The older Planet Stories covers above are awesome. Above is a selection from my library. Most of the covers are by Andrew Hou. The Kline covers are by Daryl Mandryk and Brandon Kitkouski, respectively. The Moore cover is by Arnold Tsang. Sadly, at this point, I'm still missing from my PS collection Brackett's wonderful Skaith books. James Ryman did the covers for Paizo. Let's not deprive ourselves of the pleasure. Below is his illustration for Hounds of Skaith.
After the redesign of the Planet Stories line, Kieran Yanner appears to have gotten a lock on the series. I struggled a bit to get decent shots of them, so I took doubles.
Leaving aside any judgment on the two different formats (I'm truly torn on which I like best), the suspended series did a wonderful job of taking inspiration from the past and producing new, attractive art that generally was well-grounded in the contents. When Paizo started its Pathfinder Tales line, it faced the new challenge of providing quality covers for the much smaller mass market paperbacks. I guess it is not surprising that a line of new fiction, tied to the RPG setting would go with totally different artists than those used for the reprint line named for a classic pulp periodical. But while I enjoy most of the illustrations, and they aren't bad, I generally haven't loved them like I have most of the PS covers. Check out the line so far below.
So, this is my question for Ramblers who are more skilled in the criticism of art than I: what is that I am drawn to in these Paizo cover illustrations?
