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Favorite Traveller Artists

A

ACK!!

SOC-12
Alright here we go.

I like Ted Lindsey with his textured work and his proposal cover for T20 just rocked. I found that today. LBB with a splash of pictures ... yes.

Jesse Degraff's starship pictures are basically like the default everyone has to be judged by at this point. Great stuff.

I like Bryan Gibson. His art has the stylized feel of a comic book artist but with a great Trav sensibility.

Steve Bryant is good. I really, really like most of his work. 76 gunmen was great but I did not care for his cover work on the Classic Traveller Book but then again I really liked his work on Personal Weapons of Charted Space, really thought it was nice.

Who is the great under-mentioned Trav artist? Paul Daly is incredible. I mean his stuff is not just good or great. I mean the art captures the true feel of Traveller and that the same time feels completely modern and has that wow factor.

Ok, here is the big flame bait. I don't care for David R. Deitrick's work. It has too much of that pulp sci-fi novel of 1950 feel to it. Some nostalgic folks around love it. It does not float my boat. Sorry.

All of this is completely IMHO.

What are your opinions?
 
First, add Mike Vilardi and Doug Shuler to that list.

Second, I kinda like Dave Deitrick's work. HOWEVER, I can understand why some might not like it, so no flame. I would add Storn Cook to the list of "no-goes," for reasons inexplicable. That's my Cr 0.02
 
I love Langdon Foss's work in the GURPS Traveller books. Bryan Gibson's hardware designs for T20 are pretty good too.

Crow
 
Originally posted by Scarecrow:
I love Langdon Foss's work in the GURPS Traveller books. Bryan Gibson's hardware designs for T20 are pretty good too.

Crow
Click to expand...
'Crow, your GT: Sword Worlds cover is pretty darn awesome - I hope you get to do some internal art too a la Jesse DeGraff (the other guy whose art I like)

Otherwise I must profess I don't really like ANY of the Traveller art that isn't 3D-rendered.
 
David Deitrick
William Keith
Jesse DeGraff
Allen Nunis
Mike Vilardi

I'm sure there are many others...

I think someone should do an Art of Traveller book.

Scout
 
'Crow, your GT: Sword Worlds cover...
Click to expand...
Talking of which, SJG has just posted my second cover:

<a href="http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/scarecrow/galleries/pro/toxicmemescover.jpg" target="_blank">
cover_sm.jpg

</a>

It's for 'Toxic Memes', a supplement for Gurps: Transhuman Space rpg and due out in April

Crow
 
It has to be William Keith - his slightly clunky, somehow sombre view of the far future sets the Traveller mood for me.
 
Originally posted by Elliot:
It has to be William Keith - his slightly clunky, somehow sombre view of the far future sets the Traveller mood for me.
Click to expand...
Of the CT artists William Keith truly fit the mood.
 
Nice work Andrew! You seem to have captured the Traveller starship very well. Now, if we can find some sort of consensus on trying to capture Travellers - humans or otherwise...

The biggest problem is that the Keiths work does dominate most GDW editions of Traveller, so their influence is to be reckoned with. But, I am not entirely convinced that the style we saw in T4 is entirely Traveller. Similarly, recent things in GT give me lots of hope but the early ones fall flat.

What about trying to contact some of the bigger names for a sampling, like Liz Danforth or Bill Bridges and company. This way we could build a bridge between different RPGs (as Fading Suns & Traveller were meant to have done before/around the time of T4).

Is there an online Sci-Fi zine that we could tap into? I know that I have suggested scifi.com but that seems to be too expensive for T20 but surely there must be others with starving artists who need their work displayed...
 
Originally posted by Kafka47:

...

The biggest problem is that the Keiths work does dominate most GDW editions of Traveller, so their influence is to be reckoned with. But, I am not entirely convinced that the style we saw in T4 is entirely Traveller. Similarly, recent things in GT give me lots of hope but the early ones fall flat.

What about trying to contact some of the bigger names for a sampling, like Liz Danforth or Bill Bridges and company. This way we could build a bridge between different RPGs (as Fading Suns & Traveller were meant to have done before/around the time of T4).

...
Click to expand...
T4 Chris Foss cover art did not float my boat so to speak. Not at all. The metallic Traveller logo left me flat too.

Some of the GT stuff looks cool but there is too much of it that leaves me thinking that just does not feel like Traveller.

Liz Danforth is classic in the JTAS. I remember the picture of the Zho firing a weapon in the issue covering the Zhodhani military. It reminded me of the great Marshall Roger/Terry Austin work in Detective comics during the late 70's. Incredible stuff.
 
Actually, I seem to be the only only one who likes (or at least one of a very small group) the work that Chris Foss did for T4.

The reason that I liked it was it perfectly suited a milieu just coming out of a long Dark Age and that we could not recognize anything from CT or MT in it. Milieu 0 was supposed to be trying to introduce a mystery and give a chance for players to witness the birth of new era. Therefore, the hunking big f-ckin' starships were great for such a milieu. Much as dinosaurs are fun to look at or old american cars. As the Imperium "matured", we could start to see more familiar Traveller art.

Actually, what I wasn't too crazy with T4 was the interior art...but I guess that I am learning to live with it, after being shout down about it, a few times...

I would have to echo the above sediments of the previous poster, in regard to GT. After the mixed bag of GT Humaniti, I think that Sword Worlds or Nobles may be my final GT purchase, again depending upon the art...(I haven't seen much of starships to comment)
 
Originally posted by Kafka47:
[QB] Actually, I seem to be the only only one who likes (or at least one of a very small group) the work that Chris Foss did for T4.

The reason that I liked it was it perfectly suited a milieu just coming out of a long Dark Age and that we could not recognize anything from CT or MT in it. ....

Actually, what I wasn't too crazy with T4 was the interior art...but I guess that I am learning to live with it, after being shout down about it, a few times...

QB]
Click to expand...
Hmmmph.

Isn't odd how people's perceptions of art work?

I did NOT like Chriss Foss's work on T4 for precisely the same reason that you liked it. I did not think the style fit the gritty dark nature of the era. It was so colorful and almost gaudy in that sense.

You might not like TNE (I did not) or the art (once again...) but it fit the mood of the game very well. I always though in terms of the Ted Lindsey textured pictures or robject's T5 cover mock up when I think of T4's mileu. It has that out in space exploration regaining the cosmo feel. Mileu 0's cover almost worked in that regard but it captured to mood and not the eye. It fit but was not the best choice for a cover IMHO.

Like I said though it is odd how people perceive these things differently.

K. Webb a saint of a man sent me his extra copy of Megatraveller rules. Yes, a cool thing indeed. I am going to run with the rules for MT in my upcoming (if it ever frickin' happens) chat campaign. Starting out after the Fifth Frontier War I might even take up through part of the Rebellion depending on how long the game lasts.

Danforth's portraits are great. Bryan Gibson's work was wonderful. The stuff ripped straight from CT was fine as well. However, I am beginning to understand better now the arguements against the MT style artwork. The full pages of line art was too much in the Rebellion Sourcebook. There is this sketch of a hiver in the Encyclopedia that is completely unfinished it is not even funny. It almost screams of a symbol for the whole book considering the errata needed to complete the book.

_
 
Wasn't there someone called O'Barr or something that did a couple of small cartoons? I seem to remember a couple in T:2300. Also I seem to recall one of a couple of Aslan frantically firing over the top of a barricade - I think it was in MT.

I liked those. They added a much needed sense of humour to the setting and also gave it more of a high-adventure Space Opera feel. I wanted my games to be more like those cartoons. Not stupid, but light and kinetic.

Crow
 
I agree with most of the post on here. I would like to add one more, T. Darrell Midgette. He did some artwork for Challenge and did a good portion of the artwork for 'Hardtimes'.
 
Originally posted by jackleg:
I agree with most of the post on here. I would like to add one more, T. Darrell Midgette. He did some artwork for Challenge and did a good portion of the artwork for 'Hardtimes'.
Click to expand...
Rob Caswell for starship pics as well.

A great forgotten MT artist hardly ever mentioned.

_
 
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