Draft:Doug Kovacs

Douglas Kovacs (born 1973) is an American artist whose work has appeared in role-playing games.

Early life and education
Kovacs was born in 1973, and grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. One of his earliest experiences with fantasy was when his mother read The Chronicles of Narnia to him when he was young. He took art classes in high school. In 1996 he received a BA from Columbia College Chicago.

Works
He has worked as a freelance illustrator for Wizards of the Coast on the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. He has been working on a series of metal plate paintings depicting Green Men since 1999. His work has been described as "detailed fantasy and science fiction renderings of mythical creatures". Kovacs also worked with Goodman Games in developing Dungeon Crawl Classics, and painted the covers for many of the modules and rulebooks. Joseph Goodman and Kovacs were looking into designing a new role-playing game to appeal to players who appreciated the old-school feel from the DCC adventures, and started playtesting it in 2010 and taking it to smaller conventions and game stores, before they released a beta version in 2011 and the full Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG in 2012. Alex Lucard, in his 2012 review of Dungeon Crawl Classics #72 for Diehard GameFan, wrote that "the adventure also boasts some incredible artwork by the always awesome Doug Kovacs". Lucard, in his 2014 review of Dungeon Crawl Classics #82 for Diehard GameFan, called the art and maps by Kovacs "the best in the industry".

An award was named after him at the Gen Con Art Show which is given out to the artist for being "[most like] Doug Kovacs".