I don't deny that the pastel skeleton picture has a certain charm. It's just really, really not what I want my D&D to look like.
That's fair. The picture really isn't in keeping with the overall look of AD&D 2E. which would make it jarring in context.
I'm a little glad I passed on the recent AD&D 2E megabundle as I heard it was the revised books. I almost went in on it as I passed on the whole 2E era of AD&D at the time. I was curious just to give the books a read, but everything I hear about revised makes it sounds bad.
Anyway--to really appreciate the Sears Dungeoneers, we need to see the other half of their membership. From two pages earlier in the same book:[/QUOTE]
What really turns my stomach with these is the colors. Someone really needed to give this guy a color wheel and lesson on color theory. That mint green sweater/cape on the elf, the hot pink cardigan on the gnome and the violet background is just nauseating when you put it all together.
As for the cape, the part at the top where he was copying a sweater is clearly rendered with shading. The parts hanging behind the elf are just an area of flat green without any contrast or line definition because he didn't have a reference. He also used the lightest shade of green, which looks wrong. He might have gotten away with making the whole area one flat color if he had gone with the darker shade of green he was using in the folds of the sweater portion.
Color theory was something that Erol Otus has a good grasp of. With his basic set cover, he was already working from a tough position with needing to match a magenta box, but that green dragon really pops against the muted purple dungeon background. Making the water green as well was a great choice to keep the palette simple. Then the sorceress is using the same green in her spell, which reflects on her cape and leg. Some of the red she is wearing can be seen in the dragon she is facing. The fighter down the bottom is wearing the same purple as the background in the top portion, creating a balance.
He is playing with some really risky colors, but it all comes together. It's a little garish, but in a pulpy way that suits the subject matter.