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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Caves of Chaos (2005) by Michael Komarck



     The above image was posted on the Acaeum today by darkseraphim; it's a 2005 painting by Michael Komarck titled "Caves of Chaos (2005)", which I like. I hadn't seen the painting before, nor heard of the artist. His website indicates that it is an interior illustration for the 3.5E Players Handbook II, and that prints are available for purchase:

http://komarckart.com/bk_int14.html

     In some ways the style of the landscape/clouds reminds me of "The Fountain of Vaucluse" (1841) by Thomas Cole,  which Wizard in a Bottle posted last fall as a "Keep on the Borderlands inspirational painting" (it shows a keep on a rocky plateau). The two pics could be used together to illustrate a more mountainous/rocky Keep and CoC.

I also just noticed that Mythmere blogged about this painting by Komarck last year:
Best picture from WOTC
Interior Illustration for the D&D rulebook Players Handbook II.

2 comments:

  1. As much as I've loved that pic since I first saw it a couple of years ago, and would like to imagine that as what the Caves look like, my more critical side has trouble reconciling the fact that the image doesn't match up to the scale or topography of the Caves as presented on the B2 map. Sometimes I really wish I could shut that inner critic off...

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  2. Yes, Roslof's original cover of B2 is much closer in detail. I see this more as a re-imagining, like the new Star Trek. Could be useful for throwing off veteran players - particularly if some caves require climbing equipment to reach.

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