Awesome Fantasy Art

(A big thank you to Cheri Duncan for recommending a topic on a day when I couldn't get my brain and my fingertips wired together. Thanks to my friend Bruce and several of my fellow Ravenclaws for their assistance in producing this post.)

Friends! Romans! Countrymen!

Yeah, whatever.

Listen folks, I haven't been in the market for Science Fiction and Fantasy related art recently because reasons, but I hope to be in the not-too-distant future. I love the look of something related to a fantastical world. I think I'm going to do posts in the near future for both Science Fiction and Superheroes, but for now I'm going to concentrate totally on Fantasy because well, I mean, it's my blog right? So anyway, here we go.

I mentioned the Art of Dungeons and Dragons in a recent post. I love that. I always have. The picture above was taken from the Second Edition Player's Handbook. I've love that pic for thirty plus years now, and I specifically went looking for it for this post.Fortunately, the Google-fu is strong with this one and it was pretty easy to find.  And while we're on the subject of D&D Art...

Larry Elmore is one of my most favoritest artists ever. It was his work on Dragonlance (with an assist from Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman :P) that got me started as a fantasy fan for real. The only real fantasy I had read before that was Lord of the Rings, and I never really realized that there was a whole genre to go with it. Go figure. Still, this guy is the dean of all fantasy artists. I was a fan before I knew I was a fan. It wasn't until the advent of that interwebs thingy that I found out who any of my favorite artists were. He was one of the first people I found out about though. I mean, anyone who did original and official Raistlin Majere art is awesome and he did it well.

Of course, not all fantasy art, not even all GOOD fantasy art is related to D&D. Brian Froud is an artist with a long history who helped out with Dark Crystal: Age of Rebellion. I loved that show and a large part of what made it so cool was the way it looked. The gelflings were cute. The sets were magnificent. The skeksis were evil and terrifying and a lot of the credit for that goes to Brian Froud.

Oh, and he also did The Labyrinth. I mean, just in case one Fantasy classic wasn't enough, why not two? He probably did some other really cool stuff too, but I'm not really an expert on the man. I'll leave it up to you guys to put some stuff in the comments if you want.

And of course, there's Tom Sullivan, who does a lot of Chthulu art. Look at that piece. It's amazing. My friend Bruce suggested that I include him, and he was right. A quick glance through this guy's stuff shows that it's all amazing.

Of course, not all fantasy art has to be super-serious. Those guys are amazing.I love the fact that those artists seem to jump off the page. Looking at that first Larry Elmore  picture, I can almost see myself skinning that dragon and using its scales for a shield. Not all of the good stuff has to be realistic. So let's feature a lesser known (not my fault, I've talked about her here before) artist named Cedar Sanderson.

I commissioned that piece for my now ex-girlfriend. I'm really happy that I did. It turned out fantastically awesome. The ex is in to Chthulu plushies (Which are also art, but don't tell your college professor I said that.)

and I thought it would be something that she would really enjoy. I was right. Of course, Cedar does all kinds of stuff. Her chainmaille dragons are really cool. She does lots of paintings, not just Chthulu. As a matter of fact, it was one of her dragon paintings that inspired me to have her paint the Chthulus. True story. Cedar writes a lot too and I've reviewed some of her stuff, but this isn't a post about writing.

As a matter of fact, the only item I got to pick out for my oldest daughter's nursery was a painting of a cutesty dragon with  a butterfly on its nose. My ex-wife picked out a theme of faeries and butterflies and I snuck the dragon pic in on the excuse that it had a butterfly in it. SCORE!!!

And then there's the in-between stuff:

SIGH

That's the cover of the first Harry Potter book I ever read, and it was drawn by Mary Grandpre (technically, that last e should have an accent, but I'm not sure how to do one on blogger.) That lady can draw! But here's my point about her work being halfway between realistic and cutesy: It doesn't really look life-like. It's more cartoony. On the other hand, it looks realistic enough that you're really drawn into it. Like, I  can see a realistic version of it in my head while I'm looking at the book cover. I really like this kind of work. It kind of makes me feel like a kid again, just looking at it.  One day maybe I'll be a big enough author to have a book cover by her. On that day, I'll probably die of happiness, but at least I'll die happy.

Ok, so let's see, we've got Books, TTRPGs, Movies/TV shows, Fan Art and  Comics,. OH. I know what I forgot:

Video game art is fantabulous and absotively has to be included. I went with two of my favorite MMORPGs because I could, but there is a lot more to it than that. Let's face it: Video game art goes back decades and a lot of the best stuff is fantasy based. Fantasy Star, Shining Force, God of War, , Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy, The Legend of Zelda, I could go on for days. Some of the art is a bit dated now, but that'll happen in the gaming industry over the course of forty years. It's all gorgeous for the time it was produced though. I think the visual/immersive aspects of good video game art  that moves on the screen and sucks you in. What Everquest player can forget the first time they ran across the West Barrens and had to flee from a Young Kodiak?

And last (on this list) but certainly not least, is cosplay. Cosplayers pour immense amounts of time, effort and money into their creations.  They deserve some credit and their individual takes on popular characters aren't really all that different in principle from comic book artists and the different way they draw characters.

That's what I've got. You guys tell me what I missed in the comments., I'll be back soon with SF art!

Some related items are available at the links below. If you click the link and buy literally anything, I get a small percentage at no cost to you.

Paramount's Transformers: Age of Extinction

Once upon a time, when I just a wee little Jimbo I loved a toy line/cartoon named Transformers. They were brand new and transformable robots were a new craze. That's right. I'm so old, I remember Transformers, G1. Optimus Prime was the big tough good guy. Megatron was his arch-nemesis and actually transformed into >GASP< a gun!. Ironhide, Starscream, Soundwave (when he was still a boombox), Bumblebee, Scout, I could go on for hours. This was before such newfangled craziness as the introduction of Rodimus Prime or Ultra Magnus. Nobody knew who Blur was because he hadn't been invented yet. Ironhide was simultaneously the best character on the cartoon and the dumbest toy ever made. Seriously, whoever heard of a humanoid robot with no FREAKING HEAD?!?!?!?!? But eventually time went on. I got involved with other geekish pursuits (Star Trek, Star Wars, RPGs and books. Lots and lots of books.) Some of the iterations of the toys/cartoons just got weird. Then awhile later, they started releasing live action Transformers movies, the latest being Transformers: Age of Extinction.

I went into the movie knowing what to expect,. I mean, this is Michael Bay and Transformers right? I got what I was looking for too. Say what you want about Michael Bay and his story telling ability (I'll get to that later)  but nobody does explosions as well as he does. Yes, I've seen and loved every Star Wars and Star Trek movie (Yes, even number one. I was the only person in the theater opening night that liked Jar Jar Binks and was over the age of twelve.) but Michael Bay can do a fight scene better than anyone who has directed in either series of movies. Things go boom. They go hack and slice. Someone lives. Someone dies. It all starts over.

I don't want to spoil too much, but I kind of have to here. If you don't want to see it skip the rest of this paragraph. The new, human made, Transformers and their method of transforming on screen is just awesome. The new "transformium" alloy that scientist Joshua Joyce discovers makes some really cool looking things possible. Watching a Transformer transform not just by moving one part over this way and one part over but by basically disappearing into a cloud and reforming out of nothing was down right awesome. I won't say that it seemed all that plausible, but let's face it. This is Transformers; When you're dealing with a Mack truck that can turn into a thirty foot robot and talk you're not starting from a very plausible place to begin with.  That much being said, I'm going to take this someplace a lot of younger folk may not like.

I have, since the 2007 movie Transformers had an intense dislike of the look of these robots in these movies. Talking about this in public makes me feel like I should tell a bunch of kids to get off my lawn and then drink a Geritol but I remember when the robots looked like robots. I am not at all a fan of the new "organic" look. They're not organic, they're freaking metal. I could see something more contoured. Cars don't look as boxy as they did in 1984 anymore. I'm not good with this whole wires hanging everywhere thing. I'm organic. Do you see veins hanging out of my arms? The spaceship has the same kind of look to it and it's not even a living thing. I could see an organic look if it was necessary to the story. The Invid Clamships from Robotech: New Generation come to mind. For <i>Transformers</i> though? Not so much.

The story here is only kind of okay-ish. I will give Michael Bay this much though; At least he doesn't treat his audience as if they're too stupid to realize that Megan Fox is attractive this time. I wonder if they gave him a high school aged character this time specifically to prevent him from doing that again. The whole father versus boyfriend angle is one that I can kind of feel from both sides being a father of three girls and having not spent my entire life devoid of female companionship. The eventual friendship between father and boyfriend was pretty much inevitable given the plot and the characters do develop a bit over time but it's just too disjointed. We're here we're there we're everywhere. The US government is trying to destroy the Autobots to get a seed and the president doesn't know about it? Umm, no. I get scientists and obsession but there is such a thing as going too far. I can't buy that. And where did the Dinobots get involved?

As far as the Dinobots go, I've been a fan for as long as they existed. Grimlock was an utter badass back in the day.  Swoop provided the air cover, etc. But, unless there was something important that I missed somehow, there was no connection between them and the Autobots/Optimus Prime until Prime showed up like "Follow me or we all die." That sounds like good advice but what reason did they have to believe him? There was no prior relationship established. I get that the movie was almost three hours long but come on. If you can't fit in it, don't put it in. The writers and Bay could have found another way for the good guys to win.

That much being said, this was what I expected. If you want to have fun and not put too much thought into what you're watching, Transformers is a good franchise. It makes no attempt at imitating actual scientific principles or advancing anything that may someday be possible. It's not always all that internally consistent. But things blow up. Chase scenes happen. There is a surprise or two along the way. Explosions happen and the bad guys always get their tails whipped. The quality of this one depends on what you're looking for in your story telling.

Bottom Line: 3.75 out of 5 Hanging wires

Transformers: Age of Extinction
Paramount, 2014

Transformers: Age of Extinction can be purchased here:

Sunbow's GI Joe: The Movie (1986)

(Sorry this is late. I had something come up last night.)

If I told you that movie had:

A secret tropical hideaway hidden under an arctic mountain;
A Broadcast Energy Transmitter that could beam energy from the ground to any spot on Earth or even into space;
Man eating plants;
Guns that shot not bullets or even lasers but tentacles;
Deadly spores capable of causing humans to devolve into animals;
An important character that slowly turned into a snake;
and another important character created in a lab using the DNA of various military leaders, would you consider it to be SF?

If other characters could pull tentacle monsters our of nowhere and use them as weapons to smother their enemies and there was a half man/half snake centauroid as another important character would you consider it to have a fantasy element?

Good! I'm glad you agree that this is indeed a SF/F movie. Seriously. GI Joe: The Movie is part of the genre I love. There's more genre related goodness in this flick than in a lot of the stuff I've reviewed here.

The story revolves around a group of new recruits. Law (with his dog Order), Jinx, Lieutenant Falcon, Jinx, Tunnel Rat and Big Lob and their attempts to finish training and become valued members of the GI Joe team. Lt. Falcon especially ends up in trouble and spends the movie fighting to make his name. Jinx is known as a bad luck charm. The rest are mainly just raw. Beachhead does his best as their trainer. Hilarity, hijinks and dramatics ensue.


SPOILER







Cobra-la is shown as the new faction. Their emergence was shocking to me the first time I saw this. Cobra-la is a major change in the previous Joe universe. GI Joe had always included a SF element but Cobra-la was an entirely new alien culture. I was impressed. The Cobra-la portions of this movie are a major departure from what had come before, but ultimately one I entirely enjoyed. Evil just seems more evil when the bad guy (Golobulous) is half snake.

This was a long way from being a perfect movie. I'm not at all an expert in the science involved but I know enough to believe that anyone who is would probably want to faint at the sight of this thing. Some of the acting is a bit on the melodramatic side for an adult. The death scene that would have added that needed bit of gritty realism got axed by Hasbro, owner of the toy line and the Joe trademark. That much being said, IT'S FREAKING GI JOE. How much realism do you want?

Bottom Line: 4.5 out of 5 mutant spores.

GI Joe: The Movie
Sunbow, Hasbro, 1986