Paul Bonner – Shadowrun: Target: Awakened Lands Cover Original Art, 2001

Year: 2001

Publication: Shadowrun: Target: Awakened Lands

Publisher: FanPro / WizKids

Artist: Paul Bonner

Medium: Acrylic on paper

Size: 15 × 19.3 inches (38 × 49 cm)

Original cover painting by Paul Bonner for Shadowrun: Target: Awakened Lands, the 2001 sourcebook for the third edition of the celebrated Shadowrun role-playing game. The book's published credits specifically name Bonner as its cover artist.

The painting received particularly extensive published use, appearing as the front cover artwork, on the back cover, and on the cover of the accompanying booklet. The different uses draw from the same original composition rather than forming a wraparound cover.

Bonner depicts a group of heavily armed adventurers traversing the Australian Outback beneath an enormous elevated structure, surrounded by the strange creatures and supernatural elements of the Awakened world. The image perfectly captures Shadowrun's distinctive combination of fantasy, cyberpunk and dystopian science fiction.

Target: Awakened Lands explores locations where magic has become particularly powerful and unpredictable, with a major focus on Australia, its violent mana storms, the Outback and Dreamtime magic. The sourcebook also explores magically transformed locations elsewhere in the Shadowrun world, including Cambodia, Kilimanjaro, the Bermuda Triangle, Nasca and Teotihuacan.

Published in 2001, the 128-page sourcebook was produced during the transition of Shadowrun from FASA to FanPro, with the copyright held by WizKids. Bonner's painting was chosen as the principal image for the publication and is specifically credited as Cover Art in the book itself.

Artist: Paul Bonner

Paul Bonner is a leading British fantasy artist whose career has included major work for Shadowrun, Warhammer, Mutant Chronicles, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and Trudvang, as well as Games Workshop, FASA, Rackham and other major fantasy and gaming publishers. His richly detailed traditional paintings are particularly known for their powerful creatures, exaggerated characters and densely imagined fantasy environments.