"Troll hide is a nauseating moss green, mottled green and gray, or pulrid gray. The writhing hair-like growth upon a troll's head is greenish black or iron gray, The eyes of a troll are dull black."
Gary Gygax, Monster Manual
Since trolls are such a ubiquitous creature in mythology, fairy tales & literature, I wanted to really stick to the D&D design for this one. The troll first appeared in the 1st edition Monster Manual with an interior illustration by Dave Sutherland. It also appears on the cover. Sutherland's design is pretty cool and horrific. The tall, slender yet muscular build, the witch nose and eerie sunken eyes all combine to create a truly bizarre take on this classic monster.
If you've been following my blog and especially this D&D series, you know I was deeply influenced by the TSR toy line I had when I was a kid. The troll was no different. Like the Carrion Crawler and others, the packaging art was drawn by Steve Bisette.
It's also worth noting that this is my second attempt at drawing a D&D troll. The first go round, I used Russ Nicholson's drawing as my jumping off point. I LOVE Russ' work but upon reflection I find Sutherland's to just be so iconic and idiosyncratic.
There's one more D&D monster left for the week and it's an obscure one! After that we're back to Lovecraft.
your posts often trace the inspiration back to its source, so i thought you might like knowing the D&D troll comes straight from Three Hearts and Three Lions, by Poul Anderson
ReplyDeleteactually a weird amount of D&D comes from that...