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Game designer and artist Jennell Jaquays (born Paul Jaquays) has been posting her past artworks (D&D and non-D&D) to her Facebook page. While many images are higher quality than the internet had before, unfortunately Google doesn't crawl Facebook pages, and so they are pretty much unsearchable with the image search.
So I rounded up some artworks and her comments from the page. Also for your viewing pleasure.
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Around 1990 or so I worked with Crossover Technologies of NYC on an MMORPG to be played the Prodigy network. Prodigy chose not to go forward. I did both scenario design and concept art for the project. This image was rendered in Ink washes on Bristol paper and to the best of my knowlege remains in the posession of Crossover Tech.
Another oldie. Done for the licensed Ghostbusters RPG from West End Games. Apokermis Now! Essentially the party at the end of the world. The demon on the frog (toad?) was intended to be a play on Frank Frazetta's famous Deathdealer painting. While I was able to add a number of touches, this was a pretty heavily art-directed image. It also represents my painting style just prior to my "break-out painting" done a year or so later.
This is that "break-out painting" in which the way that I handled color changed. It was done as a cover for Dungeon magazine and remains one of the very few fantasy painting for which I still own the rights to reuse it.
I started working into color themed backgrounds (entire painting a color before I add detail) and then began mixing color differently ... taking grays and blacks out of my palette.
The painting appears on an early-ish cover of Dungeon magazine from TSR and is for an adventure called Thunder Under Needlespire. The creature is supposed to be special variant illithid.
I painted this for TSR for the cover of the boxed adventure Dragon Mountain for AD&D. Colin McComb was the author and a young, nearly unknown illustrator, Tony DiTerlizzi, was the interior artist. This ended up being my most famous piece of work.
This painting was created for the cover of The Feral, a Dragon Dice booster set. It depicts the anthropomorphic animal warriors army featured in the rules set and created as icons on the dice. It's an acrylic painting, rendered on illustration board mounted to a light plywood for stability.
Because David Shepheard has been so patient in asking and waiting for this piece to be posted ... here is Last Descent, a cover that painted for a Dungeon cover back in the early 90s. It's acrylic on illustration board mounted to light plywood. The space scape was created using a wet in wet technique shown me by artist Randy Asplund. I used this in several paintings. The space ship, a nautiloid comes from TSR's Spelljammer campaign setting. It's damaged and going down to a planet surface for the last time. I actually built a rough model out of Sculpey for the ship to get an idea of how to draw the forms in perspective.
This was obviously one of my own favorites and hung on my walls at home and the office for years. Now in the hands of a private collector.
This is a piece that doesn't get a lot of views. It was one of the pieces that I did for what I thought, at the time, was a solvent publisher. I even allowed a second use for their magazine cover. What I didn't know was that the company was steps away from bankruptcy. I was never paid for this. When they finally offered compensation quite some time later, it was in product. Product they couldn't sell to keep their company afloat. Product offered at full cover price. I said no. So this piece becomes one of the few paintings for which I retain all rights due to forfeiture.
The name of the piece fits both the image and the tale of it's creation: Unpaid Debt.
I posed for the monster. Looking back, I pretty much posed for all the monsters in my paintings. I think that says something.
Very early illustrative work for me. The Martian troopers depicted in the black and white work are one of the player sides for the Metagaming microgame Olympica. I THINK it was done as concept work for Martian Metals, who were contemplating a line of figures based on the game. I know that one of the Martians ended up in their 15mm Traveller figures line. Obviously, this was all done as traditional media hand work. This puts the piece at around 1978-80 for creation. At some point later, I apparently added type printed from my 1984 Mac computer..
The color piece is the second cover that I did for the game. I like it better than the first. It is rendered in designers gouache on illustration board.
This was another of my personal favorite freelance pieces that I did for TSR back in the early 90s. It appeared on the cover of Dungeon magazine, another Spelljammer related piece, called Sea of Sorrows. This was a giant dragon creature that lived in fantasy space. The menacing black object in the background was drawing all manner of debris into it.
The original painting was done in acrylics. This is not the original painting, but a digital rework of it. I changed the shape of the painting and cloned in additional space clouds around the edges.
My name is hidden in the painting.
It was the cover for Dungeon #36.
So here it is, the painting that a number of my fans have been asking for ... Thornworld, a Spelljammer themed scene for the cover of a Dragon magazine back in the 90s. My original intent for the painting was more complex, but deadlines pushed me toward a simpler rendering. If I can find the original sketch, I'll attach it in the comments.
The painting is rendered in acrylics.
The sketch, featuring figures that never appeared in the final.
TSR was not my only cover painting client back in the day. This piece called "And Await My Return" was done for West End Games's TORG line, a game book by John Terra called The Gaunt Man Returns (it also appeared on a novel by John as well). The model for the Gaunt Man was one of my regular models, Robert Orke, an art student at a local college. He looked nothing like this, of course.
This is a second pass on the original sketch for cover (the room interior was added). I can't remember if the choice to remove the stained glass was mine or the art director's (Stephen Crane of West End Games).
(The Acrylic cover painting for Goblinz, a childrens' board game (unproduced) for TSR, Inc. Painted in 1996.)
Goblinz! This was supposed to be a childrens' board game for TSR. Its a painting done in my last year at TSR. Players would move one of four goblinz tokens around the playing board to sneak into the dragon's lair, grab its treasure and run away.
When I let my cartoony art style come through, I could create cover paintings more suited to mass market retailing than some of the other staff artists. I did three covers in that style, Dragon Dice Battle Box, the Dungeon board game cover and this one.
I came up with the game name, the logo, the characters, painted their tokens, and painted the cover. Steve Winter was the designer and creative director, and I think Stephen Danielle was the art director.
The sketches were a part of my development of the characters.
The cover for the first Mystara boxed set, Karameikos, Kingdom of Adventure.
For those discovering me through Owen Stephen's art link of my work, here's a piece that I did 25 or so years ago for Dragon magazine. The original work was done in ink wash on Bristol paper for an article that I wrote on summoning avatars of deities in Runequest type games. I've enriched the contrast here from the original.
This was, I believe, the last cover that I painted for TSR. It was for a novel called A Thief in the Tomb of Horrors. It was used, eventually, by WotC, but not for ToH book. It's one of my smaller paintings from that time period. Acrylics on mounted Bristol paper (or illustration board. Stephen Daniele, then the art director for the project, posed for the Thief character. One of the editors, whose name now escapes me, posed for the lich.
----
And one of her recent works:
Over a year ago, I completed a digital painting as a part of a Kickstarter. The art was for a fantasy book. The author ran the KS to fund the cover. It slipped my mind til now, but the author did give permission to include the cover in my portfolio.
So I rounded up some artworks and her comments from the page. Also for your viewing pleasure.
---
Around 1990 or so I worked with Crossover Technologies of NYC on an MMORPG to be played the Prodigy network. Prodigy chose not to go forward. I did both scenario design and concept art for the project. This image was rendered in Ink washes on Bristol paper and to the best of my knowlege remains in the posession of Crossover Tech.
Another oldie. Done for the licensed Ghostbusters RPG from West End Games. Apokermis Now! Essentially the party at the end of the world. The demon on the frog (toad?) was intended to be a play on Frank Frazetta's famous Deathdealer painting. While I was able to add a number of touches, this was a pretty heavily art-directed image. It also represents my painting style just prior to my "break-out painting" done a year or so later.
This is that "break-out painting" in which the way that I handled color changed. It was done as a cover for Dungeon magazine and remains one of the very few fantasy painting for which I still own the rights to reuse it.
I started working into color themed backgrounds (entire painting a color before I add detail) and then began mixing color differently ... taking grays and blacks out of my palette.
The painting appears on an early-ish cover of Dungeon magazine from TSR and is for an adventure called Thunder Under Needlespire. The creature is supposed to be special variant illithid.
I painted this for TSR for the cover of the boxed adventure Dragon Mountain for AD&D. Colin McComb was the author and a young, nearly unknown illustrator, Tony DiTerlizzi, was the interior artist. This ended up being my most famous piece of work.
This painting was created for the cover of The Feral, a Dragon Dice booster set. It depicts the anthropomorphic animal warriors army featured in the rules set and created as icons on the dice. It's an acrylic painting, rendered on illustration board mounted to a light plywood for stability.
Because David Shepheard has been so patient in asking and waiting for this piece to be posted ... here is Last Descent, a cover that painted for a Dungeon cover back in the early 90s. It's acrylic on illustration board mounted to light plywood. The space scape was created using a wet in wet technique shown me by artist Randy Asplund. I used this in several paintings. The space ship, a nautiloid comes from TSR's Spelljammer campaign setting. It's damaged and going down to a planet surface for the last time. I actually built a rough model out of Sculpey for the ship to get an idea of how to draw the forms in perspective.
This was obviously one of my own favorites and hung on my walls at home and the office for years. Now in the hands of a private collector.
This is a piece that doesn't get a lot of views. It was one of the pieces that I did for what I thought, at the time, was a solvent publisher. I even allowed a second use for their magazine cover. What I didn't know was that the company was steps away from bankruptcy. I was never paid for this. When they finally offered compensation quite some time later, it was in product. Product they couldn't sell to keep their company afloat. Product offered at full cover price. I said no. So this piece becomes one of the few paintings for which I retain all rights due to forfeiture.
The name of the piece fits both the image and the tale of it's creation: Unpaid Debt.
I posed for the monster. Looking back, I pretty much posed for all the monsters in my paintings. I think that says something.
Very early illustrative work for me. The Martian troopers depicted in the black and white work are one of the player sides for the Metagaming microgame Olympica. I THINK it was done as concept work for Martian Metals, who were contemplating a line of figures based on the game. I know that one of the Martians ended up in their 15mm Traveller figures line. Obviously, this was all done as traditional media hand work. This puts the piece at around 1978-80 for creation. At some point later, I apparently added type printed from my 1984 Mac computer..
The color piece is the second cover that I did for the game. I like it better than the first. It is rendered in designers gouache on illustration board.
This was another of my personal favorite freelance pieces that I did for TSR back in the early 90s. It appeared on the cover of Dungeon magazine, another Spelljammer related piece, called Sea of Sorrows. This was a giant dragon creature that lived in fantasy space. The menacing black object in the background was drawing all manner of debris into it.
The original painting was done in acrylics. This is not the original painting, but a digital rework of it. I changed the shape of the painting and cloned in additional space clouds around the edges.
My name is hidden in the painting.
It was the cover for Dungeon #36.
So here it is, the painting that a number of my fans have been asking for ... Thornworld, a Spelljammer themed scene for the cover of a Dragon magazine back in the 90s. My original intent for the painting was more complex, but deadlines pushed me toward a simpler rendering. If I can find the original sketch, I'll attach it in the comments.
The painting is rendered in acrylics.
The sketch, featuring figures that never appeared in the final.
TSR was not my only cover painting client back in the day. This piece called "And Await My Return" was done for West End Games's TORG line, a game book by John Terra called The Gaunt Man Returns (it also appeared on a novel by John as well). The model for the Gaunt Man was one of my regular models, Robert Orke, an art student at a local college. He looked nothing like this, of course.
This is a second pass on the original sketch for cover (the room interior was added). I can't remember if the choice to remove the stained glass was mine or the art director's (Stephen Crane of West End Games).
(The Acrylic cover painting for Goblinz, a childrens' board game (unproduced) for TSR, Inc. Painted in 1996.)
Goblinz! This was supposed to be a childrens' board game for TSR. Its a painting done in my last year at TSR. Players would move one of four goblinz tokens around the playing board to sneak into the dragon's lair, grab its treasure and run away.
When I let my cartoony art style come through, I could create cover paintings more suited to mass market retailing than some of the other staff artists. I did three covers in that style, Dragon Dice Battle Box, the Dungeon board game cover and this one.
I came up with the game name, the logo, the characters, painted their tokens, and painted the cover. Steve Winter was the designer and creative director, and I think Stephen Danielle was the art director.
The sketches were a part of my development of the characters.
The cover for the first Mystara boxed set, Karameikos, Kingdom of Adventure.
For those discovering me through Owen Stephen's art link of my work, here's a piece that I did 25 or so years ago for Dragon magazine. The original work was done in ink wash on Bristol paper for an article that I wrote on summoning avatars of deities in Runequest type games. I've enriched the contrast here from the original.
This was, I believe, the last cover that I painted for TSR. It was for a novel called A Thief in the Tomb of Horrors. It was used, eventually, by WotC, but not for ToH book. It's one of my smaller paintings from that time period. Acrylics on mounted Bristol paper (or illustration board. Stephen Daniele, then the art director for the project, posed for the Thief character. One of the editors, whose name now escapes me, posed for the lich.
----
And one of her recent works:
Over a year ago, I completed a digital painting as a part of a Kickstarter. The art was for a fantasy book. The author ran the KS to fund the cover. It slipped my mind til now, but the author did give permission to include the cover in my portfolio.
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