Nostalgia!

[grant]

Glad I was able to make you guys remember the good days.

[Cubs]

You just know I've got to buy myself some Rotrings now. The 'standard' spread I think - 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5.

[grant]

You just know I've got to buy myself some Rotrings now. The 'standard' spread I think - 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5.

 

[Spooktalker]

What a great collection. I don't actually have my D&D books any more but a friend still has kept them (and his own) along with hundreds of my 70's & 80'S figures safe and sound. I guess we'll have to break them out one day and go through them.  

Me too. I used them for years after my school years and I still have them stashed away in a box in the garage. I love the feel of them and the way they work.

LOL. With our group you just weren't 'at' the table if you didn't have a technical pen...

Thanks for the nostalgia hit.  

As the son of an architect in a time when the industry was reluctantly moving toward CAD I had quite a nice collection of hand-me-downs, and one or two new ones amongst them. They are wonderful but I think I came to them too early, and would have been better off starting with something that allows for a faster, looser, more expressive drawing technique. Say a sharpie. But I was a snob and aped Ian Miller's style... relentless fastidious crosshatching was the order of the day. They are dry now, but I should fire up the sonic bath and then go for one of those rounds of cleaning and assembling. Yup, nostalgia for sure..... love that capillary action    

[FramFramson]

I could never draw on a tablet... Up until I gave up art, I was always scanning & cleaning pencil drawings and then colouring them in in photoshop.

[Doomsdave]

I still have my old copy of The Tolkien Bestiary with all the Ian Miller ink drawings. I forgot about it until now.  He really illustrated a "different" fantasy altogether. 

[Momotaro]

My dad was a draughtsman, so I had tons of Rotring pens as well.  I was never much of an artist - drawing meticulous maps in the Tolkien style was my thing.  For my first ever D&D campaign, I did about two dozen hex maps, of which only one was ever used by the PCs.  After that, it was isometric "Elite" style starships for a while.

When my dad finally retired about 10 years ago, I inherited a pile of unused pens - still got them, waiting for a roleplaying campaign that needs some hand-drawn maps...

Not to mention his stencils and Letraset!

I probably became a geologist just to hand-draw field maps and crystallographic diagrams.  Well, that and any excuse to climb hills and bivvy out like a tramp

[Gibby]

My dad was a draughtsman, so I had tons of Rotring pens as well.  I was never much of an artist - drawing meticulous maps in the Tolkien style was my thing.  For my first ever D&D campaign, I did about two dozen hex maps, of which only one was ever used by the PCs.  After that, it was isometric "Elite" style starships for a while.

When my dad finally retired about 10 years ago, I inherited a pile of unused pens - still got them, waiting for a roleplaying campaign that needs some hand-drawn maps...

Get one sorted, then :-D

[Spooktalker]

I could never draw on a tablet... Up until I gave up art, I was always scanning & cleaning pencil drawings and then colouring them in in photoshop.

I adopted a bit of a strange style that worked with the wacom tablet. It was all wobbly lines. If you use flash it cleans up your line work beautifully though. Takes a while to make the brain connect the hand with whats happening on the screen as well.

When I animated I used puppetmation as well which avoided the lines boiling due to the wobbles.

The new generation of i-pad style tablets let you draw right on the screen. THAT is going to be awesome.

I've had a wacom tablet for many years but have only recently started coming into confidence with natural drawing and inking styles. If you have a photoshop version from the last few years I can't recommend the following "tools presets" set enough. You can hatch like many different kinds of maniac with these tool presets as well as do the the whole thing from pencil to inking, switching between brush and pen:

http://frenden.myshopify.com/products/photoshop_pencil_and_inking_brushes

It's funny you lay down a shed load of cash for a comprehensive suite like CS but sometimes it takes another $5 to the right person to unlock what you want to do. Seriously one of the best digital purchases I've ever made!

that book is gold! That is where I first saw millers art and was blown away.

Me too, I was enthralled by the Miller and John Blanche stuff and would go back to the library to get the book several times a year and keep it as long as I could. Later I still did not have my own copy and found piles of them in the remainder table at Borders for < $5 bucks and bought copies for anyone close to me I thought my appreciate it.

[Doomsdave]

Good call.  I can't tell you how many times I tried to draw Elmore's dragons by looking at the book art from the BECMI sets.

[grant]

I was always a fan of Otus and Sutherland; to me, they were the D&D art gods!

[Hatemonger]

he could do a hot 80's chick as well

Ha! I remember that one! I was totally in love with her. 

Did you get Elmore's book from the Kickstarter last year?

- H8

[Doomsdave]

got some pics, Never heard of those.

Otus is great in an acid-trip sort of way.  His stuff reminds me of late '60s LP covers, or those fuzzy blacklight posters.  He's still very active doing artwork for the OSR community and their numerous projects.  I bought the Dungeon Alphabet book just because it had Otus drawings in it.

You'll likely recognize his work here:



Or here:


Some of his more recent efforts:


Sutherland is consistent and more "normal" fantasy art.  He did a bunch of ink drawings in the original AD&D books. 

[Spooktalker]

Word of wisdom to any budding writers. If you are pitching to the nascar crowd like me, FFS get a really good cover on it that does not challenge the viewer in any artistic sense.

Tell ya another bloke I loved back in the day and that was Elmore.

Funny, I started gaming when 2nd edition was on the shelves and Elmore was the Dragon magazine darling, and his art was one of the primary reasons I gave D&D a pass and didn't give it a second thought until many years later. And then it was exposure to the Judges Guild art that hooked me in.

[Elbows]

Grrr...I've never been a D&D guy (a little young for the original stuff).  The few run-ins I had with D&D were...uninspiring.  However I'm always tempted to pick up the reprint version of the original stuff, as I think I'd "get" it now.  Even just for something to have on the bookshelf and admire...feel like it'd be a cool hand-me-down also for kids in the future...

Damn you guys!

PS: Are rotrings really worth $45?  I love me some quality pens but have a hard time justifying that kind of price.