Jeff Laubenstein

{{Short description|American fantasy artist}}

File:JeffL2.jpg

Jeff Laubenstein is a fantasy artist.Sauter, Spencer (January 27, 1992). "Fantasy comes to life in comic book show", The Pantagraph, p. B6.

Career

Jeff Laubenstein has worked for several major Fantasy Game companies, including FASA, White Wolf, and Wizards of the Coast. He has been working in the field since the mid 80s. He was the art director on the Earthdawn project. Most of the Earthdawn books contained at least several of his contributions. In the early Shadowrun game books, his work featured prominently, illustrating nearly all of the NPC portraits.

Laubenstein was the art director at FASA for almost a decade.{{Cite web|url=https://www.blackgate.com/2010/09/15/art-evolution-1-jeff-laubenstein/|title=Black Gate » Articles » Art Evolution 1: Jeff Laubenstein|date=15 September 2010 |access-date=2019-02-11}} His art appears in numerous FASA releases, including MechWarrior: The Battletech Role Playing Game (1986),{{cite book|last=Schick |first=Lawrence|authorlink=Lawrence Schick|title=Heroic Worlds: A History and Guide to Role-Playing Games|publisher=Prometheus Books |year=1991|isbn=0-87975-653-5}}{{rp|292}} and Mercurial (Shadowrun) (1989).{{rp|280}}

He has done illustrations for Magic: The Gathering.

Reception

In 2001, Laubenstein received a nomination for a Chesley Award in the category "Best Gaming-Related Illustration", for his work on Castles and Covenants (White Wolf Publishing).{{cite magazine| title = Chesley Award nominations| magazine= Science Fiction Chronicle| volume = 22| number= 7| pages = 3–4| publisher = DNA Publications| date = July 2001}}

In 2014, Scott Taylor of Black Gate, named Jeff Laubenstein as #8 in a list of The Top 10 RPG Artists of the Past 40 Years, saying "His work appeared in every product the company ever created after his hiring, and he was the driving force for the design of the groundbreaking cyberpunk Shadowrun RPG in which he was responsible for all the iconic archetypes as well as a multitude of NPCs archetypes."{{cite web | url=https://www.blackgate.com/2014/02/12/art-of-the-genre-the-top-10-rpg-artists-of-the-past-40-years-2/ | title=Art of the Genre: The Top 10 RPG Artists of the Past 40 Years – Black Gate | date=12 February 2014 }}

In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath reviewed the dystopian role-playing game Shadowrun and noted, "Tim Bradstreet and Jeff Laubenstein also deliver some stellar, street-level illustration work."{{cite book| last = Horvath| first = Stu| title = Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground| publisher = MIT Press| date = 2023| location = Cambridge, Massachusetts| pages = 198 | isbn =9780262048224 }}

References

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