Erol Otus is an American artist and

game designer Game design is the process of creating and shaping the mechanics, systems, rules, and gameplay of a game. Game design processes apply to board games, card games, dice games, casino games, role-playing games, sports, Wargame (video games), war ga ...

, who contributed art to the fantasy

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...

(RPG) genre, especially early in the ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) originally created and designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical ...

'' franchise. He created art for the award winning ''

Star Control II ''Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters'' is a 1992 adventure shoot 'em up video game developed by Toys for Bob ( Fred Ford and Paul Reiche III) and originally published by Accolade in 1992 for MS-DOS. The game is a direct sequel to ''Star Contr ...

'' as well as providing the voice for one of the character races, the Chmmr, in the same game.

Biography

Otus graduated from high school in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. A self-taught artist since childhood, Otus developed an interest in role-playing games. His first professional artwork in the genre was for the '' Arduin Grimoire'' in 1977. He won an honorable mention in a fanart contest in ''

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

'' magazine No. 13, which also led to employment in the art department of game company TSR in

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin Lake Geneva is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located in Walworth County and situated on Geneva Lake, it was home to 8,277 people as of the 2020 census, up from 7,651 at the 2010 census. It is located southwest of Milwaukee and no ...

in the 1970s. After leaving the company, he studied painting at

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

and also took classes at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. He has cited a wide range of influences on his work from

Dr. Seuss Theodor Seuss Geisel ( ;"Seuss"
'' Frank Frazetta Frank Frazetta (born Frank Frazzetta ; February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010) was an American artist known for themes of Fantasy art, fantasy and science fiction, noted for comic books, mass market paperback, paperback book covers, paintings, p ...

to modern artists such as

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , ; ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan Spanish painter, sculptor and Ceramic art, ceramist. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona ...

Willem de Kooning Willem de Kooning ( , ; April 24, 1904 – March 19, 1997) was a Dutch-American abstract expressionist artist. Born in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, he moved to the United States in 1926, becoming a US citizen in 1962. In 1943, he married pa ...

and

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky ( – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter and art theorist. Kandinsky is generally credited as one of the pioneers of abstract art, abstraction in western art. Born in Moscow, he spent his childhood in ...

Role-playing games

Erol Otus was a prolific contributor to the early ''

'' (D&D) franchise, creating full covers as well as many interior illustrations for TSR materials. For example, he created the cover for the first version of the D&D manual ''

Deities & Demigods ''Deities & Demigods'' (abbreviated ''DDG''), alternatively known as ''Legends & Lore'' (abbreviated ''L&L'' or ''LL''), is a reference book for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' fantasy role-playing game (D&D). The book provides descriptions and game ...

'' and illustrated the

Cthulhu Cthulhu is a fictional cosmic entity created by writer H. P. Lovecraft. It was introduced in his short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published by the American pulp magazine ''Weird Tales'' in 1928. Considered a Great Old One within the pantheon ...

pantheon within. According to fellow contributor

Jeff Dee Jeff Dee is an American artist and game designer. He was the youngest artist in the history of pioneering role-playing game company TSR when he began his work at the age of 18. He also designed the ''Villains and Vigilantes'' superhero game. He ...

, many of the original versions of this work were lost during a later clean-out of the TSR offices. Otus has also provided cover art and interior illustrations for

Goodman Games Goodman Games is an American game publisher best known for the ''Dungeon Crawl Classics'' series of adventure modules and role-playing game, its science fiction offshoot ''Mutant Crawl Classics'', and ''Original Adventures Reincarnated'', a lin ...

, Oracle Games (in particular '' Alma Mater - The High School RPG'') and the

Arduin ''Arduin'' is a fictional universe and fantasy role-playing game, role-playing system created in the mid-1970s by David A. Hargrave. It was the first published "cross-genre" fantasy RPG, with everything from interstellar wars to horror and histo ...

series. His art was featured on the covers of the new '' HackMaster'' edition and issue #8 of ''Fight On!'' While working at TSR, Otus was a runner-up in TSR's 4th Invitational AD&D Masters Tournament at

Gen Con Gen Con is the largest tabletop game convention in North America by both attendance and number of events. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, live action role-playing ...

XIII, a contest to choose the game's best overall dungeon master. He competed against the likes of Lenard Lakofka and first place was taken by

Frank Mentzer Jacob Franklin Mentzer III is an American fantasy author and game designer who worked on early materials for the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. He was an employee of TSR, Inc. from 1980 to 1986, spending part of that tim ...

. In 2014, Scott Taylor of '' Black Gate'', named Erol Otus as 9A in a list of The Top 10 RPG Artists of the Past 40 Years, saying "I applaud Otus for keeping his style and staying true to his roots, so an inclusion on this list is a worthy honor."

Video games

Otus has also provided illustrations, production design and voice overs for

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

s such as ''

The Last Ninja ''The Last Ninja'' is an action-adventure game developed and published by System 3 (company), System 3 in 1987 for the Commodore 64. It was converted to the Apple IIGS, MS-DOS, BBC Micro and Acorn Electron in 1988, the Apple II in 1989, the Amig ...

'', '' Star Trek: Generations'', '' Mail Order Monsters'' and ''

''. ''Star Control II'' was named by ''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

'' as the 17th best game of all time, and by ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

'' as one of the greatest games of all time.

Other work

Otus provided the cover art for the album ''Down Among The Deadmen'' (2000) by American heavy metal band

Slough Feg Slough Feg (also known as The Lord Weird Slough Feg) is an American heavy metal band from Pennsylvania, formed in 1990 and currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Taking their name from the Celtic folklore-influenced comic book Sláine, ...

(then known as ''Lord Weird Slough Feg'').

References

External links

* *
The Erol Otus Shrine
(a fansite) {{DEFAULTSORT:Otus, Erol American fantasy artists American game artists American game designers American role-playing game artists American science fiction artists American video game artists Arduin artists Living people Year of birth missing (living people)