The thing about Smif...

[Greg 1]

I always really liked Smif's stuff, though I had been a vocal critic of pre-Smif SJG art. Each to their own I guess. It worked very well for me.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Gigermann

He appeared in several of the print-run of Pyramid Magazine.

And in the on-line version as well, I believe.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by capnq

Bruno once had a "cameo" in John Kovalic's Dork Tower as the character illustration for one of Igor's PCs.

I found a page reference for that.

Dork Covenant: The Collected Dork Tower, Volume I, p.124.

Originally Posted by Gigermann

He appeared in several of the print-run of Pyramid Magazine.

Thanks for reminding me. Checking my collection, Bruno appeared in issues 28 through 30. (Didn't check farther back than that.) In fact, I may be misremembering that run as having been in Space Gamer.

[Gollum]

Originally Posted by capnq

Bruno was a comic strip in Space Gamer magazine many, many years ago. (I think I recall it appearing in other print magazines, as well.) I don't remember him ever appearing in a GURPS product, but I could easily be wrong.
On further thought, the SY-101-N Nemesis robot "Synthia" from GURPS Robots (p.51) was named after another character in the Bruno comic strip, I think.
Bruno once had a "cameo" in John Kovalic's Dork Tower as the character illustration for one of Igor's PCs.

Thank you for these references. I will look at them.

Note that I wrote previously that Smif is perfectly able to draw exactly what he desires... As every good artist!

I was just talking about the art that we can find in GURPS 3 (revised edition), GURPS lite (for the third edition), GURPS Vehicles, etc. In my humble opinion, this kind of art has something mysterious and dramatic, something which doesn't correspond to a flamboyant optimistic and almost super-heroic fantasy setting (like D&D), but something which fits very well in a dark universe like Cyberworld or, even better, Cthulupunk. This is why I wrote that Smif's art is not really generic, though really universal.

Of course, it is just my point of view...

Originally Posted by Gigermann

I think rather the opposite is true. If Dan Smith were the only artist doing GURPS illustration, it would all look very generic, because it would all share the same style, fitting every world/situation into the same mold (which is essentially what a generic game system attempts to do)—that, and his hand would fall off ;) I think this is, to some degree, what happened to 3e, since Dan did so much work there—his became the unofficial "look" of GURPS.

To my mind, giving all the books the same style would give them the same atmosphere... But GURPS is precisely supposed to allow the GM and the players to play in any kind of atmosphere: realistic or not, dark or optimistic, serious or fun and crazy...

Now, as I wrote it just above, Dan Smif would perfectly be able to do the job! I'm just talking about the feeling that I have when I look at his strong black and white GURPS illustrations, not about his artist's talent which is, to my mind, very high.

[Anders]

I wonder if we can get Jack Chick to draw for 4e... :)

[David L Pulver]

Sometimes Dan Smith's GURPS art was limited due to extremely tight deadlines. However, when he was engaged in a project, or had time, he can be very good.

Back when he was doing SJ Games work on a regular basis, and also contributing to the GURPS amateur press magazine, I've described specific characters or scenes to him and he's drawn them exactly as I imagined them, including a couple of characters who were nonhumans from completely original races for which he had no reference except my written description. I've also seen him do a variety of styles, including fairly realistic -- not just his more cartoony, heavily-inked work.

It's worth noting that some Smif art that appears in GURPS books is reprints from his early period (circa 1988-89) when he was still learning.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by David L Pulver

It's worth noting that some Smif art that appears in GURPS books is reprints from his early period (circa 1988-89) when he was still learning.

Smif's website has galleries of some of his more recent work. (At least I assume it's recent.)

A random sample of my Space Gamer issues found no evidence of the Bruno strip. I'm almost certain now that I was remembering of the run in Pyramid.

[Moebius]

Smif defined my mind's eye of GURPS and I was a bit disappointed to see different looking art in 4E.

[sir_pudding]

While I like his comics I generally don't like his RPG art for the same reason I don't like the Shy art in Transhuman Space; a complete failure to be illustrative. IMO, all game art should be illustrations, and depict objects, characters, locations and so on as they actually are in the game. Smif's art doesn't do that for the most part, and a lot of his In Nomine art is simply wrong.