D&D: Behind The Scenes With Larry Elmore’s The Companions Of The Lance
Come take a look behind the scenes of one of the most iconic D&D paintings. Join Larry Elmore and step behind the scenes of the Companions of the Lance.
The Companions of the Lance is one of Dragonlance’s most iconic images. In it you’ll see the heroes of the Dragonlance Saga just at the outset of their epic journey, gathered around a campfire and resting–an experience that adventurers around the world have shared.
It’s an image that you can find echoed across various gaming media–there’s even a shade of it in one of the best video games of all time, Chrono Trigger, when its party of heroes is gathered around a campfire, taking a moment to reflect on their adventure so far.
Guess it’s time to go fire up my new game+ again…
But according to Elmore, creating this iconic painting took him only ten days. Ten days with ten characters–here’s a description of the assignment, taken from Elmore’s Facebook Page.
via Larry Elmore
One day I got an assignment at TSR to do a painting and I had only ten days to do it in….and it had ten characters in the painting, i nearly panicked!!! I called downstairs to my wife, Betty and told her to grab Stephanie (’cause she was tall) and come upstairs to the art room….I got all the artists there, Clyde, Jeff, Jeff Butler, and Keith, then I took everyone over to this empty large office room.
We shot photos there a lot, there were some fold up chairs and I think we still had a couple of lights set up…maybe just one light that I moved around.
I had an ideal of what kind of arrangement of everyone that would work for ten people in one painting. I did the painting and met my deadline, but I never dreamed it would be such a popular piece… I just wish that they had given me more time to do the painting a lot better!!
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And that’s just one of the many works Elmore would create for TSR/D&D. Hope you enjoyed this look back in time and behind the scenes.
Until next time, Happy Adventuring!
