The Expert Dwarf

I drew this Bill Willingham D&D dwarf while playing Top Secret. Go figure.

You'll know this guy from the first page of 1981's Basic D&D book. He's smacking a dragon around with his adventuring pals. I don't know if Willingham named him, but I like to call him Zipsmasher Busterchops.

I should do more fanart from the old game. It's fun to explore how another artist works and when you're drawing one of their characters you pick up on a lot of details. Willingham and Jeff Dee, for example, both obviously had tremendous super hero comic book inclinations. I actually like that they both had their stamp on this version of D&D because as an old comic book guy myself it resonated. I saw D&D characters as larger than life and not just pond scum struggling to become epic. While I love the zero to hero aesthetic that the OSR has cultivated (see DCC RPG), I also know it sucks to sit down to play an adventure game and be virtually powerless (reminds me I might need to do another Magic-User rant soon).

The original Bill Willingham art kicks much ass, natch.

I made a character sheet for Zip. I figured he was a strong dwarf, so 14 Str seemed realistic, assuming the player rolled 3d6. I could have went higher... maybe I should have. Ole Zip's got guns.

Here's a timelapse of the drawing for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

Bill Willingham

You have no idea how much the back cover of X1 deeply impacted my 14-yo mind.

I mean... what's to be said about Bill Willingham? He's a god damn legend. And he's a legend in two distinct domains. He's legendary as one of the artists of TSR's golden age, lending his talents to such immeasurably influential works as the Moldvay/Cook/Marsh Basic and Expert D&D sets and seminal adventure modules such as X1: Isle of Dread. He's also more legendary (to the wider public) as the creator of many comic books ranging from the early 80s' Elementals to the 2000s massively popular Fables (and including the 90s' deliciously pornographic Ironwood, for which there was in fact an RPG based on the Theatrix system).

It would be easy to say Willingham is high on my list of favorites merely because of nostalgia. And it is absolutely true that this has something to do with it. If he hadn't been present in the books I was looking at as my own artistic voice developed then I would certainly not have him on my list. But there's more to it than that. Like Frank Frazetta or Vaughn Bode, Willingham's style, line work, and overall approach to the subject matter resonates with me. I love how he draws forms and shadows. And people in capes.

This front piece from X1 perfectly illustrates Willingham's wonderful use of shadows, I think.