Dragon Art by Jeff Easley

Jeff Easley is an American oil painter, born in 1954 in Nicholasville, Kentucky. He earned a degree in painting from Murray State University and his early work included covers for Warren Publications magazines such as Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, along with work for Marvel's The Savage Sword of Conan. He has named Frank Frazetta as a major influence.

Easley joined TSR in 1982, and he became one of the main painters of Dungeons & Dragons through the 1980s and 1990s. His first published cover for TSR was the Endless Quest book Revenge of the Rainbow Dragons. Dragons soon became one of his specialties: his red dragon painting appeared on the cover of the first edition Monster Manual from 1983 to 1989, and he painted new covers for many other first edition hardcover books. When the second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons arrived, he painted the covers of the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and later the Monstrous Manual. He also worked on the Dragonlance line, including the cover of Dragonlance Adventures.

Outside of TSR, Easley illustrated dozens of Magic: The Gathering cards and painted the cover of Rhapsody of Fire's 2006 album Triumph or Agony. In 2014 the website Black Gate ranked him among the top ten role-playing game artists of the previous 40 years.

His paintings are bold and dramatic, with strong lighting, muscular figures, and big, scaly dragons that seem ready to burst out of the frame.