TFT Illustrations, Old and New

[Shostak]

A blog post in which I muse on TFT illustrations from the earliest days of the game to the present day.

[Terquem]

very good article - thanks for that

[Skarg]

What edition of Death Test are those counters from? I've never seen that set before, with the unlabelled counters, and quite a few different counter illustrations that showed up in later products, maybe a few I don't think I've seen before.

[Shostak]

Originally Posted by Skarg

What edition of Death Test are those counters from? I've never seen that set before, with the unlabelled counters, and quite a few different counter illustrations that showed up in later products, maybe a few I don't think I've seen before.

I'm not sure, Skarg. That image is of a scan I got of an unpunched from someone on the Facebook group, I think. The counters from my copy of Death Test were that sepia color, but there were more figures drawn by Hidy, and I don't recall there being any drawn by Phillips until DT 2. Unfortunately, it was lost decades ago in my more nomadic years along with several other microgames :-(

[Chris Rice]

Very nice article. I enjoyed that and learned a few things. Thanks!

[RobW]

Thanks for that. I really like the original Wizard cover as well, and probably for the same reasons :)

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by Shostak

I'm not sure, Skarg. That image is of a scan I got of an unpunched from someone on the Facebook group, I think. The counters from my copy of Death Test were that sepia color, but there were more figures drawn by Hidy, and I don't recall there being any drawn by Phillips until DT 2. Unfortunately, it was lost decades ago in my more nomadic years along with several other microgames :-(

Thanks. My guess is that that's something someone made with a post-1980's computer and posted to the Internet, but that wasn't ever produced by Metagaming (though some of that art (or thicker-lined versions) appeared as counters and/or art in later Metagaming TFT products).

[ParadoxGames]

This was a great article. When I designed the cover for The Fanzine Trip, I had in mind reflecting the art you see on the covers of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

[RobW]

Shostak I came across this blog post again while reading your other blog post on fencing. Once again, thanks for putting this together :)

I agree with nearly everything you say. But I'm here to defend Dragons of Underearth :) It feels like a throwback to the marvel comics of the 70s, the over-the-top postures, the cheap color process. And the dragon's head is very nice.

It always seemed to me like something went wrong in the colouring though. Yellow?

Plus, once I open the book, the typesetting just messes with my eyes! Normally when anyone talks about fonts, eg Ariel vs Helvetica, I'm just completely at a loss about what's the deal. But there's a number of books from this period at Metagaming, I actually dread reading them because of the font XD

[pzmcgwire]

Great article. I agree that some of the initial cover artwork is less dynamic and the focus on single characters can be hit or miss. When you do a single person like on the current cover of Melee, Wizard, Death Test, and Ardonirane, that one figure dominates and sets up a conception in an observer's mind of what the product is.

The Thorsz, Dhallak m’Thorsz Carn, in particular looks like Liam Neeson and more like a nervous King John I than a Saladin.