Jeff Laubenstein

Jeff Laubenstein is an American fantasy artist specializing in watercolor who has produced artwork for several game publishers, and is especially well known for developing the look and feel of the cyberpunk role-playing game Shadowrun and the fantasy role-playing game Earthdawn. He has also created many pieces of artwork for the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering.

Early life Jeff Laubenstein was born in Chicago and raised in Schaumburg, Illinois. While growing up, Laubenstein had an interest in drawing, and often would sketch characters from Saturday morning cartoons like Snoopy and Scooby-Doo, and scenes from movies such as Planet of the Apes and Godzilla.

Laubenstein's drawing style was influenced by the French comic book artists Enki Bilal and Jean Giraud (Mœbius), and "Golden Age" illustrators N.C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish. Laubenstein's art also appeared in MechWarrior: The Battletech Role Playing Game (1986), and Star Trek: The Role Playing Game. At Gencon 1993, Laubenstein was approached by Jesper Myrfors, the art director for a new game company called Wizards of the Coast (WotC), to do some artwork for the company's new collectible card game (CCG) called Magic: The Gathering (M:TG) that was premiering at Gencon. However, Laubenstein's manager felt M:TG was a competing game, and did not give Laubenstein permission. Jesper Myrfors had kept asking Laubenstein for artwork for M:TG, and finally in 1996, FASA gave Laubenstein permission to create art for the CCG. He created artwork for many cards including "Show and Tell" and "Recurring Nightmare".

In 2014, Scott Taylor of Black Gate named 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 [FASA] 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."

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."

Awards In 2001, Laubenstein was a finalist for a Chesley Award in the category "Best Gaming-Related Illustration", for his work on Castles and Covenants (White Wolf Publishing).