This is a fun conversation for anyone interested in how the visual style of #planescape was pretty much done solely by the hands of @TonyDiTerlizzi – literally painted & mailed to the TSR office in WI!
Plus great Sage Advice on sidekicks here w/ @JeremyECrawford, not targeting. [Music]
everyone
let us welcome tony deter lizzie two
dragon talk welcome tony
hey
thank you for having me very good to be
here we are so excited
to have you here as i was saying before
there are
everybody in my household is excited
that you’re here you’re lots of fans
that’s terrific and i’m it’s weird i
feel old and
and and lucky when a long time fan is
like you know we started with
you know this old second edition monster
manual and then my kids read spiderwick
and
it’s pretty amazing and then their kids
who knows what they’ll be reading but
hopefully you’ll still be writing and
illustrating because you’re wonderfully
talented
thank you thank you absolutely um we
just read
in the house uh the newest book kenny
kenny oh no no wait we started with
kenny and the dragon i’ll show you here
um and i asked my son to please
write a review oh and would you like to
hear his review
i absolutely actually finished it
yesterday and i know it’s going to be
better than any goodreads review i’d
ever i mean you might i will
i will give you permission if you want
to blurb him on the front of your book
but watch out publishers weekly we got
we got a new
word quinn’s gives you um five stars
out of five uh and he said oh i love it
i like the rabbit and how there’s all
these animals
the night is cool i like the creation
the world creation and how the dragon
and the rabbit are best friends
i really want to live in this world oh
that’s a great review yes there you go
there it is
that’s it yes
it is it is an adorably wonderful
wonderful story um kenny being this
adorable little rabbit
and graham being the dragon thank you
thank you that was you know we
that that book came out a while ago it
was during the height of the spiderwick
books
um so geez 10 years ago now um
and i the publisher had offered at the
time they knew i loved all classic
kids books like you know alice in
wonderland and wonderful i love all that
stuff
such a part of you know why i do what i
do and all that stuff’s in public domain
so they’re like do you want to do an
illustrated version of
alice or wizard of oz and there’s a lot
of versions of those
already out there if you go to the
bookstore you’ll see various
you know incarnations but the reluctant
dragon was just
one of those little stories that i just
absolutely loved as a kid and i think
it’s because
now that i’m older i think because i
felt like i was the dragon the the
misunderstood monster
which ties into d d because i love the
monsters more than the player characters
i always was like yeah i feel like i’m
i’m like a kobold or a knoll or a
you know gambling mound some days yeah
did you i feel like sorry no it’s okay
go ahead
i was just gonna say i kind of feel like
we jumped in without
fully giving you um a proper
introduction
so that people know exactly how i mean
you’re not
you’re your
uh resume go runs real deep
in in especially if you’re a d d fan i
mean you alluded to
to long time fans but they may be very
familiar with
um some of your work from was it second
edition dandy
yeah you had to recall that like how far
back
how far about let me do the math here
second yes
um yeah and then like not just you
you’ve
authored so many books
so many books um but you’re also uh an
illustrator
and um you’ve written some wonderful
geeky blog posts that people may
have read and um found inspiration from
but yeah i mean you have
why don’t you just like in a nutshell
more articulate than
than i did just tell us a little bit
about your history who are you
you’ve you’re so many things i want to
talk about spiderwick i want to talk
about the books i’m gonna take
illustrations
well i’m tony dieterlizi i am a uh
he long lifetime dungeons and dragons
player
and i was fortunate enough to contribute
to the game
mostly through the 90s um and probably
many gamers would know me from
the planescape role-playing game which i
was the
um the primary illustrator for for
almost 10 years wow which tsr had never
really done
and i don’t know if they’ve done it
since it was kind of a
crazy experiment anyway and then i i
went on to
illustrate for magic the gathering for
many years also in the 90s and early
2000s
all while pursuing a career in
children’s book
uh writing and illustration and
i’ve done children’s books now for 20
years
and um most famous many people as we
mentioned earlier
probably know me from the spiderwick
chronicles which was absolutely inspired
by the monster manual
if you couldn’t figure that out
that was the jumping off point for sure
yeah yeah but yeah i
i the the planescape visual look is
you know what i think of when i when i
hear your name like i was i’m oh that’s
that’s
the you know the aesthetic the uh the
weirdness was
was there something about that setting
that spoke to you
other than being assigned it you know
like was it was it was was it part of
um you know your you’re uh emil you as
an artist
um well you know to to go back a little
bit
on in that early 90s greg i mean i
i’ve been asked to my first project for
tsr was dragon mountain
and uh which i did okay illustrating it
was way more than i
had banked i thought i was gonna get
like a module or something i get to do
like
you know three or four illustrations or
an adventure module
i didn’t think they’d give me a box set
um but i excelled at the monsters
and so tim beach was the was like the
head designer the head editor on the
monstrous manual
and this would have been the first ever
color monster manual if you can
when they had vented color finally for
and uh and i he had originally wanted me
to illustrate the whole thing all
300 and something entries oh my god but
there was no way i could have
done it in the time a lot it and i
didn’t i
i i worried that i would rush and and i
didn’t want to rush it because that
monster manual those early source books
were so inspirational to me and i
didn’t want to blow it i was i really
meant a lot to be asked to do that
and so i think um you know at that time
i
you know a lot of uh the staff artists
like you know jeff easley
and and and and uh people like larry
elmore and clyde caldwell and keith
parker’s all these
giants that had worked for tsr during
the 80s
they were oil painters um they were
inspired by classic fantasy
um along the lines of like frankfurzeta
and boris vallejo and stuff that would
have been very popular in the late 70s
and early 1980s
and i was inspired by like brian froud
and and
alan lee and and then the people that
inspired them like arthur rackham
these kind of old fairy tale
illustrators that drew
you know twiggy creepy skinny things so
that
came through in the art that i did for
the for the monstrous manual
and and there was a polarized kind of
reception you know some people really
liked it because i didn’t use bright
color i used all
brown with more brown and earth tones
not every monster was jacked some of
them were
fat some of them were skinny and scrawny
and you know
um and that i think caught the eye of
the team
that was putting together planescape and
they thought this guy might be
the person to to do the visuals
for this this incredibly epic world that
zeb
cook was was creating um at the time
and they had actually hired they
originally wanted me to join a staff
um and i and i declined
which was a very hard decision but um
my i was dating uh a girl who ended up
becoming my wife angela and
and it was right at that point where i’m
like i might move to wisconsin and it
was like i could see the look in her
eyes like
so i i was able to just remain freelance
and
um you know here i am i mean as i said i
mean i
i was the sole illustrator golly for
i’m almost 10 years it was crazy it was
a roller coaster it really was very
when i think back on it i’m i’m
incredibly thankful that i
was given that opportunity because i
learned so much
it’s really powerful work i mean i i
have one of my favorite t-shirts is the
uh
lady of pain uh symbol uh yeah
and there’s just something so iconic and
you know other than normal dnd t-shirts
that i wear like that’s the one that
gets the most comments
uh just on the on the striking nature of
of that
uh oh yeah that was designed by dana
knutson he was the staff artist at the
time but he designed the lady of pain
and he was kind of like an in-house
concept guy so he
they had like like almost like a movie i
guess they probably do it now with the
newer iterations of the game and magic
you’d have
these kind of concepts of like this is
what we want it to look like
and um and dana had done a lot of that
initial
homework for what planescape should look
like including designing the lady of
pain
that’s awesome yeah and then so yeah so
talk us through like what it’s like
having that kind of creative not control
necessarily but like the
the visual look and then being able to
to iterate on it
so that it feels oh and we’re
introducing a new character or a new
thing but it needs to feel
both familiar and new um and that’s
gonna be i mean
some of the the joy i see in watching
our art directors now is they bring in
new people to
to do and do that work so it’s gotta be
a little bit hard for someone who is
hey this is my style but i have to to
keep it fresh
not only for the audience but for
yourself well i think
it started to um expand
the window of what fantasy art
can be you know what i mean so i think
you know
there was for many years when you when
you said fantasy art you thought of
you know frank rosetta airbrushed on the
side of a custom van like oh yeah i know
what that is it’s
conan with no shirt on you know with a
giant
axe and a you know a naked girl wrapped
around his legs and
and so i can see every muscle and
everything yeah
every muscle will simultaneously flex as
strong as it could be
yeah it’s so physically impossible to do
um and i i remember
um i was up at the offices when we were
doing some of the initial meetings and
zeb
showed me uh these art books he had got
and
he had purchased in on a recent trip to
japan
and it was the art of yoshitaka amano
who uh famously is amazing famous
illustrator but most famously known for
being the
lead designer for final fantasy and and
amano’s
watercolor sketches uh have a manga
influence but they’re certainly been
westernized in a lot of ways and they
were absolutely
just mind-blowingly beautiful and
and he was like can you do something
that that looks kind of like this like
do your frowty rackham thing
but can you infuse some of this in it
and i was like absolutely because it was
pencil and watercolor was it was in a
visual
medium that i could i could understand
and so um we were expanding already then
at that point we were starting to push
boundaries of what
you could do to describe or illustrate
what a dungeons and dragons world could
look like that it didn’t just have to be
these muscly characters um
that you could have these parts that
look different i kind of think of it
almost in a way of like the marvel
expanded universe how you know
okay there’s the the earthbound
superheroes but then when we go
in these other universes you know things
can look like guardians of the galaxy or
whatever so
um it was it was an amazing time
at the same time tsr was developing
another
huge campaign system called birthright
and frankly that’s where they put
all the money and all the attention was
on birthright so all the
the heads of the company all the big p
they were like they slid
all their chips on that they’re like
this is going to be the big thing
and and then they kind of left us alone
to create planescapes so
we really pushed what we could do and um
you know one of the things coming out of
doing that monstrous manual was
you know you had these boxes with a
monster kind of just floating in the box
and i remember don muerin who’s still at
wizards now
was the designer uh for planescape and i
remember like a monster wouldn’t do that
a monster would want to tear across the
page or
upset the text or you know that’s what a
monster would do
and you know don was able to kind of
figure out
how to i mean things like doing a text
wrap back then
were incredibly difficult because we
were laying it out like quark
you know there was no indesign you know
the artwork would have been
scanned even if i did the piece 11 by 14
the scans would have already been scaled
down as they’re scanning it because they
just the computers just couldn’t handle
a big high-res file so it was a really
um
yeah the 90s i didn’t even think about
that but the 90s were this weird
uh uh you know old-school type setting
and you know literally copying and
pasting
uh you know text on a page and then
scanning that in like there were some
people who were still doing it that way
uh during that time while the digital
you know tools were being developed and
and happening so
so did you paint every single
image you know by hand or did you do
anything digitally
[Laughter]
it’s just funny to me now because of
course i painted everything by hand
there was no
yeah i still paint everything by hand
but i mean i remember they wanted
drop shadows and so we would
do a sketch a lot of the times dawn
wanted the artwork
um vignetted so in other words it would
go to white so they could they could
scale it however they want it and
float it anywhere on the page that they
felt would work best with the flow of
the text
and they wanted drop shadows well i
didn’t
you know now you click literally you
click a button and photoshop will give
you that drop shadow
so this is how we did it i would i would
draw it on a piece of paper
and then i would paint it put some color
then we would rip
i would rip the sheet of paper so it
looked like a torn piece of paper
oh my god then i would take a piece of
white board and airbrush
a shadow and then glue the sheet of
paper
on it to look like a shadow and that’s
that’s how we did the drawing you
scanned that whole thing and then they
would scan that
wow you know was this really that long
ago because
am i the 90s seemed like that wasn’t
that long ago
that but i mean to think over the years
oh god i guess it is that long ago
and then you were just born shelly yeah
i mean i was just a baby so what do i
know
my whole my whole life has been just
clicking buttons in photoshop and
getting what you want but just photoshop
was out that’s photoshop was out
creative i mean it does just like
thinking of you tearing the paper and
airbrushing and
how long all of this stuck oh it took
and then we
i remember we had a we had a fire one
and they were like oh it’d be cool that
the edges were burned because it was
like a fire
imp or something oh yeah so i did the
whole drawing and i take a lighter
and the thing just goes woof
was hilarious and i’m like okay maybe i
should burn the edges first
and then draw it how long would it take
you to do
one like one piece of art with or
without a drop ship
okay so when we first start first year
was 1994 when we first started doing
planescape like full tilt that was the
campaign setting the monster book and i
think planes are chaos so a lot two box
sets
and uh and a monster book so when i
finally got hired i was like well who
else is contributing
and they’re like it’s just you and i’m
like
you mean like the enti like there’s
there’s four books in this campaign
setting
and there’s another like they’re like
yeah it’s just gonna be you
we just want you to set the look and i’m
like
okay so we looked at the schedule
and i said to them there’s only one way
i can i can do this
i’m gonna i’m gonna just go to final art
and i’m just gonna send you guys
finished art to keep because the
deadline that they had already had their
printing deadlines and their release
deadlines but something happened on the
development end
that delayed the start so there was a
weird thing in like 93 where they didn’t
give me any work
and i i went from like feast to famine
because
they were feeding me steady work and i i
was out of art school so i now had an
apartment
i’m paying off student loans i’m like
this is great i’m a dungeons and dragons
illustrator making a living
and then all sudden it just stopped and
the art director
uh peggy cooper was like we’re holding
you for a special project and i don’t
know how long it’s gonna be but it’s
gonna be a little while before we give
you
any work oh my god so they want because
they didn’t want me tied up on something
else
when i started anyway that went on in
almost until the end of the year i want
to say like that right before the hot
right around this time of the year i
flew up to meet with them for planescape
but these other deadlines hadn’t they
were unmovable
which meant i’d we’d lost a lot of time
which would have been
sketching and approval of the sketching
and revising of the sketching
so i said the only way we’re going to
make our deadline is if i just go to
final art and if you guys don’t like the
art just send it back and i’ll just redo
it
and they didn’t they didn’t send any of
it back i just went nuts guys i just
it was like the wings were grown they
opened up the cage and
i just went well it sounds like that
might have had to do with
you know the concentration on birthright
and you know all the focus being on that
and then just being like all right well
we hired the right person let’s just
trust their their visual look
that’s a big leap of faith that is a
huge leap of faith especially when i
think back on it now
because you had huge teams so it wasn’t
like this was a cheap endeavor i mean
there was
there was a lot of key people involved
on this project
and they were at the same time winding
down things like spell jammer and dark
sun they
i think those that kind of run their
course at the time so i think they were
you know looking to do a new campaign
and
you know we got you know everyone loved
it
we crossed our fingers and hoped that
the rest of the world felt the same way
and fortunately for us
they did you know and and and so it’s a
great story
um yeah especially with like the idea
you know i mean you mentioned birth
right like
you know i don’t i don’t see that in the
zeitgeist as much
now as planescape is and how much people
talk about it you know i mean obviously
i think the um
the video game has a lot to do with that
because that brought it out to a whole
bunch of different um uh audience
members who you know grew up with it
uh yeah um did you were you involved
with
the that at all planescape tournament i
wasn’t but
um colin mccomb who was one of the
designers on planescape
then took the job and moved with
camera the name of the game company that
did that but yeah he was kyle
maybe yeah he was part of that team and
and
you know tsr owned all my designs so all
the all the design work that i had
already done for planescape was then
just sent over to them
and then you know so they had it all
already they had me for free
yeah it still feels like it’s in the in
the middle you of all your work
uh for sure yeah um but some cool things
little tidbits for any
modern day dnd fifth edition d d fans
you know the mojon’s got a re-skin
during that time and that was a big
though mojons almost didn’t make it into
planescape
um and zeb had called me one afternoon
and asked if i knew what they were and i
said you know i vaguely remember the we
i’m like the shape people you know the
little
and he’s like yeah yeah and he’s like do
you did you ever play him did you ever
i’m like i
i don’t know nothing about lamb so he’s
like read the entry
and see what you think so i read the
entry and i’m like this is
amazing you know the whole thing how
they ascend to primus and everything
so for some reason i immediately um
thought of the of the wizard of oz and
not really the tin man but more like
tick-tock
from the second book asmavas and some of
the other books yeah and so i drew
uh a monodrone like tiktok and i faxed
it back to zeb
and he called me back and was like we’re
putting we’re putting mojons in
planescape
and that was a huge thing and i’m
delighted when i see that the
the design is essentially the same kind
of steam punky design that we came up
with
30 years ago the other one that was huge
was tieflings
you know they they created pretty much
as far as i as i can recall
i think the tieflings were created
during the planescape era as well
yeah um which was again an amazing
you know you’re just drawing it trying
to figure it out yeah so what kind of
direction
would you get like was it did they was
it like an art order like
or did they was it more creative freedom
like
they probably have horns yeah well the
early the early years shelley it was
definitely like
for a monster book they were like here’s
the entry just do your thing you know go
nuts
and um so i would always try to be like
loyal because i grew up on
all the original first edition and basic
books so i tried to be very reverential
to those books
but try to draw it in a way that i
thought modern day gamers would like it
um but with regard to the to the
tiefling i remember
the thing that that was tricky at the
time for me to kind of get my head
around was they were like you know
it was described to me they have fiend
blood
in their ancestry but they’re not
aloofines
like it was very like you know it it was
more
watered down i guess and so they were
like it can manifest
in a variety of forms they could have
horns they could have
cloven hoods they could have a tail they
could have wings
you know they’re primarily the
descendants of succubi and incubi
at the time this is what i remember so
you know i often drew him scantily clad
that was the only way i could think of
to kind of
visually interpret you know i’m the
granddaughter of a succubus
you know or the grandson of a of a
succubus
um and then i would you know i
randomized sometimes i would do them
you know hairless you know some
designers had like can you make it look
like this i really want and we really
tried to push
that that um that variety
in in the design so that they really you
didn’t know
what you know what they were going to
look like which was a lot of fun i mean
i
you know i loved i loved that i know now
they’re traditionally kind of
they have the horns and the red i think
a lot of times
they’re a little more like devil people
now yeah
yeah there is there is i think the idea
of variety in there but traditionally
folks usually tend to go with colored
skin and
uh you know whether it’s purple or blue
or red yeah
and uh and the horns yeah you’re right
um
well you’ve mentioned this a couple of
times and i want to kind of go back to
it because it’s something that’s that’s
fascinating
how you’re you identify with the
monsters you know that
you’re good at drawing them uh but you
know you said it back when we started
that you know that that that is
the the identity that that you identify
with the most
um why is that what was it like when you
started playing dungeons dragons was
was it something in that monster manual
you know from from the 70s that that
spoke to you and then
is that why what do you think you know
i so i probably started playing in 8182
right right at the rise right
as it was becoming incredibly popular i
would have been 11 12 years old would
have been in middle school
the worst time of your life yeah for
everybody
speaking so bad right yeah um
and you know it was a in in my i grew up
in south florida
and so in my school what’s the way i
wanted to
it’s number one on my notes i can’t
believe i forgot to mention that
jupiter florida jupiter florida i have a
very strong connection to jupiter
florida do you oh wait do tell i want to
hear were you going to say home of burt
reynolds i was going to say homer burt
rouse that’s
always the thing everybody says anytime
you like the home of well
my dad right now because he’s a snowbird
so we’ve been going to jupiter florida
for years like 30 years or so
i swear to god every like spring break
and christmas
actually i should be going there in a
couple of weeks but can’t
um but yeah we’ve had every um at least
once or twice a year i go to jupiter for
the past 30 years
oh my gosh well we have to i know we
have we
we summer down there now because we’ve
got so much family down there and
you know our daughter’s in school so we
can only go in the summer sometimes we
go over
the holiday break but like you we’re
stuck here yep
but yeah i mean so all
a bunch of that planescape stuff was
done all down in jupiter
i have now i have to look at jupiter
with fresh new eyes now
yeah now that yeah i know this and now
you know why all the the
tieflings are scandaling clowns yes
going to the beach and everyone’s
running around their bathing suits
too hot for chainmail yeah well not
maybe not chain mail
definitely not it breathes really well
it does
it does oh that’s so funny you know but
yeah so but also
you know uh having grown up in florida
you know it was and in jupiter
you know you’ve got a lot of beach bums
you’ve got a big sport a lot of people
love sports you got a lot of rednecks
um and then you’ve got a guy
you know an art twerp who you know i
love
drawing um mythical creatures
and i love reading fairy tale no no
no you’re out you’re out of here you’re
you’re walking around middle school the
giant target on your back
um and so you know d was like i said was
very popular but it was like a fad i
want to say more
for like a year or two and then it kind
of you know gave way to
rubik’s cubes and mtv and whatever the
next thing
that everyone got excited about um but i
still kept playing because i love
and for me personally um
and i’ve talked about this a couple
times i was kind of we were talking
earlier about a reluctant reader i was
absolutely had i don’t know if i was a
reluctant reader but i’m a visual
learner
so reading books at that transitionary
period where you’re going from books
that are heavily illustrated to books
with no illustrations
i was immediately like turned off like
i’m like i don’t want to read this
because
i’m having problems understanding it
yeah and i want i need pictures so i
read a lot of comic books which
you can’t do a book report on that um
but
man i tore through those d rule books
and
every module i could get my hands on and
dragon magazine and dungeon
magazine and that led to you know
reading tolkien
reading you know elric and edgar rice
burrows and you know on and on
so it was a huge in um
you know player in me becoming a
lifelong reader
yeah but but back to your question about
feeling like a monster i just felt
misunderstood greg i mean i i felt like
i’m not a wizard i’m not a fighter i’m
not a thief i’m none of those things
those things are cool
i’m the you know i’m an udiyug
i’m the garbage monster underneath the
underneath the city
i’m the trash heap from fraggle rock
she was my favorite yeah that’s always
when i think of the audio i’m always
like i you know i want to like a
singing audio i need to do that for our
our campaign oh my god that’s got all
this attitude
so are you a dungeon master and then or
a player yeah
i well i actually we’ve had a group um
that we’ve played off and on for
forever and then actively my daughter’s
13 now
and so we’ve had an an ongoing campaign
now i want to say maybe three years
okay and i wanted to run her through
modules that i experienced
at her age so that we could have that
can so we can talk about the keep on the
borderlands together like we can
both have that experience and uh scott
fisher who’s
a big contributor to dungeon dragons
over the years is in our group and
he’s actually taken over this well he
did this year for
part of the year and now we’ve haven’t
had a chance to play but he’s been
running the game
uh now which has been great so i can
play and annoy everybody with my bad
pirate voice
it’s part of the game you gotta do it
that’s adorable trying to find something
that your
you and your daughter can experience
together i mean
it’s it’s a smaller comparison but uh
star trek the next generation came out
when i was nine and my daughter’s nine
now so i was like i’m we’re going back
and watching those old episodes and
there’s something just really
great about me being transported into my
youth but then also
her uh you know taking a cue from
from things that were formative for me
back then
that reverb as an as a parent and that
like oh my gosh i was this little when i
you know she when she was seven we’re
like we’re watching star wars this is
how old i was when i saw star wars we’re
gonna watch it
you know and then i’m like i was this
little you know and then i’m like
now i’m old and i’m watching it and the
tears the tears is coming from this
tears always tears
sounds like my son’s gonna have to start
reading some sweet valley high
nice so we can have that connection some
babysitters club
babysitters clubs back on netflix it is
it’s really good i didn’t watch that i
think i’m i’m too old for babysitter’s
club
he’s gonna have to read jackie collins
and sweet valley
flowers in the attic yes oh
definitely that’s good yeah so as
someone who loves monsters is it hard
for you
to fight the monsters as a because
sometimes it is for me like anytime we
fight a creature that has anything
to do with a dog any kind of hellhound
i’m like i’m not touching it
just let it go yes and and we were that
that was how i was with kobolds when i
was younger and that’s how my daughter
is with kobolds now because
we have two small rescue dogs and
they’re essentially kobolds
they steal they pilfer they hide they’re
mischievous
they set mechanical traps
[Laughter]
sometimes i’m hit with a poison dart i’m
not sure why
they’re the most genius dogs they
develop their posable thumbs
it’s it’s great um
you know i try to um we’ve definitely
done some
if it’s a very animal type like an owl
bear or something
i you know i just play it like a bear
like like it’s just doing what it does
right um and then when we’ve done
humanoids we just i try to play them
like from their point of view they’re
right you know like you’re that you’re
the scourge you know you’re the one who
you abandon this dungeon so it’s
rightfully ours why are you coming back
and taking
this thing from us like this is our lair
this is this is where
our den this is our you know you taste
delicious
you know that so we may have you for
dinner um
but we always yeah i try to because i
love that moral ambiguity
way i love when they like i feel weird
that i had to kill this thing now like i
i don’t know what to do with those
feelings like good
you guys sit around a campfire and work
that out
that’s real that’s the good stuff and
yeah that’s the best stuff to me
yeah and i i think many role players
when you start off you hack and slash
through a dungeon like it’s a video game
and if you stick to it long enough
within a couple of adventures i feel
you’re like wait a second i
what how is there another way we can do
this without just killing
everything and that’s where it gets
really good for me
at least you know my experience is
showing yeah
that’s where drama comes right yes you
start to be like where am i where’s the
character gonna progress and grow from
from here and that’s i mean i think
that’s the thing that dungeons and
dragons does better than
any other game out there is because you
you develop empathy without even
realizing it yeah yes
that is true are there who are what are
your particular
favorite monsters either to to drop in a
game as a dungeon master
or to come up against as a player or
even just to illustrate
oh wow that’s a great uh question i love
i mean i
i love the monsters that are um
holy part of the game that are really
like
the beholder the rust monster the boule
the albert the stuff that only can exist
in dungeon the dragon i mean i love all
the stuff that’s borrowed and inspired
from tolkien
obviously but um but there’s a lot of
fantasy that has that and it’s that
weird tales space
stuff that that weird wacky stuff is the
stuff that really
makes it so totally unique
um you know even in the if you look at
the original
um wood grain like the old old dungeons
and dragon stuff there’s um
tharks from you know john carter of mars
there’s time travelers in it like i love
that they had
that kind of vivid rich imagination just
pouring it all into the same landscape
and
part of you know this is what you could
potentially encounter that’s why i love
expedition to the barrier peaks when i
was a kid because i was just like
there’s a spaceship in the middle of
of this hamlet you know what i mean like
that is
so cool i love all that too yeah i think
some of all that stuff when someone in a
dnd game and described to me
a it was it looks like a bent wand
that when you hold it and you pull a
lever it shoots fireballs
and i’m like what what is this thing
that you’re describing and then it just
oh you’re talking about like a laser
pistol like that’s a
blues blue blow my mind yes
that’s still awesome my mind is blown i
can’t even say the word blonde
of course you’re still you’re like so i
look down the barrel of it
what happens when i squeeze it now
that was the thing with expedition was
that the you didn’t know what was a
laser gun you didn’t know what was one
was like pesticide or something and you
thought
this is the i’ve got the pumping air
like laser rifle and it just squirted
like
you know ddt out of the you know just
great
and it’s so good and you know it’s
interesting that i think back on
on uh two more horrors and that one you
know they had those incredibly they were
very richly illustrated and again
favorite modules i think because of that
the way the art just had such an
important role in the adventure you
could just as a
as a dungeon master you could you could
just show them the illustration as a
player you could
you know look at it and study it and i
think that
absolutely would have been influential
on my later contributions to the game
yeah absolutely um the
different philosophical kind of ideas
that are in planescape
you know uh i think really
coalesce around the artwork of it right
so how how did you
think how did you approach you know
illustrating
things that were from the plane of dust
versus the plane of
uh you know or you know from the from
sigel or things like that like how
how did you think about um
portraying those different things in
such a way so that you didn’t
necessarily even have to read the text
you’d be like oh that that
that creature is from that plane and
that preacher’s from that plane
um you know it wasn’t always easy and
some some things were
were easier than others i mean mechanics
you kind of are okay it’s got gears and
cogs and
always geometric shapes and stuff like
that when we did
um i can’t remember what they called
hell but it
they attore um we looked at i looked at
um hieronymus bosch you know we just
were like we’re gonna just make it look
like you know weird bird people
crawling on their hands and knees and
you know weird chimerical
demon things um when we um
thought of like the the plane of dust i
mean honestly i just thought of like
goths like the cure like let’s give them
just big
hair and and washed out robes and stuff
like that
sigil for me was always um mos eisley
like it was always just a who’s like
random like
anything goes you know you’ve got a you
know a carillon space pirate and his
giant talking dog and
there’s a you know there’s a
walrus-headed guy and you know it’s just
whatever you know you just kind of
mix it all up it was just a big kind of
mash-up
so we you know we try and if i didn’t
know i mean i you know i um
i would call and and ask questions and
as the as the years went on i i became
so friendly with a lot of the designers
like colin mccomb
um and zeb and uh
i’m telling you guys sorry i’m
remembering this right now one day um
so i’m in jupiter shelly so i’m still in
jupiter at this point the phone rings
and i see
on the caller id it says you know tsr
but it was an an extension i didn’t
recognize
so i i pick up the phone and i go hello
and they’re like
who is this and i said
it’s it’s tony who is this and i don’t i
can’t place the voice
and they’re like this is blah blah blah
in accounting and i go oh
is something wrong with my billing or
something and they’re like no we have
all these long distance phone calls to
this
number and i need to know who
everybody’s calling
why so they were paying the bill like oh
my god
i guess apparently long phone calls to
jupiter florida
from like three different people and uh
i was like oh i’m the illustrator for
planescape we’re having you know
we’re changing the world you know oh my
god
i love that they have they had a call
find out
who is this that’s why it would be
cheaper if you were on staff
yeah that’s why tsr went under was all
the long distance phone calls it was me
it was you yeah
americo profits went down
so were you at tsr when wizards bought
tsr
i that would have been late 90s i was
phasing
out so in mid 90s uh
my wife and i angela moved to new york
city um
she became a makeup artist for nbc and i
was
um still illustrating for tsr though not
as much i was
i switched gears and was illustrating
for magic more at that point and really
chasing
um the new york city publishing uh
houses to try to break into children’s
publishing
and um so a couple things kind of
happened at the same time
there was like a lot of turnover near
the end of the 90s uh
in in-house at tsr so when that
started to happen the art directors that
came on were more like
yeah we’re going to bring them some
other people on planescape and that kind
of suited me just fine at that point
because
i’d done it you know for most of the
decade and i was
a little burned out the deadlines were
really really rough they were brutal i
mean
those those things i mean i was
illustrating those things you would ask
earlier how many would i do a day i mean
some days i did like
three or four illustrations a day wow
you know i mean i was just going and
going
a couple of those things i was doing
all-nighters to get those deadlines and
bear in mind the uh there i had no
scanner
i didn’t have a computer so i would
finish all the art put it in a fedex box
and fedex it in batches up to
lake geneva and uh you know where they’d
scan it and do all the
all the productions up there and it’s
the originals
oh yeah like that just makes me so
nervous thinking about like there’s no
backup
just pray that box gets there yeah yeah
you did you just were like
okay well here we go off it goes but you
know again at the time you’re just like
there was no other way what’s this worth
no you know whatever who cares
same with magic i mean you know the mat
the
same thing you would just put them i
would literally put it in i would
not even open the fedex box i would
leave it flat
and just tape it and just put the magic
art in it and tape it shut and send it
wow oh my god
i know now you’re like you know well it
doesn’t even leave the studio i think
for most people it’s just
you know you upload it exactly right
like or you know at least take a photo
of it and send that
like rather than uh yeah uh gosh it’s so
it’s it’s
very strange to be in that like 90s
period where
all this old school publishing thing was
happening but there’s so much uh
technology on the horizon yeah um the
last of the analog
really yeah kind of making things in an
analog way amazing so how did you break
into
children’s publishing in in new york
what’s the was it just persistence and
and good ideas uh with persistent luck
really i mean it’s the same the classic
you know formula i
you know i did it was the end of the uh
again i kind of feel like this is the
theme of the chat today
it was the end of the drop off your
portfolio in person
because there was no social media there
was no really website you couldn’t
send them to a website like here’s a
here’s a portfolio in my work
so what they used to do in the old days
was you’d go
you know you’d go to the publisher on
like a thursday or friday and you drop
off your portfolio and then you’d come
pick it up on a monday and they’d have a
form letter and there’s like
you know thanks for your submission
we’ll you know we’ll call you
and i got to experience kind of the end
of that era
um when i was in new york so you you you
know you’d leave
you know a couple color copies of your
art and you’d have a bunch of samples in
your portfolio
and i did that for about a year you know
just making the rounds and you’d meet
people
along the way um as i said angela my
wife was a makeup des
uh artist and she worked at
mac down in soho mac cosmetics and right
around the corner from her
was scholastic publishers of books like
harry potter
and um and scholastic book fairs and
a a gal came in to get her makeup done
and angela sees she has the scholastic
bag she goes oh do you work at
scholastic and she’s like yeah
so ang does the makeup on one eye and
she goes
how do you think yeah it looks good can
you do the other eye
i need to know can i have my husband
drop his stuff
oh nice hell they’re hostage
yeah yeah one eye cause that’s a lot of
people be like i gotta go to a thing can
i get a
thing and i’ll buy the lipstick and the
eyeshadow kind of thing so she i
she relented and here here’s my card
whatever
and i and i came in like the next day
the following day and
and just you know i was very much like
hey listen you know i don’t
i don’t want to be a pest here you look
at it if it’s something you think you
can do something with
then that’s great and if you can’t i
understand i don’t want to be a burden
and she looks like wow you’re really
talented and let me see if i can
i can get somebody in there and i met uh
an editor named kevin lewis who changed
my life and and
um no one at scholastic they weren’t
that interested in my stories and my art
but
kevin uh jumped ship and went to simon
schuster and immediately
um he started publishing my books and
you know
the rest is history wow oh my god when
what year is that
just out of curiosity that was late that
was like 90
98 i want to say 98 90 because my first
kids book came out in 2000 so i would
have handed in all the art
for that in in 99. you always hand it in
about a year early
right and uh at that point i don’t think
i was doing much
for for dungeons and dragons i did a
little bit for third edition because
they were ramping up
for third edition at that point but i
continued doing magic cards
right up until spiderwick like because
the magic
uh stuff i mean it was it was less
work for more pay that means you’re
doing essentially one image
and you’re making more money than you
would right for dungeons and dragons so
i i did the magic cards right into
all the spiderwick things kind of taken
off i don’t know if i can
do any more for you guys i wish i could
and so
yeah that was kind of that was it once
spiderwick took off i was
i was gone nice well the reason i asked
is i i moved to new york in
2000 uh and i lived in brooklyn uh
and wait where did you live i lived in
williamsburg uh before it got
big well even park slope then was was on
the rise but it wasn’t
what it is now that’s for sure yeah yeah
that’s where we were you were in parks
yeah i had a lot of friends you were
neighbors yeah yeah it was hard to get
there
i had to go basically into manhattan to
get to par to get to park slope uh
because the g
train was a pain in the ass but uh yes
it was i had a lot of fun
uh you know going there and there’s
there’s you know i i still see like
images of like grand emory plaza and
stuff and uh in movies and stuff and i’m
always like oh yeah
i love that area i know where that is i
know where yeah yeah
yeah exactly that’s great so what is it
about children’s books
that’s appealing to you writing stories
for kids
i think that um that’s when i became a
reader i mean we talked about
in middle school you know i’m playing
dungeons and dragons and i’m reading
these books
in middle school and and they make they
help me become a lifelong
reader so i’m i i was probably a little
behind what other kids were reading
so i read you know phantom toll booth
and and uh wrinkle and time
and things like the hobbit and stuff and
those types
of stories absolutely you know shaped me
at that age and i wanted to be part of
that
community part of that conversation
i just feel like those stories
um have such a tremendous impact
on on a young developing human
mind yeah and i i just really wanted to
[Music]
to be a part of that like you know just
it’s the stuff that’s most meaningful to
me when i think back on
you know when someone’s give me your top
10 books that you’ve read and loved
they’re all kids books
yeah you know there’s adult books that i
love but i mean but that stuff that you
know when i read watership
down i was like like shook like i was
just
you know so uh you know that’s that’s
what i’m that’s
what i aspire towards yeah it’s got to
be very rewarding to see
to talk to kids because you do like i
assume you do like school visits and
things like that to to see them the way
they i mean
how much do you make questions aside but
to actually like
see like the impact that your work is
having on them and how excited they get
you know about when’s the next book
coming and how immersed they feel with
the characters and like you know
my my son wants to live in your world
the world
that you created it’s got to feel got to
feel good
very validating yeah it really is i mean
and
you know i figure first of all kids tell
it like it is they’re not
they’re not gonna i wouldn’t have read
you the review if it
[Laughter]
she’s like i read the review for book
one i didn’t read the book review for
booktube
we’re starting book two tonight i will
let you know oh hopefully she likes it
too
that’s good um yeah i just that when
they come up and they’re
and if their parent i mean any adult
like if a teacher or librarian or a
parent like we read it together like
yeah
that’s like gold for me because i’m
fortunate enough that my mom
read to us dieter litzy kids so um
that’s like a very
cherished memory in my memory banks and
so
um the idea of of sharing books together
i i absolutely it’s like to me it’s like
watching a movie together or listening
to a favorite song together like the
and then talking about it afterwards um
that is very meaningful to me yeah
it is very sweet and it’s it’s so
formative
to have those worlds to go into you know
and
and have the maps and things be a part
of your life you know it’s
it’s the good stuff that dungeons and
dragons can do for young ages as well
but there is something
um about cracking open a book
and going to another world for for a few
hours
well i don’t know if you guys have
experienced this but the thing with
with both d and d and a fantasy
story was if it did tackle
some worldly themes but somehow you’re
in a safer space to talk about them
you know what i mean so um that happened
with me a lot like we talked about
watership down
you know and i would talk to my mom
about it or hobbit
you know and like you know this you know
that that was
that was terrible what you know what
what this character did to this
character and then
we would kind of talk about it and then
inevitably it would it would jump out
into
the real world and you’d started to see
these
parallels and the things that were
happening in these stories or in a d d
game
and you could start to see these things
playing out also
in the real world and i i i think for
some of us myself included you
i like that there’s maybe a safe place
to talk about some of these types of
things
and and and and start to process and
comprehend
these concepts and if it’s in a world
with a talking rabbit who’s best friends
with a dragon then i’m i’m all for that
absolutely makes it even better yeah
yeah i hope so and i think it means the
youth who are reading it you know
think about you know what what people
today might call political topics but
like things like
you know uh racism and sexism and things
that are
are um you know still very prevalent in
our world but i feel like the youth
are always experiencing that through the
stories that are told and
asking those questions and i i feel real
sad i mean i came from a
bit of a religious background where
fantasy was always at arm’s length it
was always like hey you know
i’ll let you read those dragon stories
but you gotta have
you know quote-unquote real books to
read as well and
um i feel like i learned more from star
trek i learned more from
from planescape i learned more from from
the children’s books that we got into
because they were so open about
you know what it feels like to be other
what it feels like to
uh walk in shoes that aren’t yours
at that moment and and um
i don’t know i i i feel optimistic
thinking about the fact that that my
kids and
and shelly’s kids and and your kids and
everybody’s kids are getting these
stories that have so much
representation and diversity of
characters within them
um you know that that hopefully we can
push towards
you know a better future for you know
the people who are going to be leaving
this world in 2050
and that fantasy is not kept at arm’s
length anymore
right it’s very you know it’s been
embraced by educators and by
by parents because we know like you you
said
d d is what got you into book i mean
yeah
you wanted to read books with pictures
or comic books but
we and we hear that a lot that people
kids just get
real immersed in these worlds and they
just want more
yeah yeah i agree and i i do i think
that um
you know i mean shelley you read kenny
and the dragon
um with with your son so you saw it’s
about prejudice i mean that’s
simply that’s what that story is about
and and and it dives in deeper in the
book of beasts and talks about that more
um because i wrote that story during the
backdrop of what was going on the last
two years in our country and it
inevitably is going to soak in
to the storytelling and i think that the
same can be said
for any d game that we’d be running we
may be
escaping reality by rolling dice and
and and being an elf or halfling or what
have you but
you’re still talking there’s that stuff
is still in your mind you’re still
thinking about that
yeah um and i think that’s a good thing
especially with our kids
i think it’s a great thing because like
this book will now give us
a way to talk to him about prejudice
in a way that’s going to be easily
understood for a seven-year-old
and yeah you know his one of the things
about there’s
there’s pros and cons to having your
kids at home while they’re doing school
but one of the pros like i mean i can
hear what they’re talking about
in class and when the teacher reads them
a story she does these
they have to talk about connections
they’re real big on the connections
which i don’t remember doing greg i
don’t know if you did this but you’re
probably hearing your kids
doing it now and after they read a story
they talk about how
a personal connection to the story what
in your life can you
relate to with what you’re reading and
the man the things that these kids
talk about some of them because they’re
just kids i mean they don’t
they don’t have a filter but yeah you
hear like they go pretty deep
and just like and it seems like well
this is just a kid’s book you know but
it’s not
they they’re they really are reaching
deep to find those connections and how
it they they feel you know particularly
personally impacted by something
they’re smarter than we are yeah they
they’re exposed to more than we ever
were
um they’re seeing things they’re they’re
much more
um inundated with everything the good
and bad
news not news whatever you know it’s
they are very aware
of what’s going on and i find as a
parent the tricky part is
talking i don’t i don’t want to take my
daughter’s childhood away from her by
burdening her with all the realities of
the world right but i’m also
trying to just talk to her realistically
like here’s what’s going on right now
and that’s such a tough balancing act
yeah um but but
you know again i think you know having
playing a game of d
or or magic or you know whatever
board games you want to do or a video
game or reading a book together i think
those those reinforce closeness and
family
um and you don’t have to be flesh and
blood you can you can just be friends
that are your family or people in your
life that are family and that’s
so important especially during uh
times like we’re living through right
now yeah yeah it gives a language it
gives like a
a reference point for them to be able to
discuss all that and it’s yeah yeah it’s
great yeah so
good job you’re doing you’re doing good
work uh you know
doing the work for us for 30 years four
years we’ve been doing it
before there were computers
yeah that’s great there’s a great guy
old dnd guy your quill pen
i did use quill pens i was i was totally
we i it was an artist by choice by
choice yes by choice yes
definitely yes yes i’d love to see that
again that kind of exploration that kind
of um
i think you know what’s interesting um
i um richard witters invited me to talk
to the d d
team during this pandemic they kind of
have like coffee together
and talk and i was delighted to talk to
to the team and stuff because like we’ve
enjoyed fifth edition greatly
um and we just talked about
different aspects of the game and stuff
and and
um you know we were like you know the
game the beauty of this this game is
visual as far as an artist is concerned
is you can actually make it look
like you could do if you wanted to do an
anime manga version
you could make it look like that if you
wanted to do a super realistic version
you could make it like everyone’s
visualizing it
in their own way and that and the the
beauty of it is the game
works on any of those versions
which is just so unbelievably amazing to
me
that you can do that and and and i think
artistically
in the coming years it would be you know
i challenged them to be like
find someone unexpected to illustrate
dnd i think would be yeah sure you’ll
you’ll it’ll be met with some pushback
but i also think that’s how you open
you you also start to open doors and
push the ground and certainly in
describing
what is fantasy art now because i think
that
is to me more compelling than anything
that that a game
that at for many years would have been
viewed the artwork and the visuals were
you know below you know weren’t even
considered
for so many years and now has become
a shaper of the genre you know an
influencer of what we think of when we
think of fantasy illustration
um i think that’s that’s incredible
and i think that that they they can
actually use that
to really push the boundaries of when we
think of an elf
or a wizard or an owl bearer or kobold
or what have you
what that looks like and i and i’m
really excited to see what’s to come
yeah and i hope um there’s a there’s a
chance or an opportunity for
someone to get the the uh opportunity
that you had to to work on in
a a new story or or
reimagining of a story that is like one
artist’s vision or at least one art
director’s kind of vision of
of what it looks like i think there’s a
lot of different uh styles
and um aesthetics that can be pushed
uh that i you know i’m not a visual
person i don’t i’m not
i wouldn’t even consider myself an
artist but i love seeing that and
and and it transports me into another
world and i’m waiting for
um you know as we’re looking to what the
future of dungeons and dragons is like
you know it’s sky’s the limit
not only in our imaginations but just
like what the visualizations can do
to uh to put that seed of imagination in
everybody
who reads the book’s mind i think that’s
could be why it’s tricky to adapt it
into like a feature film or something i
know there’s been talk of that for years
because i think
each one of us has a different visual
idea of what they think
the game should look like it could be
partly informed by when we came into the
game
you know so for me d d always has kind
of a cheesy 80s
veneer yeah that i love you know
um but someone else who might came in
when i was contributing in the 90s
things oh it’s all gritty and dirty and
grungy
and that’s the you know and steam punky
and all that there’s robert
smith uh hanging out in the corner with
chewbacca
clove cigarettes oh that’s totally
roll a savings throw
that’s odd my bad robert smith
impersonation i liked it
i thought it was good
but your point about the visualization i
i totally agree it’s it’s
why i think the the next dramatization
of dungeons and dragons should be
a combination of uh you know reality
what’s happening at the table
and what each care each person at that
table is imagining
uh and it will look completely different
and because i mean
the only thing that is very d other than
all the visual looks and stuff that
we’ve been talking
about um is the fact that there is
a story that’s told at the table and
then there’s a story that’s happening in
each player’s head
and i think i feel like to have a
dramatization
of dungeons and dragons it needs to have
both of those or else you’re just
you know you’re retreading uh uh lord of
the rings or harry potter or spiderwick
or whatever it is right like you’re just
showing
a different ip but for me it’s so much
about
that conversation between the collective
imagination
and the drama that can happen amongst
friends at a table
that’d be really really cool if they
could pull that off i don’t think they
can
[Music]
yeah meaning you know the yeah whoever
it is hollywood producers that are going
to try to crack this
it’s probably too difficult to do but
the way you just mentioned that i’ll be
like oh what if it looks different
depending on what
character’s point of view is
uh you know so say like the dungeon
master’s got one point of view and you
see that visualization but then you see
yeah
the fighter makes it look at you know
he’s got a much more different way of
thinking about it or she’s got a much
cooler was that i i think that would be
really hard too it’s like the affair
remember
that tv show you didn’t watch it no the
affair
but like they had different they would
show the same scene
but from different characters oh and it
was really interesting because like
they obviously have different
perceptions about how things happen
there’s a famous x-files episode that
does that too or yeah yeah
but it’s one from from scully one from
older and older yeah very different yeah
yeah you could you i wonder if that
sounds less like a movie though and more
like a a series
that would be the way to do it which
would be so so cool because you can see
the dungeon masters
everything’s just it is like tolkien
it’s super serious and real
yeah you know and then the fighter
everything’s just small and puny
compared to
the fighter yeah you know and he or
she’s just walking around like yeah i
take it out
the wizard cowering in the corner yeah
yeah totally
but it’s like even how like just you as
a player
likes uh monsters like you would have a
different
the way you would see a monster is
different than the way other people in
your
party would visualize yeah i mean that’s
it’s it’s funny too because when so when
i when when i dm
i always like to show them a picture of
the monster so i’ll i’ll
you know have the the books on pdf and
stuff so i can print out the
picture of the thing and so it’s always
like what version do i want to
do i want to show them of the thing you
know and and it is
hard you know so i first of all it’s
never my version it’s always somebody
else’s
i think it’s way cooler than the thing i
drew but i
you know i go back to some of the
weirdness of those early i mean i love
that uh shelly you mentioned the blog
post i did years ago
for the toys i mean i love that story
that guy gasps me too buys a a
bag of dime store plastic toys and turns
them into i you know with tim cask turns
them into these i know and i love that
you should kind of show the evolution of
how
like this little toy turns into a rust
monster
i’ve got them all over my desk i’ve got
the the the you know the
little rusty guy so i i i connected with
i’m gonna totally geek out now and
there’s going to be a
two people in your audience who’ll get
this but i can i connected recently with
arrow lotus who was
one of the early um and so i have been
slowly collecting
all the things that that little article
about the the origins of some of those d
d monsters i’ve been kind of annotating
on
a first or second edition monster manual
of like where they got all the
inspirations it fascinates me to no end
you know so i’ve got the lumley book
that was the inspiration for the mind
flayer i’ve got the
um the uh it’s the sci-fi book that is
the displacer where the displacer beast
came from
and so when i talked to errol i i knew
he designed
two iconic d d monsters the remarks
which he corrected me that’s how you say
it the rem ras and the ankh head
donkey which are basically if you think
about are kind of the same
in in look the way they were kind of
wormy and septic
insectoid things so i asked them when
you did these for dragon magazine that’s
the first time they appear
and you designed them what were you
looking at
and he goes oh hold on we were zooming
and he comes back
with two rubber toys oh my god i tracked
one down on ebay
this rubber jiggly toy from the 1960s
wow is the ankh egg
oh my god that’s what he used to design
it and i’m like
my geek head just exploded i was like
went bonkers
i’m still trying to track down the other
one which i’m not going to regret that i
shared it on your podcast
because now we’re all on ebay looking
for the channel
yeah wait don’t don’t put other toys in
the in the search bar though yeah
exactly
but uh so cool
that is cool i love that it comes from
something that is like
also very uh centered around child
imagination right like i mean how many
times i mean maybe
we’re of an age where we can remember
this but having like little army guys
and and little
just plastic bits and bobs were like the
only toys you had
back then yes and so you in order to
make them entertaining you had to come
up with stories and come
up with personalities and why they were
and that was
just codified by by by gygax and the
visualization team
um in those early manuals and it’s it’s
still the
the the stuff that we do today when we
bring the anche out or
the mind flayer out it’s still you know
i love that there’s just iterations of
little plastic toys yeah yeah i mean the
um
the ogre and the troll are modified
plastic army men essentially that’s what
they were dave sutherland
whittled on a set of little i think they
were native american like apache
warriors
and then painted them up with like model
paint and like which
would explain the scale right because if
you take a uh a traditional army man and
place it next to like a you know
what would have been a war gaming
miniature right because that’s really
all they had yeah
you know you there’s your scale right
bigger which is the same for
you know you put an owl bear next to the
thing and it’s the same scale so
um i think that’s just so cool that that
also it
it’s it’s by necessity like well it’s
big because you know the
the toy is big so i guess that’s how big
it is
that’s just mind-blowing to me that
they’re just grabbing
like you said just crap off their you
know here
one of the stories i heard was guy gax
takes a stuffed animal
and puts it in the middle of the play
mat and says
roll initiative
[Laughter]
come on awesome
yes this is like a giant teddy bear god
you know and it bleeds beans or
something you know like a beanie baby
like can you imagine how amazing that
would have been
don’t do that marshmallow games yeah yes
it’s totally like the staple of
marshmallow
that that’s you hate it greg when stay
puft marshmallow when you see that when
you saw that for the first time in
ghostbusters you’re like
what the what that’s the same feeling i
get when i
that i love about d d and the that
unpredictability
of it like wait what is it fighting that
i love that i love that about the game
that’s awesome well so good i feel like
uh
you know we should we should talk again
because i feel like there’s a lot more
yeah to go over we didn’t really even
get into
uh what’s cool about spiderwick and all
the uh amazing work that we’re doing
um so uh thank you so much uh for
joining us
uh tony and talking through some of this
older stuff as well as
um you know sharing the stories of of uh
uh playing with your with your kids and
and all that stuff it’s just been it’s
been a great great interview thank you
yes oh it’s my pleasure greg shelly
thank you guys for having me long time
listener
love being on the show it’s it’s uh it’s
my pleasure
hope you guys are safe and well you too
you too thank you so much
— Greg Tito (@Gregtito) January 7, 2021