. Appreciate your kind words very much.
Any relation to the Johnstown, NY Danforth’s?
If the Johnstown NY Danforths go back to one of the early Danforths in the US — Rev. Samuel Danforth (M. A., of Roxbury, second son of Nicholas Danforth, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was born in Framlingham, in the County of Suffolk, in England, in September, 1626), then yes. 🙂 My dad and another person of my close acquaintanceship have been ardent genealogists. There are a lot of us here.