OK, let’s roll it back a couple decades to Stephen Fabian. Long time readers of this feed know exactly how I feel about Fabian. His intersection with RPGs is through Dungeons & Dragons, primarily the gothic goodies he provided for the Ravenloft campaign setting (though he pops up elsewhere, like in Manual of the Planes and Forgotten Realms Adventures). I adore his Ravenloft work. I think it is not just the best part of the setting, but anchors and defines it in a way that was pretty unprecedented for the time. Brom and Dark Sun get a lot of credit for being the first art-first campaign setting, but Fabian was actually already doing it for over a year when that red sun rose.

Anyway. Fabian had a long career as an illustrator before D&D. He got his start in the sci fi fanzines (Jeff Easley also came up in that scene), drawing pin-ups of scantily clad fantasy babes, weird monsters and the occasional piece of Star Trek fan art. Fantasy by Fabian collects a lot of that stuff. More Fantasy by Fabian (1979) has some of that stuff as well, but also selections from illustration portfolios for Lovecraft, Jack Vance and other staple genre writers. You can see his composition skills are well established, but he’s still using a stippling effect that vanishes in his later work (common in the fanzine scene for artists working over photo reference) and speaks to the influence of Virgil Finlay.

Love that giant tiger. You think whoever came up with Battlecat was thinking of this illustration?