Roger Dean's record jackets: 1970-1974

Progressive Rock bands always have the best cover art. It's usually some kind of otherworldly landscape, sometimes littered with strange animals creepy crawling on giant mushrooms. Or its an image of some strange character (probably some kind of wizard) casting magic or screaming (see King Crimson's self-titled), with a moon or two (or Saturn) thrown in the background for good measure. We've all seen it, and the art works because it makes us pause and look at the record for a few seconds longer when browsing the racks at the nearby record store. Now I'm not as well versed in Prog Rock, but I do know that Roger Dean has been doing art for bands since the genre's early days. You say you don't know who Roger Dean is? Well maybe you might recognize this logo he made:


If your at all familiar with Yes, then you've seen his art. Roger Dean is the primary artists for Yes, and their entire catalog displays the progression of his artwork. They have collaborated so much together that they're trying to currently make a 3D animated film based on his art. Can't say I care to see Roger Dean's landscape in a mediocre computer-generated way. Whenever anyone forces the illustrative style into a three=dimensional CGI image, it is always terrible. But I digress.

Anyways, I'm going to focus on his art from 1970-1974. Why 1970-1974? Well because that's when he was more raw and illustrative, which I'm really into. His images are flatter and less skillful, but come off as honest and imaginative. Don't get me wrong, his later stuff is gorgeous and incredible, but I want to focus on his time before he developed the caliber of craftsmanship he has today. The other reason is because I want to show how illustrative cover art was back then, with heavy use of pen & Ink with watercolor as opposed to the overuse of Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator that we see today. I'm really into watercolor art, since it's so organic and almost chaotic. An artist can release his energy into a watercolor piece of work, and it will be captured but he medium. Anyways, If your a fan of Hard Rock/early Heavy metal, you might also recognize some of these images-

Uriah Heep:



Greensdale:



Gentle Giant:


Osibisa:



Budgie:




Yes:

Dragonmaster

Back in the fall of 2005, I went over my friend's new apartment. She and I have been friends for awhile at this point, and one of our strongest bonds is over nerdy fanatasy material. Such as getting pumped about classic Dungeons & Dragons monsters and Warhammer figurines. From the moment I entered her apartment, she threw this card game called Dragonmaster in my face. She found it earlier that day at The Goodwill. I FLIPPED out. The artwork is brilliant, and I knew it seemed familiar. Then I FLIPPED out harder when I saw on the game credits that Bob Pepper did the art. This was around the time when I first started to get into his work, so stumbling across this gem was very exciting.



His style sets him apart from any other illustrator I've seen. His figures are very unique looking, somehow portraying a 1970s cartoon-esque style with darkness and depth. It's all so very detailed though, giving everyone on all of the cards their own distinct personality. His style is not using watercolors, surprisingly enough. I'll let him explain how he does it 9Taken from an interview from well-of-souls.com)-

"My technique is to cement down charcoal paper, float water into areas of the illustration, and border the area with dark gouache which spreads and settles in the warpings of the wet paper. After that dries flat, I float dyes on top to color the area. I love the whole process of illustration, but mostly the research and bringing together of many different parts to form a coherent whole design that I like. I also think that your state of mind, (what interests you) has, really, everything to do with it!"

His work is fresh and exciting, even now. He went on to create the art for a board came called Dark Tower, which has become a cult classic amongst board game enthusiasts. I've seen glimpses of his work in in fantasy art books from the 80s that continued this style, which I'm currently trying to hunt down. The following is the complete set of Dragonmaster cards. I'll categorize them by "kingdom" and specialty cards

The Druids









The Dragonlords









The Nomads









The Warriors (my personal favorite)









Specialty Cards






for more info check out http://well-of-souls.com/tower/dmaster.htm (all pictures taken from well-of-souls)