Yellow-orange jagged teeth jut out from the pinkish mouth, ready to rend and engulf prey. A huge central eye stares balefully forth. The small eyestalks are a lighter olive, with disgusting pink sockets from which green and orange ringed eyes stare fixedly. Between these plates, cracks flush purplish-green, while highlighted areas glow yellow-green. The Coloring Album notes: An olive-green sphere, this eye-tyrant is covered in enormously tough chitinous plates. The only other 1e-era notes I could find were in the Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album (1979), a somewhat odd third-party product but with Gary Gygax listed as the author. I don't believe there was a beholder on a Dragon or module cover until the Waterdeep and the North supplement (1987), which depicts the infamous crime lord Xanathar as bluish-purple with yellow highlights. As further support of this color scheme, over on a Dragonsfoot thread the esteemed D&D scholar Zenopus noted that the Polly-S line of official AD&D miniature paints from 1979 or 1980 had some beholder-themed colors, which included “450 Beholder Body Fuchsia” and “454 Beholder Eyestalk Violet.” Later editions of D&D have certainly used pinkish or purplish color schemes for their beholders, as seen on the cover of the 2nd edition Monstrous Compendium (1989).

This set contained, I believe, the very first “official” beholder miniature, sculpted by Andrew Chernak. Ray Rubin, cover of “Dwellers Below” boxed set (1980).

Nolzur beholder