Thursday 13 August 2020

Undead Decorating


Despite moving into my current house nearly three years ago, I have never finished decorating my small office. In truth, I’ve never been much of a decorator, but I thought it was high-time I got a bit of ‘inspirational’ artwork upon the wall. I have started this with my all-time favourite Dragon Magazine cover. (You can see a clearer shot of the artwork here.)

Luckily, I found a copy of the magazine in good condition on ebay for under £5, and ordered up a cheap frame for it as well. I admit, I had some qualms about cutting up a nice copy of a thirty-year-old magazine, but I did it anyway.

I’m actually glad to have the ‘cover’ as opposed to just the artwork, as its connection to Dungeons & Dragons and to the greater hobby gaming genre is part of the appeal to me, and thankfully, most of the text is non-obtrusive.

I don’t know why, specifically, this piece speaks to me, but it always has. The posing on the two figures is just fantastic - the menace as the creature looms over her - the hopelessness of seeing her sword and arrows sticking ineffectually in its armour. And yet… she’s got one arrow left… she’s still got a chance.

Here the cover blurb from inside the magazine:

Daniel Horne said the scene on his cover painting “takes place on a frozen tundra. The sun is setting, the hoar frost is glittering like thousands of pieces of broken glass.” A ranger in the service of the High King has just been attack by the undead remains of one of her old opponents – a frost giant who has waited a long time for this moment of revenge. Having lost her sword and used up her normal arrows, the ranger has a single elven arrow left – from which comes the painting's name: “Saving the Best for Last”.

So, perhaps she has a slightly better chance than I first realized. It all sounds very Rangers of Shadow Deep doesn’t it? Well, all the parts had to come from somewhere.

Anyway, it makes me smile to see it on the wall, which I guess is the point of decorating!

15 comments:

  1. Decorating the wargaming room is an underappreciated part of our hobby! Whenever I'm near a flea market, I'm usually on the lookout for nice militaria decorations!

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  2. Beautiful! Quite an evocative piece.

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  3. I remember that issue! What a fantastic era in gaming that was.
    Didn't that issue have a Top Secret module in it?

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  5. One of my favorite covers too... it’s funny, just a few months ago, I ended up purchasing about a dozen old Dragon magazines from around issue 80, up through the early 100’s. I think this was one of them. Just a total nostalgia trip for me, and worth every penny. That issue is one of them.

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  6. Last year when my landlords took a walkthrough of the apartment one of them looks in my room and said “you never mentioned that you had children here”. My room has just enough space for bed and clothes the rest packed with hobby and posters on any space that there is room. I just laughed and said that is my room. She at least appeared embarrassed:-))

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  7. The is a great piece of artwork, and wouldn't look out of place in a Frostgrave book. I think that my favourite Dragon cover is the one on issue 143; showing the view from inside a fighter jet's cockpit as it engages a dragon.

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  8. I've been going through the crawlspace & discovered a box filled with the old calendars from years past & other fantasy artprints I saved. Sure enough that exact cover is amongst them. I just need a mansion to display all these pieces of art!

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  10. This was my first issue and first gaming magazine. The artwork grabbed me totally. But i was sold on the Warhammer 40,000 four page spread instead and never looked back. I was a 40k player/collector ever since. Did not play D&D til early nineties.

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  11. Nice piece of artwork, give me a good idea how to use my old pile of magazine.

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  12. Great idea, never thought to do that. I used to love Dragon Magazine - living in Switzerland, it was a lifeline to roleplaying in the days before internet. And that illustration was also among my favourites, although I seem to remember seeing it in another publication... Horne also had a great Frostgravey picture on the cover of Dragon 119 (Romans versus Hammer-Troll/Ogre).

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