And then, of course, there is Brom. Darkwerks (1997) is, I believe, his first collection, and you get a little of everything. Dark Sun, Shadowrun, Elric is right there on the cover, Fading Suns, even the cover for Palladium’s Nightbane is in the mix. Even in ‘97, in the post-Vampire: The Masquerade landscape, I think Brom’s work is a startling contrast when you compare it to the standards of fantasy art — a little sexier, a little more mysterious, a little more of a sense of imminent violence. I don’t even think its the fact that his art is sort of horny and fetish friendly, though maybe that’s a component. I think it is more a combination of his color palette, which tends towards dark and rich hues punctuated by blinding white highlights, the sense of smoothness and poise he imbues everything with and his willingness to just be weird as can be. The Nightbane cover is a perfect example — I have no clue what is going on. The woman in red is the least weird part of the painting, but still miles weirder than your average fantasy character. And Brom’s hands always seem so heavy with intention — I always think of the cover of Bowie’s Heroes when I see Brom’s hands.
But at the same time, check out that painting of the Red Death and you can see so much that speaks to Brom’s place in the greater illustrative tradition — there is technique there the you can find in artists from 100 years ago. You usually lose that sense a bit with all the corsets and such, but the lineage is totally there. Anyway, he’s brilliant. As I mentioned yesterday, his work on Dark Sun is credited with trailblazing the aesthetic-first method of campaign setting design that TSR would embrace for most of the 90s and has, in a lot of ways, become a pretty standard approach in the years since.
