A Daily Jaunt Through the Planes (Githyanki)
Ah, the nefarious, notorious githyanki. For us older gamers, we first saw these Astral killers on the cover to 1981’s Fiend Folio – and fell in love with their rich backstory and bizarre appearance. They always reminded me of some alien race on Star Trek, like the klingons.
Anyways, I got the opportunity to render them, and their githzerai cousins, quite a few times for Planescape starting with the first Monstrous Compendium. In fact, I still remember one game reviewer saying that my Planescape art reminded him a bit of Dr. Seuss (*see my postscript). I wonder if he was looking at my Grinch-like githyanki design?
Actually one of the key Planescape game designers, Zeb Cook, showed me some books he had recently purchased from Japan on an artist named Yoshitaka Amano. Of course, the artwork totally blew me away. Back in ‘94, I don’t think many knew of his work here in the states, but now his work (rightfully) is much more known thanks to the availability of his lavishly illustrated books. His costume design and patterning were certainly an influence on my githyanki images.
This morning, I played around with the original Fiend Folio cover pose while incorporating bits of the original and my Planescape design. In my attempt of maturing as an illustrator, I veered away from the “look I am evil. See my evil face?”, and created a more alien, otherwordly look. Besides, the actions of these villainous rogues certainly define their alignment.
PS – Speaking of nonsense children’s book authors, did you know that the githyanki’s main weapon, their vorpal sword, was originally created by none other than Lewis Carroll for his poem “Jabberwocky” in Through the Looking Glass? That’s so cool…
June 8th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
But how many githyanki have swords that go snicker-snack?
June 8th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I remember first seeing the Githyanki in the pages of White Dwarf magazine, back when it was kind of an edgier version of Dragon magazine from Britain, before it became the Games Workshop house organ. I think a lot of the Fiend Folio monsters were from White Dwarf, if I recall correctly.
I love your new version! Much more enigmatic.
June 8th, 2008 at 10:56 pm
I’ve always been a fan of your Githy dudes.
June 9th, 2008 at 12:37 am
I love the updated look, even if they are not immediately recognizable as ‘yankis. It’s an improvement that takes some getting used to. I do find it inspiring how you’re still adding so much innovation to Planescape in just your spare time, even though the setting is on indefinite standby. 4e developers should take note. Thanks for not forgetting us bloods.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:25 am
[…] artist Tony DiTerlizzi has posted a cool retooling of a monster from the original D&D Fiend Folio. Tony is an amazing artist and his blog is worth […]
June 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
THIS is when I fell in love with your work. I love everything you do and you have enormous range, but I always hold out hope that some day you’ll do a science fantasy epic with crazy characters and other world costumes that is as mad and amazing as the Planes work you did. I hadn’t played D&D for years but I was grabbing everything you were doing here and with the Changeling books and it felt like you were weaving together a whole new world in same strange place between Moebius and Rackham.Moebham?
By the way, I want to get some of the comics you did for Dragon. Any thought of collecting them?
June 9th, 2008 at 10:00 am
By the way, the book I’m doing now the Robot Museum is very influenced by this period of your work.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:35 am
Eric,
All of what I am posting here is leading to a new project which I think may satisfy what you want:)
…I did not do any comics for DRAGON…are you thinking of the WHITE WOLF comic/fiasco? I think they best stay out of print - I had NO IDEA what I was doing
June 9th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Oh! That’s it! Sorry.
June 10th, 2008 at 8:38 am
Wait, there was a WHITE WOLF comic???? Okay, what?!
June 10th, 2008 at 9:01 am
Don’t worry Mordacai, you didn’t miss anything. It originally ran in WW magazine, and then was reprinted in one of the editions of Werewolf.
I did the first half of the story (pencils, inks, colors), then farmed out the second half…and it shows. Also, I was buried under PS deadlines at the same time…
June 17th, 2008 at 10:56 am
I just…
There was a time in my childhood when I believed that I WAS Jason from G-Force, it was the only name I would answer to for, like, 6 months.
I gasped when I clicked that link - I knew that face.
Now I have to go dig my copy of the Fiend Folio out of my Mom’s attic.