David Darrow and cover art.

[cowsmanaut]

Anyone else been to his website? I was going to put a link in here then discovered (as I should have) that it's already on the Encyclopedia site.

I decided to contact him as I had stared at that cover for ages trying to figure out how he did it and how he got so much detail in there. It was one of the inspiring artworks I had from that time. I didn't have an abundance of artwork, most boxes for game had pixel graphics blown up or simple graphical designs like ensignias or what have you.

I think in a way the images there on the Dungeon master cover gave me something more to imagine about. Who the characters were supposed to be? What level might they be one, who was behind that door. and one main thing is it gave me back a sense of scale. I found it easy to forget that I had 4 people in that corridor that those floor grates were massive.

Anyway, being rather generous he told me all about the painting. What you see is what you get, the image placed is the entire image as the size was all well planned out. I had asked him about this as I know in some cases they are not sure and sometimes crop images to fit a design.. as we can see on other versions of the box. I also asked about the process, I had airbrush, paint, and ink.. I was almost right.

I hope he doesn't mind me quoting what he said but as I know there are other artists on this board you might be interested to hear the rest of the info

"To be honest, I was a huge fan of Drew Struzan at the time, and surrounded myself with posters of his. You are right: airbrush, painting, and Prismacolor (no ink). Art School taught me what I was capable of, but really, I learned just like you: by analyzing the work of more experienced, better artists. I used photos of various people I knew for the models. Hired the muscleman from a local gym. They woman with the (very heavy) candelabra was my first wife. And the guy pulling on the torch was Andy, the art-man for the game. The rest is entirely invented. I worked on a piece of masonite, about 25 - 30 inches tall, gessoed with a very heavy brush stokes to give it inherent texture (I still use this from time to time on my Fine Art paintings). Really, not much was cropped out, since it was designed to fit specific proportions. The bleed was pre-determined, and planned for."

Andy Jaros! there on the cover.. isn't that cool? I really like the idea of one of the creators being on the cover image as a game character.. David it would seem has been creative in this aspect in his other covers for them too. For Oids there is a diskette of Sundog in the trash can! I like things like that.. little gems hidden in the image.

moo

http://www.darrowart.com/

[Gambit37]

Heh, there's some similar information in the Retro Gamer article. When I contacted him a couple of years back he wasn't able to help me due to personal issues. Perhaps I should dig out my questions and send them back to him again? He's one of the few people I have left to interview, I hope he would be willing to do so.

Still, once again it shows how my tardiness has prevented any kind of exclusives on the Codex site. Oh well, such is life I guess.

[cowsmanaut]

with a community like ours.. so many tenacious people and world wide connections/connectivity. At a time when nearly everyone and their dog has a website and many others have fan sites for those who don't, it's hard to get exclusives.. and even when you do it's difficult to keep it exclusive. those who are open to questions will always be willing to talk to anyone who'll ask.

Don't focus so much on making it too unique. Just focus on getting it done and adding to it when you can.