The power and beauty of fantasy paintings and art is undeniable, such art work tells stories of what are often the deepest parts of the human psyche and imagination. In the past such fantasy art work that existed was based primarily on legends and mythology from the past. There where exceptions to this of course as many pre-Raphaelite drawings depicted famous opera’s which could at times be unrelated to mythology. Still however the vast majority of such work was based almost entirely upon mythological stories.



Books however began to change this as time went on more and more fantasy and sci-fi writers began to create works that required a constant stream of art. This in turn spurned creativity within the fantasy world to newer and greater heights as artists strove to create beautiful works of art in order to prove creativity more then simply to tell another story. Certainly fantasy artists still created art based on stories they had little to do with from the art of Middle Earth to that of the serials such art was often times still a reflection of a form of mythology.

More recently something new has come along to inspire fantasy artists, the role playing game. RPG fantasy games have helped to support a new generations of artists, making it seem that you can’t look at a famous fantasy artist currently alive without seeing a whole stream of work they created for RPG companies especially for whoever owned Dungeons and Dragons when they where building a reputation. Brom himself a very famous fantasy artist has created many pieces for D&D fantasy games. It is interesting to note that such creative minds still work towards relating someone else’s vision. At the same time one wonders if such a goal as increasing another’s vision is perhaps one reason fantasy art can have such an impact, because we relate to it before we see it.

This relationship with fantasy art takes a new turn when one involves RPG’s because people do not simply read RPG’s as they would the work of any fantasy writer, or hears it as they would from a myth. Fantasy Games are experienced by people they are played, and told as a story and acted. It is said that acting helps to endear people to an idea and a personality allowing them to understand it. This makes Tabletop fantasy games much more powerful then any computer game. It is perhaps this power that makes painting for such games so appealing to many artists, and why so many new people have begun attempting to work within the realm of fantasy art.

Tabletop RPG’s then have given a boost to the world of fantasy art because they have helped to inspire many new artists, not only to create works for the fantasy games but to create works of art independent of these works that demonstrate the genius of their vision and the human propensity for wonderful imaginative creation.