Looking To The Public Domain For Game Artwork

Artwork draws the eyes, draw the eyes and you draw the attention. Artwork is a necessity for any visual medium, especially blogs and gaming content. If you want your work to catch and hold the reader's attention, you need to add visuals, even if they are only moderately related to the content.

But original artwork costs $money$ and very few of us have extra money available. Stealing artwork is out of the question. One should always give credit and attribution to artwork made available for public use by creators.


The Public Domain offers an enormous amount of freely available artwork for the cash strapped writer, or gaming creative team. But give care to where you get your artwork from. Though it may be in the Public Domain, some artwork has been altered, or modified, by many websites, and copyright issues can become a problem if you misappropriate their work. Always check your sources thoroughly.


Here is a list of artists in the Public Domain. It is by no means exhaustive, but should provide an excellent selection of various styles to choose from.

The Deluge, engraving William Miller, c.1844

Heinrich Aldegrever
John D. Batten
John Bauer
Ivan Bilibin
William Blake
Hieronymus Bosch
Harry Clarke
Gustave Dore
Ernst Haeckel
John Huss
Theodor Kittleson
Henry Justice Ford
John Milford
William Morris
Alphonse De Neuville
Adriaen Pietersz
Arthur Rackham
Lancelot Speed
Christian Von Mechel
Lucas Brandis
Louis Le Breton
Walter Crane
Albrecht Durer
J. M. Gandy
Arthur Hacker
Adolf Hiremy Hirschl
William Hogarth
Wenceslaus Hollar
Franz Huys
Paul Jamin
Alois Kirnig
Karel Vitezslav Masek
William McAusland
Evelyn De Morgan
Sebastian Pether
Edouard Riou
David Roberts
David Ryckaert III
Anton Seder
Sidney Sime
John Vinycomb
Marten Eskil Winge
Milo Winter
N. C. Wyeth




Eve Tempted by Serpent, c.1799-1800, William Blake