The first edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was blessed with a number of talented (if sometimes unrefined) artists. Of them, Jeff Dee is probably my favorite. There’s something about the quality of his lines, his anatomy and his compositions that strikes me as cleaner and more professional than the rest of the pool. Which is wild, because Dee was only 18 when he started taking TSR commissions in 1979.
This is a spot illustration from Module Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits and it depicts an animated statue from the hall of mirrors (room 34) clobbering an unwitting adventurer at the same time Lolth attacks with a stick to snakes spell. Unlucky.
I love the little details here. Look closely between the motion lines – you see how Dee used a half-tone to further enhance the illusion of motion? And man, that Vader-esque helmet. And the tilt of the snake’s head! Good stuff.
Dee is still a working artist and game designer (he co-created Villains and Vigilantes RPG back in ’79, for instance) so check out his stuff. His Deviant Art page seems to be the best place to follow him (http://jeffdee.deviantart.com/).
