You could make that argument that Easley, Parkinson, or Caldwell shaped the destiny of D&D and TSR in the early 1980s, but in reality that is like comparing the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, or the Eagles to The Beatles. At the end of the day, any sane person knows there is no comparison as they are all had a telling impact on the industry. Below are some pieces from Larry Elmore I think changed the landscape of the RPG industry, and I'd love to hear if you agree or disagree.
Mentzer 'Red Box'... Now if the Red Box isn't as iconic to gamers as the Trampier PHB, then I don't know what is.
'The Death of Sturm', this scene was so powerful I threw Dragons of a Winter Night across my 10th Grade English classroom and Elmore truly did it justice!
Shadowrun, single-handedly brought the dystopian RPG genre to the masses. You might credit that FASA in general, but as this image graced the 1st & 2nd Edition covers, you know how important it was.
Death of Aleena: Larry broke upwards of a hundred thousand young men's hearts with the death of Aleena the Cleric, and without his rendition of her, I'd so no one would have cared much.
Watch who you hit on... And many folks thought Clyde Caldwell defined vampires with Ravenloft... not so fast Clyde.
Star Frontiers... Before this role-players thought space opera was a black booklet where characters died in character creation. Elmore opened our eyes to a fantastic and beautiful science fiction universe.
Innocence in the big fantasy city will ever be defined for me by this piece.
Clarion: One of the finest examples of ink-wash you will ever see, Clarion the Cleric from D&D Basic.
D&D Expert, and the definition of character advancement in art
Dragons of Autumn Twilight launched TSR into a fiction publishing house and brought D&D to the pure reading masses. For me, this image hasn't aged a day.
Remember, AotG needs your support with The Folio: The Storyteller's Arcana, featuring a Larry Elmore cover! Only 48 hours remain! Our current Kickstarter campaign can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/563681582/the-folio-storytellers-arcana-1e-and-5e-gaming-sup
Stretch Goals are ready to unlock! So just click the banner to the upper right of the page!
Some friends and I were talking Shadowrun just this past weekend. Larry’s cover shows a very 1980’s view of a cyberpunk future and one of my friends stated he loved that 80’s view with the mohawks and leathers. That atmosphere that was so well depicted is not quite so present in the later editions.
Thank you, Mr. Elmore for all of your work.
Larry Elmore is one of my all time favorite fantasy artists. Here are two more pieces that really influenced my concept of a “party of adventurers.”
http://ftp.sunet.se/pub/pictures/fantasy/Advanced_Dungeons_and_Dragons/Dragonlance/heroes.jpg
http://www.tucoo.com/fantasy/f_larry_elmore/images/larry_elmore004.jpg
I love your art. Are you still doing any for gaming? The new D&D art is frankly, crappy and yours was very good. I loved the Dragonlance art. I liked the original heros. The new ones are not fleshed out well at all and I’ve seen no art for them either. The artwork of Raistlin are some of the best. Especially when he’s evil.
One of my favourite fantasy artists, and a true master of the genre.
I’m happy to see the cover of the first edition Shadowrun core book listed here. It is my one true rpg love, and ever has been. And I found it when I did — literally — because of the cover. The image of Dodger grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I /had/ to know who this Elven man was, and what it was he was doing.
I picked the game up that very day, and I’ve never put it down. I personally know /many/ Shadowrun gamers who dove into the system entirely because /your/ covers caught their eye.
Thank you, Mr. Elmore. You’ve given us an amazing gift of worlds without end seen through your eyes.
I would argue that the cross-genre nature of his work is what makes him so influential. Now certainly there are many fantasy artists that did work for D&D, FASA, WEG, later white wolf, but Elmore’s work was of consistently top tier that consumers of these products knew him and so it lowered the bar for entry into that system, so to speak. One item in particular comes to mind, and that is the cover of 1st edition Shadowrun. I remember as a teenager looking at the cover and thinking “that looks like Elmore.” That influenced my decision to buy, even though my simple mind at the time couldn’t conceive of a game without character classes. I also would state that the red box set was hugely important to TSR, and putting such a fine work on the cover definitely helped its initial success. Looking at the portfolio chosen, you have some landmark titles- two Dragonlance Chronicles cover art and two box set cover art- that is influence in 1980’s fantasy art, and I do not think it was at al a coincidence he was chosen to do Star Frontiers or Shadowrun.