Jeff Easley | |
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 Jeff Easley at GenCon Indy 2014 | |
| Born | 1954 |
| Nationality | USA |
| Known for | Fantasy art, Illustration |
| Spouse | Cynthia |
Jeff Easley (born 1954) [1] is an oil painter who creates fantasy artwork for role-playing games, comics, and magazines, as well as non-fantasy commercial art.
Easley was born in Nicholasville, Kentucky in 1954. He spent time drawing as a child, particularly creatures such as ghosts and monsters. "I watched lots of monster movies on the late show, and built every monster model kit I could get my hands on," he said. [1] He attended high school in Nicholasville, and then earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Murray State University in Kentucky. [2]
After Cynthia finished grad school, the couple moved to Massachusetts with some friends, where Easley began his career as a professional artist. "I did freelance work for Warren Publications, including covers and comic strips for Creepy , Eerie , and Vampirella , and for Marvel Comics magazines, including covers for Savage Sword of Conan and Bizarre Adventures . But my real income came from my job at the Okey-Doke Popcorn Company." [1] He cites mid-20th-century artist Frank Frazetta as a major influence. [3]
Easley met fellow Kentucky native and artist Larry Elmore through a mutual friend. "When I heard that Larry was planning to leave Fort Knox to join TSR, I got in touch with him and discovered that there might be other job opportunities there." [1] He applied for a job with TSR, publisher of the popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons : "I... started here in March 1982. My first project was to paint gemstones on the spines of the first four Endless Quest books, but it was definitely uphill from there." [1] Easley's first RPG piece for TSR was Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, as an interior artist. [4]
He went on to do much of the front cover artwork for the popular series of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons hardback rulebooks of the 1980s and 1990s. Some of his artwork from the period was featured on the covers of book such as the AD&D Player's Handbook , Dungeon Master Guide , Tome of Magic , the Monstrous Manual book, and over a dozen Monstrous Compendium supplements, as well several editions of the basic D&D box. [2] Some of his notable works include the cover art of the 1st edition incarnations of the Monster Manual,Monster Manual II, Legends & Lore , Unearthed Arcana, Oriental Adventures , and Dungeoneer's Survival Guide , as well as the 2nd edition core books (the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Monstrous Manual ). He also painted the first edition Battlesystem cover, the revised Gamma World cover, and numerous modules and Endless Quest book covers and a Dragonlance Calendar cover. [1] He did the cover of Dragonlance Adventures and other artwork for the Dragonlance series. [5] [6] One of his pieces of artwork, "Red Dragon", was featured on the cover of the AD&D book, Monster Manual , from 1983-1989. [7] With the acquisition of TSR by Wizards of the Coast, Easley provided illustrations for forty-nine cards for the Magic: The Gathering game sets from Mercadian Masques through Eventide . [8] While working freelance, Easley designed gold-and-ivory dragon inlays for deluxe limited-edition guitars. [2] He also provided the artwork for Italian power metal band Rhapsody of Fire's 2006 album Triumph or Agony .[ citation needed ]
In 2014, Scott Taylor of Black Gate , named Jeff Easley as #5 in a list of The Top 10 RPG Artists of the Past 40 Years, saying "His work covered every single AD&D 1E hardcover core book as well as the AD&D 2E Player's Handbook and DMG. He has also done countless b/w illustrations and there is no artist out there who has filled more RPG pages with artwork than Jeff." [9]
Spelljammer is a campaign setting originally published for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, which features a fantastic outer space environment. Subsequent editions have included Spelljammer content; a Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition setting update was released on August 16, 2022.
The Monster Manual is the primary bestiary sourcebook for monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, first published in 1977 by TSR. The Monster Manual was the first hardcover D&D book and includes monsters derived from mythology and folklore, as well as creatures created specifically for D&D. Creature descriptions include game-specific statistics, a brief description of its habits and habitats, and typically an image of the creature. Along with the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide, the Monster Manual is one of the three "core rulebooks" in most editions of the D&D game. As such, new editions of the Monster Manual have been released for each edition of D&D. Due to the level of detail and illustration included in the 1977 release, the book was cited as a pivotal example of a new style of wargame books. Future editions would draw on various sources and act as a compendium of published monsters.
The beholder is a fictional monster in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. It is depicted as a floating orb of flesh with a large mouth, single central eye, and many smaller eyestalks on top with powerful magical abilities.
Monster Manual II is the title shared by two hardback rulebooks published for different versions of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy roleplaying game.
Fiend Folio is the name of three separate products published for successive editions of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). All three are collections of monsters.
The Monstrous Compendium is a series of accessories for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game released from 1989 to 1998. The title was then used for a series of 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons supplements released on D&D Beyond.
The Player's Handbook is the name given to one of the core rulebooks in every edition of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). It does not contain the complete set of rules for the game, and only includes rules for use by players of the game. Additional rules, for use by Dungeon Masters (DMs), who referee the game, can be found in the Dungeon Master's Guide. Many optional rules, such as those governing extremely high-level players, and some of the more obscure spells, are found in other sources.
The Dungeon Master's Guide is a book of rules for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. The Dungeon Master's Guide contains rules concerning the arbitration and administration of a game, and is intended for use by the game's Dungeon Master.
Deities & Demigods, alternatively known as Legends & Lore, is a reference book for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game (D&D). The book provides descriptions and game statistics of gods and legendary creatures from various sources in mythology and fiction, and allows dungeon masters to incorporate aspects of religions and mythos into their D&D campaigns.
The Manual of the Planes is a manual for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. This text addresses the planar cosmology of the game universe.
Dragonlance Adventures is a 128-page hardcover book for the Dragonlance campaign setting for the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.
Greyhawk Adventures is an accessory for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) World of Greyhawk campaign setting.
The Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting is a role-playing game sourcebook first published by TSR in 1987 for the first edition of the fantasy role-playing game Advanced Dungeons & Dragons that describes the campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms. It contains information on characters, locations and history. Various revised and updated editions have been produced over the years.
Larry Elmore is an American fantasy artist whose work includes creating illustrations for video games, comics, magazines, and fantasy books. His list of work includes illustrations for Dungeons & Dragons, Dragonlance, and his own comic strip series SnarfQuest. He is author of the book Reflections of Myth.
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, orcs are a primitive race of savage, bestial, barbaric humanoid.
James Paul Roslof was an American artist who produced cover art and interior illustrations of fantasy role-playing games published by TSR, Inc. during the "golden age" of Dungeons & Dragons. As Art Director at TSR in the early 1980s, he was also responsible for hiring many of the young artists who would go on to careers in the fantasy role-playing industry.
The DL series is a series of adventures and some supplementary material for the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role playing game. These modules along with the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels, which follow one possible adventure series through the modules, were the first published items that established the Dragonlance fictional universe. The original DL series was released from 1984 to 1986, with the final two modules added to it in 1988. In the 1990s these roleplaying adventures from the original series were collected and revised for 2nd Edition AD&D as the three DLC Dragonlance Classics modules. There were also versions of the module series released in 1999, 2000 and 2006.
Dragons of Despair is the first in a series of 16 Dragonlance adventures published by TSR, Inc. (TSR) between 1984 and 1988. It is the start of the first major story arc in the Dragonlance series of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) role-playing game modules, a series of ready-to-play adventures for use by Dungeon Masters in the game. This series provides a game version of the original Dragonlance storyline later told in the Dragonlance Chronicles trilogy of novels. This module corresponds to the events told in the first half of the novel Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Its module code is DL1, which is used to designate it as the first part of the Dragonlance adventure series.
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