Sunday, December 16, 2007

Wi+ches & Wiz_rds, part 1

Back around '98 or so I bought a CD-ROM full of fantasy clipart. Here's what it looks like:

You see he's casting a spell while casting the sword.


At the time I got it I quickly found a suitable Slinky Vampiress image for the con flyer I was working on and pretty much forgot I had the thing for a decade or so. I rediscovered the disc in my most recent move and today on a lark I flipped through the whole dang disk. From the looks of it I was expecting folders full of traditional renfaire fantasy illos. I opened the folder labeled "Animals" expecting to find unicorns and dragons and such. Instead, I got a few hundred pics like this:

No comment.Smoldering cheetah temptresses aren't really my bag, but I decided to check out the other folders anyway. Turns out there's some really neat stuff on the disk as well, which I plan on sharing with all y'all over the next few days. Take, for instance, Conan totally throwing down on a lion!


So let me get this straight.  The adventure is called the Tower of the Elephant but the first encounter is with a lion?  REH must be one of those DMs that love to mess with your head.

More cool images later in the week.

8 comments:

  1. I noticed the copyright notices on those images, what are the usage rights the disc guarantees the purchaser? I'd be nervous if they weren't all granted free and clear for you to use however you like, especially as each is copyrighted to a different person.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As far as I can tell from the license, there's no way to legitimately use the images. I'd ask the company, but www.simplymedia.net doesn't return an actual page.

    Though let's be frank here. This is hardly the first time in the history of the ol' Gameblog that I've appropriated images. At least these people got some money out of me first.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh gosh, I didn't mean to say you shouldn't use them here, that's clearly a fair use -- you're talking up their product, after all! I was thinking more along the lines of if someone wanted to put together a self-published RPG system and wanted to use it for spot illustrations, that kind of thing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend that at all given that the license pretty much all but says that you can't really use the clipart.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That wizard on the front with the magic index and pinky fingers is used on the front of the Rolemaster FRP Treasure Companion

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks! I thought I had seen it elsewhere before!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Take THAT, pointillized lion!

    ReplyDelete
  8. heh. reminds me of a clip art CD I got with a copy of Corel Draw. It had a ton of drawings stolen from the original AD&D Monster Manual and didn't given an iota of credit.

    ReplyDelete